Grommets/Eyelets?

I've been working on my Halloween costume (Buttercup from the Princess Bride) and I have the dress basically finished except for the embellishments and the grommets where it laces in the front and back.

The problem is I suck at this sort of thing. I need 1/4 inch, and all I'm finding in the first place is eyelets, not proper grommets. I have eyelet pliers and a hammer tool, and I've tried numerous times and it just never works right. The sticky-uppy part (technical term) of the eyelet never bends over correctly. Instead it's just bending forward. I watched some videos on how to do this to make sure I was doing it right, and I'm following the same steps, holding the tool the same way, etc.

I can try to get new eyelet pliers, but they cost $26, and that's an awful lot for a tool that by most accounts isn't particularly great. Is there a secret trick I'm missing?

I'd kind of rather find real grommets as opposed to eyelets, but I've looked two places now and they only have grommets in the larger sizes. I'd hate to have such a pretty dress and ruin it because I can't get this right.

I suspected that as well, though the hammer tool is the right size for certain because it came with them.

I just went to the hardware store and bought actual 3/4 grommets as opposed to eyelets (the hardware store is the only place I could find any. How crazy is that?). I just tried them out and man, talk about a billion times better. Even my pliers worked on them, but the problem there is that the pliers warped the front piece a bit, which is what I seem to recall being a problem ages ago as well. One of the videos I saw also complained of this.

I tried it with the hammer, and it worked much better. My hammer tool doesn't have the piece that pokes in the hole, and I have a feeling if it did it might work better, so I'm going to experiment a bit and see if I have something that might work as well, but even that works a billion times better with the actual grommets as compared to the eyelets. They actually stay in place, for one! The eyelets just fell right back off. I'm not sure what the difference is, but it really did make a difference. They're just not the color I want so I'm going to have to consider painting them or just dealing.

I like the sew it in with a metal ring idea. If I can't get them to work in general I might have to do that. I don't have a ton of time, so if I can avoid hand sewing as much as possible, I'd like to do that. The bodice is already going to require a ton of hand sewing for all the trim and embellishments.

I picked up a different brand of eyelets to try, and I got some metal paint so I can paint the gold grommets silver if I need to. The grommets definitely work better than the eyelets. I just wish I had a better tool to use with them. At the very least, they'll look better than the eyelets, I think.

I'll try putting them in today and see how it goes.

I'll post some. The dress looks really pretty so far. I'm hopeful.

Wee! Okay, after much comparison shopping (yay, wasting 15 bucks!), I found that the Sew-ology eyelets work really well. I still prefer grommets in general, but the ones I found weren't the right color and would require painting, so this is better. The other brands I tried were just horrible, but these work exactly as they're supposed to.