I was recently glitterbombed from a "friend" playing a prank on me. It got all over my carpet, my desk, and my room. I have tried sweeping glitter to no avail, tried vacuming to no avail (because the damn glitter keeps sticking onto the carpet).
Is there a simple way to get rid of spilled glitter?
Try a lint roller -- one of those rolls of adhesive tape with a handle on it, where the tape's adhesive is on the outside. I use that for oddball cleanups on carpet sometimes.
You'll go through a lot of layers of the tape, and probably several lint rollers. But it probably works better than the air suction of a vacuum.
You can try to do several things. If you do all of this maybe the glitter will be removed:
If its a fitted carpet, hopefully short piled and not long, the only answer is a more powerful vacuum cleaner, as suggested already in Vladiz's answer. If its not fitted, then his suggestion of beating it thoroughly outdoors should get the majority of it out.
Not sure about 'pressure washer' - a dedicated carpet washer might work, but the ones made for home users often don't suck loose stuff (never mind dirt) up as well as a good vacuum cleaner, so you'd probably need a professional carpet cleaning company to do it.
I Agree with other posts use a powerful vacuum cleaner to get it out of the carpet. This to say a standard vacuum cleaner is not likely to do the job, so you may need alternates.
A shop vacuum would work well. They have high suction with a variety of attachments that well may work to get the glitter.
A carpet cleaning machine. Handheld or consumer models all offer a higher suction then a conventional vacuum cleaner and can be bought from about 40 USD for a handheld to several hundred USD for a stand up model. If just air does not pull the glitter out you can try the detergent and water, which gives you even more agitation and chemical to release the glitter from your carpet.
Rent a carpet cleaner. Available at many grocery stores, hardware stores and rental yards, check your local listings. Cheaper then buying and the machines are generally a little more powerful then buying.
And last resort is a professional carpet cleaner whom have very powerful equipment and can get the job done.
I see as I write that you accepted lint roller as the answer, if that works that is great.
In my country (Italy) there is a famous vacuum cleaner company which provides demonstrations of their really (really really) powerful vacuum cleaner.
All you have to do is call them and ask for a free demonstration in cleaning your carpet.
Usually they demonstrate the product on your mattress, and you don't really want to know what they can clean from it (judging from the quantity of dead cells on the mattress you should be vanished by now).
In your question you said that you can't vacuum because the glitter is sticking. One way to help get the glitter unstuck is to use rubbing alcohol with a towel on the glitter. This will get up some of the glitter and help loosen the bonds of the rest. Now it will be easier to vacuum. I would also recommend using the part of the vacuum that you hold with your hand because a smaller suction area is more powerful. You can also use masking tape. Wrap the masking tape around your hand so that the sticky side is facing out. Now you'll have to get down on the ground and use the tape to get up as much glitter as possible. This combination of vacuuming and tape can be very effective.
You could get it up by washing it in a washing machine. If it's a fitted carpet than use THE MOST POWERFUL VACCUM YOU CAN FIND!! Also you should be glad it wasn't on concrete floors. That's a MAJOR PAIN IN THE ASS!!!! P.S I know how you feel. It's super annoying to clean the damn glitter!!!!!
