12 Must-Try Glitter Crafts and Easy Hacks To Clean It Up

Let’s gab about glitter — and the fact that you'll find it in every nook and cranny long after the DIYs are over. At HGTV, we’ve been making glittery, sparkly and glamorous crafts for decades. So we’ve rounded up the need-to-know glitter basics, a dozen of our favorite glitter DIYs and quick tricks for easy cleanup.

Glitter comes in several different forms, like sugar, glue, plastic, mica and glass. And the most common glitter types are available in fine, medium and coarse varieties. Fine craft glitter works best for anything with small details or indentations. Medium craft glitter is the most popular and common size; it’s big enough to really sparkle from a few feet away, but small enough to work on lots of different surfaces. And coarse craft glitter is super chunky, which makes it great for creating a really dramatic 3D effect.

Typical craft store glitter is made of plastic, so it shouldn’t be washed down the drain or used in beauty products. But, you can still be super sparkly and eco-friendly by using the original glitter: synthetic mica — a lab-made, sparkly mineral that we like to call ''nature’s glitter.''

At HGTV, we prefer synthetic mica for lots of DIYs, especially ones that involve soaps, bath bombs, makeup, lip balms and eyeshadow. Mica is safe to use for beauty products, safer to wash down the drain and available in lots of different colors.