All That Glitters...

One of the most critical components of the process: buying glitter! I have essentially three brands that I'm loyal to for Muse shoes: Martha Stewart glitter, Recollections (which I buy from Michael's) and Tulip Fashion Glitter (which I buy from Joann's). I also occasionally pick up the odd tube of glitter up elsewhere (Amazon, etsy, etc.) Generally, my rule of thumb is that I don't like to spend more than $2 per ounce.

A word (or two) about buying from Michael's: you can get coupons for Michael's online (http://weeklyad.michaels.com/), and sometimes you'll get an additional coupon with your receipt to lure you back in. I usually go in with my coupon on my smart phone. The most common coupon I use is a 40% off coupon, so I've included that in the pricing chart. At Michael's the sale prices are marked with red and yellow stickers, so you can spot 'em at a distance. It's reasonable common for things to get mixed up and moved to the wrong spot so make sure you check the SKU number on your bottle matches the SKU number of the sale sticker to save yourself some hassle (also, sometimes you may think an on sale color is cleaned out, but if you hunt a bit there may still be a bottle left that's been missed because it's misfiled).

A word about buying from Joann's: you can download the Joann's app onto a smart phone (http://www.joann.com/mobile/) and get updated coupons and/or sign up to be on the mailing list and get hard copy coupons in the mail. Again, 40% off is the more common coupon, so that's factored into my chart. Occasionally things are available online that aren't in the store and vice-versa, so it's worth it to check out both (free shipping coupons are usually available on the app, so it makes sense to check if glitter is on sale online, but not in the store).

Martha Stewart Crafts Fine Glitter:

The most fancy-pants of the glitters I use, Martha Stewart (MS) glitter comes in multi-packs (which are sets of a selection of the smaller 0.37 oz tubes) and larger tubes. The multi-packs are great, but you have to account for the fact that 0.37 oz really isn't much glitter: you could maybe cover one shoe, if you were super careful. So it's worthwhile to get a couple of the same type of multi-pack so you can pool the little tubes or plan to only use those for accents here and there. Another option is to mix a few colors together, which gives you a nice multifaceted color and a bigger volume to work with. The tubes in the multi-packs get cheaper per tube with increasing number of tubes per pack (as you'd expect). The multi-packs tend to be a little cheaper on Amazon.com, while the 1.5 oz bottles are vastly (i.e., at least two-fold) more expensive on Amazon.com compared with Michael's.

At my local Michael’s, the 1.5 ounce bottles of Martha Stewart glitter are $4.99 (or sometimes $5.99) per bottle. They sometime go on sale for $1.49 (though I'm not sure if that’s a standard sale price or not). On sale, this is the cheapest per ounce of all the glitters I use ($1/oz), but it's such a good deal they tend to be seriously picked over (see below).

Martha Stewart glitter at Michael's, pretty much wiped out. Yellow and red stickers indicate sale items.

Recollections:

Recollections is available at Michael's, and comes in rectangular tubes (Product info here). Recollections is one of the more cost efficient options: 1.5 oz bottles of Recollections at Michael’s are usually about $3.99, making it the cheaper by the ounce than either MS or Tulip. On sale I've gotten Recollections for $1.99 per bottle, and of course a 40% coupon brings the price down. Recollections gets bonus points in my book for having a color called “Muse” (a deep, rich shade of purple). A few colors (silver, teal, black) come in even bigger sized containers, which would be a terrific use of a coupon.

UPDATE: The larger size of Recollections is 5 ounces and is $8.99 ($1.80 per ounce). If you use a 40% coupon (as was the case with the gorgeous container of "Peacock" below) it's $5.39 or only $1.08 per ounce.

Tulip Fashion Glitter:

Tulip is carried by Joann's (or sometimes www.joanns.com) and sells in 1 ounce tubes (Product info here). At Joann’s or Joanns.com, 1 oz tubes sell for $3.49, sale price is typically ~ $2.50 (I’ve gotten them online for $2.44). A 40% coupon brings it down to $2.09 or thereabouts. Tulip looks really great on a shoe, the colors are really rich and bright. You can also buy from ilovetocreate.com, which has a bigger selection of colors than most Joann's. (Update: it looks like Hobby Lobby carries a broad selection of Tulip colors cheaper than Joann's or the ilovetocreate.com website)

The Glitter Source:

The Glitter Source is an etsy shop (etsy shop page here, main webpage here). They sell bags that are 0.5 oz or 1 oz for $4 per bag. They have sales from time to time (so far, predominantly of the "buy some amount of glitter, get some amount of bonus glitter free" variety). If you're interested in that source, I'd recommend liking them on Facebook to be up to speed on their sales. It's a little pricier than the other options here, but I'm personally considering splurging on a little of this shade of purple, purely because looking at the pictures it appears to be a spot on match for K&B purple.

Another option I've had a look at is Stampendous Ultrafine ($3.49 for a 7.0 gram or ~ 0.25 oz). This is more for embossing, so it's not as sparkly, and pricier. I wouldn't recommend it for Muses shoes unless you found it crazy on sale (like 90% off or something) and/or in a color you're wild about.

Pricing summary:

Brand	Carrier(s)	Bottle size (oz)	Price (unit)	Price per oz
Martha Stewart	Michael’s	1.5	$4.99	$3.33
	Michael’s – on sale	1.5	$1.49	$1.00
	Michael’s – w/40% coupon	1.5	$2.99	$2.00
Martha Stewart multi-packs	Various, prices from Amazon.com	24 pack, 0.37 oz bottles (8.88 oz)	$18.99	$2.13
		12 pack, 0.37 oz bottles (4.44 oz)	$15.02	$3.38
		3 pack, 0.37 oz bottles (1.11 oz)	$6.57	$5.92
Recollections	Michael’s	1.5	$3.99	$2.66
	Michael’s – on sale	1.5	$1.99	$1.33
	Michael’s – w/40% coupon	1.5	$2.39	$1.60
The Glitter Source	Etsy	0.5-1	$4.00	$4.00-$8.00
Tulip Glitter	Joann’s	1	$3.49	$3.49
	Joann’s – on sale	1	$2.44	$2.44
	Joann’s – w/40% coupon	1	$2.09	$2.09
Stampendous	Joann’s	0.25	$3.49	$13.96

*Also Joann's and Amazon.com and probably others, but I think Michael’s is the best option for sourcing this; Amazon has these for about twice the price and I haven't seen the 1.5 oz bottles at Joann's

The glaring omission here is, of course, the incomparable Jefferson Variety. I will update on that soon as I am able, but for now here are some links for now:
Jefferson Variety on Yelp
Sequin Goldmine
Great article at Nola.com
New Orleans Magazine Try This!