Sassy Feet! blog

March of the Fan Shoes

Whenever Margot and I get emails asking advice or expressing interest in our craft, we always conclude our correspondence with, "Please send us before and after shots. We LOVE getting emails with photos of your creations!" When we say this, we aren't paying lip service. We really, really mean it. We love to see and SHARE your artistic visions -- like the ones below.

1. Lindsey - She found these designer shoes at a consignment shop, perfect fit and shape but she hated the color. A simple makeover using Metallic Pewter transformed them from a strange green-brown into a shimmering darker gray.

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2. Kristi M. - She wrote us a very thorough email explaining her amazing creations, which I will paraphrase here:

I just wanted to share with you a couple pairs of shoes I did using the Lumiere paints.  I was inspired by some wedges that Alisa Burke painted as well as her artwork. I painted for myself some shoes that started out as inexpensive striped espadrilles from Old Navy.  I sketched in my design with pencil and filled it in with the Lumiere paints. I went back and did the dark outlines with Pitt pens. I never did get around to doing a clear coat over everything, but it turned out not to matter.

The paint actually outlasted the life of the shoes with no wear at all after a year and a half!  I stepped in water a couple times wearing them and it seeped up through the jute soles, ruining the insole and making them too uncomfortable to wear anymore. :( I would love to get my hands on some Tom's peep toed wedge shoes to paint next.

The sneakers I painted for my niece. I did them so from one side it looked like the were all floral and from the other side, all swirly polka dots.  She had seen some that my now 10-year-old daughter and I painted together (they are too filthy to share at this point) and wanted some for herself. They are so fun to do!

Thanks for all of the great inspiration you provide on a regular basis!  I really love the pink tennies you blogged about recently and would love to do a pair for myself! (maybe in turquoise, though) :).

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3. Kari - Her email to us was concise enough to serve as the description here as well:
Before (gold) and after (dark silver)! I can't wait till I get black shoelaces so I can wear them. Thanks so much for your help.

I used Metallic Pewter with Neopaque Black added to get the dark silver shade I wanted. Then I used the stamp-pad ink you recommended (StazOn or Adirondack alcohol ink) on the sole. I also used straight Neopaque Black diluted with some water on the inside fabric part that would show while wearing them.

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4. Lynda - Above are Lynda's CLOSETFUL of upcycled beauties. She discovered our book and realized there was a DIY fashionable solution to having to wear orthopedic shoes. She wrote, Here are SOME of the makeovers I have done since I discovered your great book. I have had extensive foot surgery, and have many UGLY but expensive shoes I have been transforming, thanks to you.  Surely you recognize your techniques.

Thanks for showing me how to update these expensive monsters. I actually get compliments on...my shoes!  Thanks to you! I do not want to mislead you, however.  Not all of them are orthotic, but they are all high quality, supportive, and usually ugly.  The best example is the red one with the uncoiled zipper down the front.

Nicely transformed, Lynda.

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5. Lynne S - Margot recently attended a meeting of wearable art group, PenWAG. There she ran into Lynne S. who was wearing a pair of her customized shoes. So, Margot snapped a couple pics with her phone. From the pictures, I'm guessing Lynne used a cosmetic sponge and dabbed on light layers of Metallic Bronze and Metallic Rust.

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6. Sandy D. - These fun, funky wedges were created for her niece's wedding. She wanted something that represented the sand and the sea. Sandy used lots of colors and really went for it. She wrote, As you know, when I paint, each shoe screams a story at me, so the footbed, which represents the ocean, is Halo Blue Gold, the wedge, which represents the beach, is Halo Pink Gold, the glitter, which represents the sand, is Honey Spice.  The small space between the "ocean and beach" that is like foliage is Citrine.

I believe the fish are Metallic Gold, along with Pearl Magenta and Burgundy.I wanted something fun, something that screams Hawaii, beach, ocean.  The reason I went with that color for the ocean was because my niece mentioned something about "greenish" and "guava,"and I thought the Halo Blue and Pink Gold represented these two colors very well.

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Seeing emails loaded with pictures is one of my favorite things about being a part of Sassy Feet. I know I have said this many times before, but I really mean it. It is inspiring and infectious and it makes me want to get creating! So keep sending them in! 

A Roundup of Shoe Inspiration from Robin

A few times a week, I get emails from my friend Robin with all kinds of cool, trendy shoes. I usually file the ones I think are the coolest and most easily recreated. She often thinks she is bombarding me, but I always say "Bring 'em on" and even share my very favorites with Margot as designs I think we should attempt. I want to share with you a few and give you my tips on how to shoe-it-yourself.

Let's start with something simple. Take this pair of "Myth" strappy suede sandals by Jimmy Choo, only $895.  All you would need is a pair of black strappy sandals, a medium square tipped brush, and a pop color like Citrine or Bright Gold.

Just mask off the criss-crossing straps you don't want any paint to get on and follow two straps up the shoe, painting as you go. After two, or three, coats, you'll have your own graphic design.

Next up is another fairly easy pair of
shoes to mimic. If you have red pumps, all you need do is tie a big floppy bow with dual-colored satin ribbon and stitch it onto the back of your heels with a leather needle and some Fireline Thread in Smoke color.

When we advise people to stitch on embellishments, we always recommend leaving the knot on the outside of the shoe, hiding it within the embellishment. This will prevent the knot from rubbing against your feet. Also, if you have trouble finding ribbon that is a reversible red/black like this one, you can use two separate colors of ribbon tied into one bow.

Chain makes a marvelous embellishment. It's usually inexpensive and comes in a lot of colors and shapes.

To do something similar to these black pumps, all you need is Fireline, a leather needle, a couple lengths of chain, scrap leather to make tabs, a few jump rings and an embellishment of your choosing. An embellishment with a place to attach the chain would work best.

Cut two strips of leather, 1/4" wide and 3/4" long, to make the tabs. Fold the tabs in half around the last link of chain and stitch them to the throat of the shoe, on the inner ankle side. Attach a jump ring to the other end of the chain and to the embellishment. Then stitch the embellishment to the shoe.

These next shoes are a little trickier in that they require the ability to paint with a semi steady hand. If I were doing these, I would probably lightly sketch my design onto the wooden platform with pencil, then use Neopaque Black, applied with a toothpick.

I'm a huge fan of the toothpick painting method. This is dipping the tip of the toothpick into the paint and stippling the paint onto the shoe, in a motion like the needle in a sewing machine. If you have the hand control of a pin striper, a fine line script brush will also work very well.

Lastly, a fun pair of thick-soled beach flip flops. I bet just about any message can be carved on the bottoms, in reverse, with an Xacto knife. Hmm.... I wonder if these work?!

Sticky Situation, Vol. 3

I'm back with one more duct tape update (See Vols. 1 & 2 to catch up). I used shiny chrome duct tape on my shoes, and it hasn't budged since the little re-do I mentioned. I also mentioned that I'd gotten a roll of houndstooth duct tape, but was afraid to use it on my shoes. Well, I faced my fear and let the sticky strips fly -- onto a handbag.

In this bag, each "V" line is a compartment flap that fastens with a snap. That made this project extremely easy to do. I started on the outside edges, laying a strip of houndstooth tape at each end. I used a razor blade to delicately trim the torn edges of the tape where it met the back.

Next, I laid black duct tape strips next to the houndstooth. Then I did another swathe of houndstooth. Then down the center I laid a contrasting strip of chrome, slightly overlapping the adjacent houndstooth strips and making them look narrower.

I didn't worry about neatness under the flap, but that is an easy thing to "finish" if you so desire. Lastly I ran a two strips of Chrome along the edge of the second flap. This peeks out when the flaps are closed and adds a little extra pop.

I'm exceedingly pleased with the results of test 3. Purses seem to make MUCH better Duct Tape Candidates. If you dare to try this technique, please don't hesitate to send us your creations and a few sentences about them. I'd love to write a blog on what you come up with!

By the way, this hardly took any time at all!

 

Sticky Situation, Vol. 2

On April 10, I shared the first volume of my experimentation with that familiar silver roll we all know and love, Duct tape. I gave a black pair of Mary Janes an upgrade by using the shoe's existing stitching to "color block" them with very shiny, very sticky silver tape.

Duct Tape has quite the sticky reputation. The Star Wars-themed joke goes, "Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together." But Margot was as skeptical as I was excited about how permanent it would be on shoes. She worried that the tape on the toes would peel up fairly quickly, and I was instructed to test AND WEAR them, thoroughly.

These have been my shoes of choice for three weeks now and have done very well. None of the duct tape on the throat of the shoe (the part you slide your foot into) has lifted. Socks and bare feet have been rubbing it for three weeks. But alas, Margot's fear finally came true. I got a "run" on the toe of the right shoe, where tape meets sole.  When I originally taped them, I did so by running the duct tape down the length of the shoe, which left a seam that ran straight down the middle of each toe. It seemed the neatest way to do things at the time.

But, now I know better! Doing it this way leaves the jaggedy end (where I tore the tape from the roll) to take all the hard hits where the rubber meets the road, as it were. So, I thought, what if I pulled up the tape and laid a new piece ACROSS the toe instead? Would changing the "grain" of the duct tape improve its resilience?

Well, I did it, and now I'm going to don my duct tape Janes and wear them until they rip again. If it takes longer than three weeks, I'm going to call this a success. I can see that applying the tape directly to parts of the shoe that take impact will ALWAYS cause problems, though.

I don't think I'd recommend duct-taping over painting when you want a permanent change. But, it's a very quick, fun and VERY SHINY SILVER facelift if you're OK with re-applying it. Or, maybe on a purse, which takes a lot less abuse... Hmmm, could that be a Vol. 3 of this topic?

I did discover that duct tape makes really cute embellishments, however! Check out these adorable bows I made. If you want to know how, just comment and I'll do another post about it.

Pin, Re-Pin, and Pin Again

Ever since designers have been designing, they have been using pin and inspiration boards to get their creative juices flowing. They scrounge, cut, and clip all kinds of images that they think will provide ideas for their own style, innovation and design. In the 21st Century, with the entire globe of visuals at your beck-and-click, you can draw inspiration from any culture, any time of the day.

But where do you put it all? How do you keep it organized? Maybe you bookmarked all those images. Or saved them onto your computer ... until the next computer crash. Links get lost, hours wasted trying to keep it all straight. Then, in March 2010, the problem was fixed with the introduction of Pinterest, an online bulletin board where you can pin up pictures of... whatever you want!

Now you can access your inspiration anywhere, anytime. Arrange, then rearrange. Easily keep everything nice and tidy. And other people can visit your board to see if they want to re-pin anything to their own boards.

Margot and I have a lot of fun pinning to the Sassy Feet! boards. We've also been getting a lot of re-pins. We thought it would be fun to share with you which of our shoes are most popular in terms of getting re-pinned by others. 

First up: Margot's Cowboy boots. They were most recently featured on her Spring Colors blog where she explains how she did it (and much, much more).

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Next: We have Lauren's Wedding Boots. We included them in a recent blog featuring shoes from our fans. Pinners love them too!

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Third: I created these for Costume College last year as an example of steampunk boots. I called them Post-Apocalyptic Airship Captain. I'm really in love them, and am glad they are as popular as they are. I posted them to my deviantArt page and they had over 100 faves in less than 24 hours, too!

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It's not all eye candy. This one is practical. Margot recently blogged about tricks of the trade and included a how-to on applying a fine line of thick gooey glue like E6000. Hint: It involves an inexpensive syringe.

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Last, but not least: Our book! It includes everything we know, plus lifetime help emails. We're very proud of all the research and hours of (not so much) blood, (a little bit more) sweat, and (again, hours and hours) of time that went into it. I'm very glad Pinterest pinners agree!

If you haven't peeked at our Pinterest boards, go take a look! You might even want to start one yourself!

Sticky Situation, Vol. 1

There are all these new, out-of-the-box, unexpected DIY avenues surfacing these days. Duct tape is out there in front, sweeping the nation, which sparked Duck brand duct tape to make patterned tapes for craft use. We aren't talking your normal gaffer's 100 mph tape your dad used to keep the universe together. It's colorful and crazy, and being made into bookmarks, bags, and even prom dresses. It's so formidable as a craft supply, Project Runway had a duct tape prom dress episode this season.

I started to wonder how it would hold up on shoes. So I got a few different rolls (silver, black, and houndstooth) (as well a couple new pairs of shoes....) to try it out in the coming weeks.  


First, a simple design for a pair of black Mary Janes.As much as I WANTED to go for houndstooth straight away, I decided not to contend with matching a pattern on my maiden voyage. Instead I grabbed the silver roll and started tearing off strips, laying them vertically down the shoe. I used a razor blade to cut the tape along the lines of the leather neatly, and scissors to trim off extras. To tell the truth, I did prep the areas with alcohol first.

The trickiest part was pressing the tape down over the toe smoothly. The first shoe seemed to go worse than the second, and you sort of need to cut slits in the tape so you can press it down in overlapping sections. But, since my new duct tape shoes are waaaaaay down at my feet, anyone close enough to notice these flaws most likely has other problems to contend with.

I've been wearing them two full days now. The pictures don't come close to doing them justice. Not a piece of tape has curled or pulled up. Even the stuff folded over the throat of the shoe, though it has faded where my foot rubs inside. So far, I'm pleased! I would like to do further tests with this. Maybe some duct tape bows or a handbag. I'm sort of stuck on it.

Easter Makes Me Think of ... COLOR!

I'm not much on Easter and I'm not so much on eggs, but I am absolutely in love with COLOR! I think surrounding ourselves with our favorite rich (and in my case saturated) colors is one of the keys to happiness. This blog is dedicated to COLOR and may the images below inspire you to new intensities and new heights in your color creativity! (By the way, if you click on the egg photo above, it will take you to a recipe for dyeing Easter eggs in vibrant colors, thanks to a blog called All Things Mama.)

 

Occasionally it's a good thing when artists don't clean their brushes right away....

Bins of color dye in India, from be-nomadic on Tumblr

Artist Nancy McCarroll's watercolor worksheet

David Chidgey's art glass mosaic

Kaffe Fassett fabrics and quilts

Our Sassy Feet palette of Lumiere paints

"Devidas" by Christian Louboutin

  

Neal's Yard, London

Tiled steps at 16th Avenue and Moraga in San Francisco

 

Sergio Rossi sandals

Happy attendee at an Indian festival, shot by a Flickr user called danishdynamite

When you are surfing the web and come across pictures whose COLORS light you up, email them to me (along with the URL/link where you found them) and I'll use them in my next all-color-all-the-time post!   

Steppin' with Gentlemen

Women love shoes. It's a cliche because it's so common. From Marie Antoinette to Imelda Marcos to Stacy London, women and their shoe collections have inhabited almost any available walk-in closet space for ages.

What about the gentlemen? Aren't they worthy of opulence and excitement from the ankle down? Fabulous over-the-top men's designs just don't get the same press! Well, that's going to change TODAY! Great men's kicks exist, factory and DIY.

First today, Margot's friend Judi sent us a couple shots of these incredible shoes she spied through an Australian store window. (Sorry, we don't remember which. If you know, please tell us!) They sure know how to do footwear down under!

Next we have a great example of gorgeous men's shoes from an fearlessly intrepid DIY genius, Ron (aka Ronnie), whose work we last published on this blog in November.  Ron asked for a little how-to assistance about his creations. He was recreating a pair of oxfords for himself and was having a little trouble getting the paint to stay put in the creases when he walked.

Margot advised him on what could be causing this issue, like forgetting to prep before painting, painting very old, dry leather, painting very VERY soft kid-glove-type leather (which doesnt take paint well), or not allowing the paint to cure three days before wearing the shoes. (BTW- Prepping is MOST important. Do not skip this step!)

After this quick S.O.S. email with Margot, Ron finished the shoes and sent us fabulous photos of his shoes. They are slick! I think they belong in that display window in Australia, myself.

As to how he made them, Ron told us:

My goal was to make a streaked color scheme that looks like Arizona's Painted Desert.  I've attached some pictures; you can let me know what you think. I have had a lot of very long conference calls to do lately, so I had the time to paint (and put studs in) an old pair of oxfords I haven't worn in a while. 

      

I did all the studs myself, just going with every other hole in the configuration of the original shoe. The shoe originally looked like this. I'd say it was about 8 to 10 hours of work overall, where more than half of that was piercing the leather and fixing the studs.  Probably took somewhere around three hours to do the paint (can't really say, I broke it up into a bunch of small intervals).

This is really one of the best shoe transformations, Margot and I have seen! And the color certainly does look like the Painted Desert. We showered Ron with praise and kind words. He responded, "Thanks for the kind words.  I think they turned out really well, too – almost to the degree of 'Wait a minute, did I really just do that?" "

YES! You did! And yes, you can. All of you! Just let your imagination run wild and keep working on your shoes (or bag) until it goes right over the top from clever to fabulous!

Change Embellishments, Change the Look

I bought this pair of beautiful Steve Madden suede slingbacks a couple of years ago when I was still fooling myself that I still could walk in high heels.... Turns out, Destiny is the only high-heel diva at Sassy Feet! So I have several pairs of beautiful, unworn high heels that I have decided to put on ebay.

Fine, make a little extra money, always welcome. But I kept putting it off. There was really nothing interesting about doing this. More procrastinating. Then I realized I could embellish the shoes before I put them up for sale! Suddenly all my creativity came alive and I was really excited about the project!

I pulled all sorts of embellishments out of our Sassy Feet stash and tried them on for size, as it were. Today I want to show you the various choices I came up with, then show you the one I ended up choosing.

First I tried two different colors of an embellishment I purchased years ago at a FABULOUS embellishment shop in London. It's made of nice heavyweight rayon twisted cord. My assessment? Attractive, but nothing special. I kept looking.

Then I found some more interesting items. From left, an oversize brass mesh rose painted blue, a section of gray folded and rolled fabric trim that looked like flowers, and an embroidered and beaded piece of embellishment with an organza backing. The last one would have needed some stiffening to make the section extending beyond the vamp stand up and not get in the way of putting one's foot in the shoe. Hmm. More looking. 

The last contestant was an embellishment that Destiny created, which (shhh!) is listed on etsy as a pretty cool pendant. As I looked at it though, from a number of angles, I decided it looked a lot better from straight above than it did from the side. So, who was the winner??

It was the soft gray rose, which perfectly echoed the ultrasoftness of the suede. I glued these in place using Fabri-Tac, our glue of choice for attaching fabric to suede (unless we're going to stitch it down).

And here they are on ebay, size 9.5 if you're interested. They got two bids the first day they were up!

Here's a quick rundown of the other Steve Madden shoes I put on ebay, with their links (just click on the photo). I'll tell you next week how I created the little rose of metal chain on the brown suede platform sandals. It was a triumph of risk-taking and ingenuity, if do say so myself!

This last pair with the zippered ruffle across the instep appeared in Altered Couture magazine. To read the article on our website, click here.

By the way, it WAS a bunch of work to take photos, edit them, and list the shoes on ebay, but it was worth it for the fun of embellishing and seeing them online! 

Coach, Krink, and Sassy Feet

As Margot and I flip through the top fashion magazines like Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, and W, we always see amazing (and sometimes completely unrealistic) designs from the industry crème-de-la-crème -- with price tags to match. Those prices can range from $200 to $2000 and beyond. One day, while we sat and drooled, it came to us... We could do something like that!

Here's an example. Handbag maker Coach recently collaborated with Brooklyn-based graffiti artist Craig Costello, who's signature style is... well, you can see it in this photo. He markets a line of graffiti art supplies (I am not making this up) under the name Krink.  

Since I have an affinity for street and graffiti art, Margot didn't hesitate to email me when she read about the new Krink for Coach limited edition line of leather goods.

I saw the pics of the drip-spatter-and-smear style bags and knew I had to make a designer doppelganger. Remember my Goodwill purse from last month, the one with the bonus wallet I found inside?

I grabbed the wallet and collected the following supplies: A sea wool sponge, Lumiere paint in Metallic Russet and Metallic Bronze, and the small round brush from our multi-pack of brushes.

I started by using the sea wool sponge to dapple the background in Metallic Russet. This was to mimic the very light splatters in the Krink design. Then I added in a few dabs of Metallic Bronze just because.

When you are using a sponge of any kind, make sure you have a place to tamp and test how thick the paint is. If you have a pointy sponge like the sea wool, and it's too loaded with paint, you'll end up with blobs instead of little pointy dots.

After that sponged layer dried, I used the round brush and Metallic Bronze to start painting drips down the wallet. Drips are fairly easy to create. They are just rounded, uneven, sort of vertical lines. I added some thinner lines and spots to vary the design and give it more dimension.

Granted, my doppelganger wallet isn't an EXACT replica of the Krink-for-Coach line, but it certainly has the same feel.

As I hope you'll discover, doing design-alikes is really fun. Margot and I are planning on showing more of them here, so if you see any shoes on the web that you think would make good subjects, send us the link! 

Love and Haight

One of my buddies from the Peninsula Wearable Art Guild recently found these amazing late Sixties platform sandals on Haight Street in San Franciso (where else??). She brought them to a recent meeting and challenged me to turn them into Carmen Miranda shoes. "You know, lots fruit and maybe some palm trees," she said. Sounded like fun to me!

I started by looking online for fake fruit. Big waste of time! It was either life-size (too big) or charm size (way too small). So I grabbed the shoes and went to Michael's arts and crafts store. I had some of the same challenges there, but came away with some nice clusters of grapes, a couple of stems of overpriced (even with my discount coupon) flowers, and a few spare things like lime slices and cherry clusters. I also found some papier mache shapes that I could paint to look like lemons. 

Then I got to work with my E6000 glue and my little clamps. (Since these shoes were for art purposes only, not to be worn, I could glue everything on, not carefully stitch on the fruit that would go on the toe and ankle straps.) There were some challenges in clamping the fruit in place until the glue dried, however. Some areas of the shoe were just too big to take a clamp.

I came up with two solutions for that. One was to use rubber bands around the platform to hold the grapes fast. The other was to create a sort of sling out of a scrap of fabric. I wrapped the scrap around the fruit on the toe of the sandal, then clamped the fabric together. Like a tighter version of the sling the stork uses to deliver babies.... 

I worked my way mostly around one shoe with these embellishments before realizing I ought to deal with the palm tree before making the shoe any bulkier! I hadn't found any decent palm fronds to glue on, but I had dug up a palm-tree shaped mask (the opposite of a stencil) in my stash and used that to guide my unskilled hand to draw the palm tree.

I taped the mask in place with masking tape and outlined it with a gold pen. Then I used Lumiere's Pearlescent Emerald to fill in the shape of the fronds, and Old Brass to fill in the trunk.
A few more fruit and flowers later, I had the whole thing lavishly covered with appropriately Carmen-Miranda-style vegetation.

One of the completed sandals, as seen from the left and right sides

I gave them to my buddy yesterday -- with great fanfare, of course! Just the way Carmen would have done it. 

Paint, Stamp, Step

Margot and I recently attended the Craft and Hobby Association (CHA) Trade Show, which was a wonderful learning and networking experience for us. We took lots of classes and discovered some new products to use on shoes, which we'll be telling you about in the weeks to come. After sitting down to organize our new knowledge then arranging our notes and priorities, we took a creativity break to recharge.

Margot worked on a pair of little girl shoes she'll be posting about on Sunday, and I wanted to embellish a pair of recently acquired, so-so nautical-esque canvas slip ons that practically screamed for treatment. I had seen paint pens used successfully on shoes at CHA, so I figured why not give it a try?

I dug through Margot's art supply stash and found a fluorescent pink Sharpies poster paint pen. (Note that this is the PAINT pen, not the permanent marker.) I shook it up and just started drawing bright pink Curly Qs all over the top of the toe. The stitching and construction of this style shoe made for good color blocking. After finishing off the design with a mehndi-inspired flower, I ran the paint pen over the white stitching, too.

I liked it. But the bright white rubber sole just stared up at me, glowing obnoxiously. I asked Margot if there was anything she had that I could try on the rubber to tint it. She handed me a fuchsia pink pad of StazOn alcohol ink and a cotton ball. I dabbed the pink onto the defiantly white sole, and BAM, I had it!

The nice thing about applying the ink was that since the canvas of the shoe was black, any mistakes I made in dabbing on the fuchsia ink didn't show. I could rub with wreckless abandon and get near perfect results.

Just an extra note: I didn't have time to finish both shoes but I did wear them as they were, half finished (in public, too), the remainder of the day and everything seemed to stay put. I plan to finish the other this week, wear them nonstop and report back on longevity. We've stained rubber soles before with StazOn (Margot has an article on this in the upcoming issue of Altered Couture) and it works well, but Sharpies poster paint is new to us. Adventure!

Good Deal, Goodwill

I started this blog all ready to blame the holidays for my absence from posting, but when I digitally leafed through past posts, I was startled to see that July 31, 2012 was my last blog. That was when we were gearing up for Costume College. SHAMEFUL! How could I be away for so long?

Luckily, a recent trip to Goodwill has sprung me purse first into creative mode and I finally have a new project to blog about!

As I was spending Sunday thrift-storing a few weekends ago, I found myself in a Goodwill. There I came across a brown manmade leather handbag that was brand-spanking-new, had some interesting features, and many pockets. There wasn't even dust inside. I immediately snapped it up and headed to the register to shell out my $4.95. Later when I met up with Margot and was prepping the bag, I discovered it had a back pocket and a matching wallet, too.

I grabbed our collection of Lumiere paint chips and started thinking about colors. I didn't really want to paint the entire bag, so I looked at colors in the Lumiere palette that would complement the dark brown. I settled on four: Metallic Rust, Halo Pink Gold, and a custom mix of Old Brass & Neopaque Black.

I also noticed that Margot had spread out several zippers (both plain and hand-painted) on the craft table. I snapped up a plain black, plain brown, and a black one sponged with Halo Pink Gold to create an embellishment.

I had to snip off the bulky brand tag off the front pouch (actually, Margot did it for me, being a whiz with little sewing scissors). My plan was to cover that area with an embellishment to hide the needle holes.

I started painting by mixing Old Brass with a few drops of Neopaque Black and painted the pouch flap. After that dried, I used Halo Pink Gold (2 coats) on the body of the pouch.

One coat of Metallic Rust went onto the narrower pouch and the two tabs securing the handle to the bag. Lastly, I brushed one coat of Halo Pink Gold onto the base of the side strap details.  I didn't apply multiple, solid coats because I wanted the paint to mimic the mottled finish of the original faux leather.

Next, I had to create the embellishment to hide where the brand tag had been cut off. I measured and marked all three lengths of zipper tape for the width of the flap, and drew a line of Fray-Check where I planned to cut them. Once the Fray-Check dried, I snipped each zipper, being cautious of the metal teeth with scissors.

First I assembled the embellishment by gluing all the zippers together, then gluing the combo to the bag.  Here's the step by step: I put the black zipper onto the table, then ran a line of Fabri-Tac glue across the top edge, lined up the brown zipper so it was slightly offset, and pressed it down on top of the black one. I left about 1/8 of the black tape showing. I glued the brown zipper the same way and pressed Margot's sponged zipper on top of that . When the glue was dry, I applied a liberal amount of The Ultimate glue (we prefer this brand for gluing fabric to manmade or painted leather) all over the back and clamped it to the pouch flap.

After the embellishment dried (overnight), that was it! I had a brand new handbag. It's my "daily driver" so-to-speak and I couldn't be more happy.  I guess the little wallet will be part 2 of this love story some day soon... Hmmmm.

Triple Zipper Clutch

Zipper patented in 1896 as a closure on boots

I don''t know exactly why, but I'm fascinated by big zippers with metal teeth. Maybe it was growing up in the days right before plastic zippers. Maybe it's the combination of soft fabric and hard metal. Maybe it's their utterly simple and effective design.

The result, though, has been that I've used zippers as trim on shoes, as embellishments, and as the subject of a how-to tutorial. Lately I've taken to painting and/or glittering zippers and using them on shoes and bags. Here's my first completed project like that.

This particular brainstorm started when I went on ebay to find old metal zippers. I ended up with a bunch of 7" and 22" vintage zippers with large teeth and big metal rings as zipper pulls.

Then I decided to see what would happen if I dabbed some of our Glitter It! Glaze onto the zipper tape. 

I chose colors of Glitter It! that were similar to the color of the zipper tape so I wouldn't have to paint the tape first. The results were great! (From left, the colors are Crushed Crystal, Dusty Lavender, Watermelon -- to be added to our store in January -- and Starlet.) Now all I needed was something to put them on.

I dug around in our stash of second-hand bags and shoes, and came up with this simple clutch. I played around with where to place the zippers and which of the Lumiere colors would work best together if I did some color blocking.

I chose Grape for the top panel, left the middle panel its original black, and painted the bottom part in Halo Pink Gold. (Of course, Grape and Halo Pink Gold are the colors that photograph the worst. The Grape is actually much less blue and the Halo Pink Gold is more orange. Oh well.) I also painted the back of the bag in solid Grape.

I had already played around with placing the zippers, and decided to open each of them a little to show some of the black area beneath. I wanted to make the middle zipper open farthest, which is why I painted that little black triangle in the center of the Halo Pink Gold area, as you saw in the color-blocking photo.

Once I had the placement right, I marked it with tailor's chalk, then cut the zippers' top edges and glued them down with the Ultimate, which is what I prefer for gluing fabric to painted leather. I didn't need to worry about the cut edges ravelling because the Glitter It! Glaze I'd applied acted like glue in keeping the zipper tape from fraying.

I did the same thing at the bottom, though I needed really strong shears (I used Fiskars Ultimate Titanium Craft Scissors) for cutting through the teeth. (Before cutting, I applied E6000 glue to the teeth all around the point where I would cut so the zipper wouldn't accidentally open while I was working on it. That has happened before and it's a b**** to get it back together!)

Then I sat back and admired my work! Sad thing is, I don't carry clutches! I keep putting them down and leaving them behind. But I still love my new Triple Zipper bag. I think of it as my Christmas present to myself, and gifts don't have to be practical! 

Steppin' Out With Mona (and her Gal Pal)

In the six years I've been doing shoes, one of the consistent complaints I hear is from people who try to glue comic strips, gift wrap, printouts or other paper images to their shoes. Fact is, it just doesn't work. Paper is neither sturdy nor flexible, and gluing it down with sturdy and flexible glue doesn't magically make it so. After just one wearing, the paper starts to crack and flake off. 

In the past I've recommended scanning the image onto your computer and printing it out on inkjet fabric, then gluing the fabric to your shoes. That works, but the fabric images are never quite as vibrant as the originals.

Then I heard about a new product -- a film -- that you can print on, then paste onto shoes. It's called KODAK shoe art film.  It won the award for best new product at last January's Craft and Hobby Show, so I figured I ought to give it a try.

It costs $19.99 for six sheets of 8.5 x 11" film, and from the online videos for it, it seems to be marketed toward kids and teens who want to pimp their Nikes, as it were. Still, the description said it would work on leather, so I ordered a package. 

While I was waiting for it to arrive, I went online to find cartoons to use... and discovered I wasn't really a cartoons-on-my-shoes type of person. So I ended up looking at famous old paintings, which had the additional advantage of no longer being under copyright.

I chose the Mona Lisa, whom I once had the privilege of spending time almost one-on-one time with during an early May morning at the Louvre.(Usually you have to wait in a long line then peer over other people's heads to catch a glimpse, but we just walked down the long corridor, saw one man standing in front of her, and joined him. He left and we had several minutes alone with her. Fabulous!)

Then I went to find a shoe that would look cool with little Mona Lisas all over it. Here's what I chose.

The lines on the shoe suggested that I choose a second painting for the back section, so I picked Girl With a Pearl Earring by Vermeer. 

When the shoe film came, I read the directions and discovered a couple of things. First it came with the glue you are supposed to use -- but it was just an Elmer's Extra Strength Glue Stick. Sheesh -- not exactly permanent! I went to the Kodak Art Film site and read the FAQ

s. Turns out you are SUPPOSED to be able to remove the film....  Hmm. I went ahead with the project anyway.  Next thing I discovered was that the film would only work on a  light-colored shoe. Well, that's what I'd chosen, but it would have been nice to know beforehand!

Last of all, I learned that I had to print the pictures as mirror images so the ink would be on the underneath side of the film as it appeared on the shoe. Okay, I could do that in my free photo editing program, Picasa.

I proceeded to make a collage of tiny little versions of each of the paintings (thank you again, Picasa), and printed out the film on my inkjet printer. Then I followed the fairly sparse directions for cutting up the images, applying glue to both the shoe and the film, and pressing the two together. This part was actually pretty easy, even cutting the film to fit the small curves and angles of the shoe. 

When I was done (as you can see from the photos), I glued faux-suede trim around the throat of the shoe for a fancier look.

 

The film stretches so that it's easy to wrap it around the toe and heel area and the glue holds it down fairly well. You can see in the photo below a little fold at the point of the toe, but that didn't bother me as it's not visible except from the side and REALLY close up.

I liked the effect of using two different paintings and the way the images fit together on the shoe. Other than the non-permanence of the glue, my only criticism of this new product is that when the shoe bends and flexes, expecially across the toe, the image on the film starts to crease a bit.

I think if you want to use this on a firmer shoe, or just use it on the parts of the shoe that don't get stressed by a lot of bending, you'd be fine. You could also experiment with glues that would permanently attach the film to leather or manmade leather. (Let me know if you find something that works and I'll write about it in the blog.)

After I was done adding the trim, I realized that I wasn't really done. I'm never really DONE when I do a shoe....  So I added a zipper rosette encircled with a zipper ruffle. I used a fairly heavy #5 jacket zipper and tinted the aluminum teeth gold with Staz-On stamping ink in a shade called mustard. For the details on how to make rosettes, check out this post. For detailed zipper-ruffle making info, read my article in the current Altered Couture. 

P.S. One of my favorite sites for buying heavier weight black zippers is B.Black and Sons. 

Meet Jazzy Glam Flapper Girl!

Here's the next installment of our adventures getting ready for Costume College 2012 in Woodland Hills, CA (set for August 4-5). Having done men's shoes from the 1920s, we decided to do women's shoes from that era as well.

This project was my baby so I started by looking through our collection of purchased and donated shoes for a style that would fit the era. This pair, a gift from Gabrielle, curator of the illustrious juried Wearable Expressions shows in Palos Verdes, CA, called out for flapper treatment. Some gold glitter maybe, and something jazzy and fancy hanging from the ankle strap?

I started by choosing  which areas I would do in gold. I prepared the surface for painting and applied an undercoat of one coat of Lumiere's Metallic Gold. When that was dry, I patted on two coats of our Glitter It Glaze in Antique Gold, a lovely warm shade. When that was completely dry, I sealed the entire shoe with Pledge with Future, which gives the leather a good shine and keeps the glitter sparkly for a long, long time.

Next I found some fabulous multicolored glass fringe (with a black satin ribbon binding) in our stash -- we DO have an amazing stash! -- and thought it would be great to use on the ankle straps. I also decided to make tassels by rolling a short piece of the fringe (in a slight spiral) and stitching it together at the top, where the satin ribbon was. Last touch? Stitch on a Swarovski 12mm Rivoli button in a color called Volcano.

 

I stitched the tassel to the shoe using a leather needle and dark-colored Fireline beading thread for extra strength.

I used Fabri-Tac glue to attach the satin ribbon binding the the leather ankle strap, turning under the raw ends a little bit to make it look neater. (Fabri-Tac is what we like to use when gluing fabric or fabric trim to unpainted leather.) I also stitched a Swarovski button at the center front of the ankle strap.

One of the best thing about this shoe is that you get a lot of POW!! for not very much work!

 

Post-Apocalyptic Airship Captain

In just over two weeks, Margot and I will be teaching and selling our cool products at Costume College 2012 in Woodland Hills, CA. Costume College is a conference for costuming enthusiasts who create anything from historical to science-fiction to fantasy costumes. Donning costumes, attendees will be able to celebrate their creative craft, learn new skills, and buy supplies to satiate all their costuming needs.

Margot and I have done a shoe or two in our day, but nothing really with a certain era or a specific genre in mind. So we have plenty of shoes that "would do" for the event, but we wanted to create a few new and amazing designs for this exact occasion.

Since I love steampunk, my hand shot up like lightning when that genre was mentioned. OH ME! MEEEEE! PICK ME, PLEEEEASE MARGOT! She did. (Well, how many people did she have to choose from?) Here's how I did it.

I rummaged through our stash of shoes until I found a leather boot that had a Victorian look.

First I removed the laces and prepped the shoe with a cotton ball dampened with rubbing alcohol to remove any dirt or coating from the leather. (I would have used acetone if the shoes were manmade leather.) Then I poured out a quarter-size dollop of Metallic Rust paint and rubbed on a thin, uneven coat with a paint rag -- I wanted the boots to look worn and battle weary. If you do this, be sure to dab the rag on a paper-towel first or you might end up with too much paint on the shoe.

Next, since the ribbon laces on the original boot were not functional (the boot zipped up on the inner side), I replaced them with some woven pieces of cord that I knotted together. This added to the "makeshift" look I was going for.

I  wanted to add a leather flap the would extend across the laces, so I sketched out the shaped I had in mind, then cut a test piece out of craft felt -- it's cheaper to ruin than leather! After trimming the felt to get the exact shape I wanted, I traced the shape onto a scrap of crackled black leather we had in our stash and cut it out. To give the edges an extra aged look, I used a little more Metallic Rust and my fingertip to smudge the edges of the flap. Then I attached the flap just inside the zipper with Beacon 527 (we recommend this for gluing leather to painted leather) and clamped it for about 20 minutes.

To make the buckle and short strap, I cannibalized a dorky boot bracelet from another pair of boots. I cut off the leather holding the metal ring in a point and measured how much of the remaining strap I would need to reach around the boot and fasten. I cut that end in an angle so it aligned with the zipper. Then I used  Beacon 527 to attach the leather strap/buckle combo to the boot.

Finally, the hardware -- no steampunk design is complete without it! I dug through all the trays of findings, buttons, embellishments, and beads we have until I'd amassed a healthy stack of things that looked like they might fit the post-apocalyptic/steampunk theme. I began playing with stacks of cogs, gears, metal bits and sprockets until I was happy with the arrangment.

In my mind, I wanted the flap to look like it locked on to the boot, like the gears actually interlocked. I settled on some pieces from Tim Holtz, a button from Treasure Cast, a watch part, and quite a few metal bits -- washers and so on -- that came from the hardware store.

Once I was happy with my stacks of things, I took a photo with my phone, and unstacked everything. Then I squeezed a small glop of E6000 onto a silicone mat. With a toothpick, I applied the E6000 where the two surfaces would touch and pressed each pair of embellishments together. I let them set up long enough so they were firm (if not fully cured), then used E6000 to glue them in place on the boot. E6000 does take 24 hours to cure completely, so don't wear your creations the same day!

What a stellar transformation! Perfect for any Post-Apocalyptic Airship Captain!

From Cheap to Classy

 About a year ago, I went on a mini shoe shopping spree. Zappos.com was having a high heel sale, and I succumbed to five, yes FIVE, pairs of high-high-heeled shoes. I only spent $60 total. What, like you've never done it? ... Don't judge me! Point is, most of the pairs had something interesting going on: zebra stripes, black pyramid spiked heel, cheetah print, buckles, or patent leather. A few of the pairs have seen the light of day at this function or that one. But the plainest pair just milled about in their box way in the back of my closet, sad and lonely.

Last week Margot and I decided to have a shoe day together. It had been awhile since our last day of creative madness. I did a quick scan looking for the perfect pair of shoes to play with and grabbed my poor neglected pumps. My life has been transforming lately and I wanted to make myself something awesome.  I sat down with Margot and started in with what I was planning.

The one thing I knew was I didn't want to repaint the entire shoe. It was covered with small metal studs and that would be a... well y'know... to paint around them. I figured I could paint above and below the studded area, though, so I masked that off, and prepped the "leatherette" surface by rubbing it with acetone. Then I painted the platform below the tape and the inside of the heel Sunset Gold.

At this point I was stuck. I was having a hard time deciding which colors looked best so I yelped at Margot for help. We both stared at our ring of paint chips, trying this color and that color. She mentioned using our sea sponging technique on the upper and I was sold. I decided on Metallic Bronze and poured some out, ready for the next step. Instead of a natural sea sponge like we normally use, however, she handed me a synthetic sponge made for cleaning George Foreman Grills.

These have an irregular pattern of little points, like a sea sponge, but since they are synthetic, those points never go soft from the wetness of the paint and lose their "pointiness." They also create a much finer pattern than even sea silk sponges do. I dabbed on one coat of Metallic Bronze. That's all I needed.

Next, the embellishments. I wanted a strap! I played with different ideas but Margot lobbied for using chain. Who could resist chain? Not I. So I pawed through our amazingly diverse stash until I found two lengths of chain, one brass and one copper, two copper washers, and two brass nautical stars. I measured around my ankle, and marked each length of chain. (A very handy way to mark chain is to secure a safety pin in the last link you want to keep.)

Margot nipped the chain for me (I wanted the copper chain to hang lower than the brass so I measured a longer length of copper), and we fixed split rings to both ends of each chain. The loop end of a toggle clasp was attached to a split ring on one end, then the three split rings were connected (see the photo above). On the other end, we used a lobster clasp on a split ring instead of the loop-and-ring combo. It was kind of like making an anklet.  The split ring with the clasp loop was stitched to the back of the shoe using a leather needle and Smoke Fireline thread.

The embellishment for the toe was created by stacking a brass nautical star onto a copper washer and gluing them together with E6000. I also glued dome findings onto the backs so they could be stitched onto the shoes. Once the E6000 had cured, all I needed was to mark where I wanted the embellishment on each shoe and sweet-talk Margot into using a leather needle and Smoke colored Fireline thread to attach them.

Neither of us could believe how awesome the transformation was! The heels turned out really stunning. No one would ever believe they only cost $4.95! The best part is they are mine!! Now I need to wear them somewhere... Hmmmm. Maybe I can just put my feet up and enjoy them, for now.

Glittery Makeover for Canvas Slip-ons

It may be May, but where I live -- on the central coast of California -- not every day is sandal weather yet. Which is why I raided my local Payless store recently and scored two pairs of black canvas slip-ons for painting, embellishing, and keeping my toes warm on foggy spring (and summer) days.

Here's a before and an after of the first pair I did. Payless calls these Gilly Canvas Slip-Ons and they cost $17.99. I decided they needed pimping up!

I started by looking at the lines of the shoe to see if they would give me some ideas about what to do with them. Here's a photo that I've lightened considerably so you can see the detail clearly.

I decided to do something unusual with the trim around the opening and to experiment with a few things along the way. I started by taking this slip-on right out of the realm of ordinary with a coat of Starlet Glitter It Glaze.  Starlet is a holographic glitter that looks beautiful over solid black. It is a mixture of black and silver glitter that reflects tiny fragments of color along with the silver. I hope this closeup gives you an idea.

Next was a little experiment in color mixing. The leather/fabric paints I prefer, Lumiere, seem to lend themselves to tinting with a VERY LITTLE bit of flat black from their sister line of leather/fabric paints called Neopaque. I have had beautiful results mixing Lumiere's Citrine, Pearl Turquoise and other colors with Neopaque Black, so I thought I'd try darkening the Pearl Magenta and see what happened.

The result was a toning down of the pink and a slight heightening of the violet undertones. I painted the binding around the opening of the slip-on in the tinted Pearl Magenta, then took the Neopaque Black and made little stripes. I liked the idea of painting pinstripes on pink -- a conservative line on a non-conservative color.

At this point (sorry there are no interim photos!), the shoe looked okay, but the toe looked really long, an effect that was exacerbated by the canvas extending so far up over the instep. I took my problem to Destiny. She recommended painting a toe cap, like on a sneaker, and suggested it be striped in a different direction.

We also decided to go for broke and add some pink Swarovski crystals while we were at it. Part of our motivation was that the folks who make our Lumiere paint have just come up with a new product that is a 3D paint that works as a glue for beads, crystals, etc. We have had a heck of a time finding a glue that would successfully hold stuff like this to shoes (which bend and flex and make beads pop right off) so we were excited that this might work!

We used the Lumiere 3D Black. It went on a little blobby, but we were able to press the Swarovski crystals into it. I think they will stay on, since the 3D Lumiere gives them a slightly flexible cushiony nest to sit in.

Finally we turned our attention to the back of the shoe to see what kind of pizzazz we could give it. Here's what we ended up doing -- a different version of the striping and more crystals.

Both Destiny and I ended up pretty happy with this makeover -- now I just have to do the right shoe....

That's Totally My Bag, Baby!

Any artist who has ever done a commission knows it can be a stressful meeting of the minds. But Margot and I have been HUGELY lucky in this department. Our Sassy Feet patrons have been a delight so far (ha ha!), and my most recent commission was no exception.

Peninsula Wearable Arts Guild member, Pat Oakstar, attended our October event in Campbell, CA, and brought along a huge, funky, one-of-a-kind leather shoulder bag she'd bought in San Francisco's Haight-Asbury district about 25 years ago. This bag was a real work of craftsmanship, all the way down to its heavy brass-clasp hardware. And it was BIG.

Pat told me she knew three things for sure about this bag: She never used it, she wanted me to paint it, and she thought it would look cool decorated with insects. The rest was up to me.

Some of you longtime readers will remember Pat from another custom excursion I blogged about a couple years ago. For those who remember (and those who clicked the link to read it), you know Pat's not timid! She's out there, bold and vibrant. Definitely not afraid of color! I was excited to get started.

I settled on dragonflies as the main theme (with Pat's approval, of course). There would be three large bugs: one in cool-tone colors, one in warm colors, and one in green/gold tones. All would be soaring on a swirling, glittering wind. I would also put a line of various insect silhouettes marching up and down the strap. Margot has crowned me the one "who can paint things that look like things," so I began by lightly sketching my design right on the bag with a ball point pen.

I painted each dragonfly using  a huge range of Lumiere colors including Pearl Blue, Indigo, Pearl Turquoise, Pearl Violet, Citrine, Metallic Olive, Sunset Gold, Metallic Bronze, Burgundy, Pearl Magenta, Metallic Russet, and Crimson.

I took a quick progress photo for Pat, who was very pleased but said, "I love your artwork. It's beautiful!  In fact, it's almost too beautiful for that rustic hunk of leather. Never mind the handle. The 'crazy' in me wants MORE bugs on the front. Maybe a swarm??? You're the artist, though, and I leave it up to you completely." 

I thought, More bugs it is! Since we were no longer doing the line of marching insects on the strap, I figured the swarm Pat wanted could be silhouettes of dragonflies in various sizes.

I also did a freehand design of Sparkly Silver Glitter It! Glaze to serve as the gusting swirls of wind. It was a good choice since it would be translucent when dry and you could see the color of the original leather behind all the tiny particles of glitter.

Here are the final, not-from-a-cell-phone pics:

I had so much fun creating this! I'm very pleased Pat was as happy with the results as I am. I cannot wait for the next creative adventure she takes me on. I'll "travel" with her anytime!

Coming Unzipped

It's been five years since my first pair of painted shoes appeared in Altered Couture magazine. Since then, Destiny and I have been thrilled to have sixteen pairs of shoes, boots and sandals appear in their pages.

Today, however, to show you that all this success hasn't gone to our heads (well, my head, anyway...), I thought I'd show you a pair that was recently rejected. Personally, I love them!

These aren't the most stylish shoes -- at least to start with -- but they are all leather, super comfortable, and lend themselves to DIY shoe design! I used them a couple of years ago as the basis for the kitty-face leather-applique shoes I wrote about in "Copycat Kitty Shoes...That You Can Copy."

I decided to embellish this pair with zippers. I am fascinated by big metal zippers. There’s something about the way the smooth surface of the fabric (called zipper tape) contrasts with the bite of the big metal teeth that fascinates me. A couple of years ago, when zippers first got popular on shoes, I wrote about how to make zipper embellishments like roses and spirals.

This time I decided to leave the zipper tape flat and make it look as if the shoe were coming unzipped. I have lots of work-in-progress photos to show you, but they'll make a lot more sense if I show you the finished shoe before we get started.

Here are the steps I took.

I placed a heavyweight zipper in different positions over the toe of my shoe. I tried unzipping it a little, a lot, and everything in between. I angled it in different ways. With each variation, I used drafting tape to hold it in place and stepped back to see how I liked it.

When I had it in a position I liked, I got a chalk marker (like the kind used in sewing) and marked the edges of the opening of the zipper, and the places where the zipper started and ended on both sides of the shoe.

I undid the tape and pulled the zipper off, revealing the V area that would appear to show when the zipper was "unzipped."

Next I drew a larger V outside the lines of the first one. This was to mark the area I would paint. (I wanted to give myself a margin for error and not just paint the exact triangle that the zipper would reveal).

I painted that larger triangle with Lumiere in Pearlescent Blue, which created a nice gleaming contrast to the matte black of the shoe. Then, before doing anything else, I applied little dabs of Beacon 527 glue to the zipper on either side of the pull tab.(E6000 glue would have worked too.)  I didn't want the zipper to move before I got it glued onto the shoe!

Now it was time to cut the zipper and glue it to the shoe. I used sharp scissors and snipped between the teeth. For gluing I decided to try some permanent double-sided adhesive tape I had been urged to experiment with. I cut strips and pressed them onto the zipper tape, then pressed the zipper onto the shoe. It held well.

At this point, I decided to add another piece of zipper tape that would extend part way around the back of the shoe -- I am always telling my students not to stop too soon when doing shoes, so I thought I should follow my own advice! I played with the positioning using drafting tape, then applied more adhesive tape and clamped the loose end to hold it in place until the adhesive set.

Great! I started wearing my shoes and collecting compliments. However, soon the ends of the zipper tape at the sole line started coming loose. I guess the repeated flexing of the sole and the dirt that accumulates down there was a little too much for the permanent adhesive tape. Back to the drawing board.

I got out my trusty tube of E6000, squeezed a dab on each troublesome zipper end, and "clamped" the ends in place using rubber bands. (E6000 works best if you let it set for 24 hours, preferably clamped.) After that, I had no more trouble with the tape coming loose, even after many many wearings.

That's the story of the shoes I call "Unzipped." I guess I'm glad Altered Couture rejected them -- if they'd said yes, I would have had to ship my new shoes off to the editor and not gotten to wear them until they were returned many months later!

P.S. The permanent double-sided adhesive tape did work well everywhere else, just not where the zipper tape met the sole of the shoe.

A Cornucopia of Shoes from Our Fans

 I love it when people send Destiny and me photos of the shoes they've been doing. I invariably discover designs and techniques that never occurred to me!

First are some wedding boots that Lauren created with emailing advice from Destiny and myself. Lauren had never painted shoes before, but that didn't stop her from taking on this project! "I was shocked how easily the lines and stitching held the paint," she wrote. "The snakeskin (the lower section of the boot) painted flawlessly, and I adore that it held the texture so evidently beneath the Copper paint." Each boot took about six hours, Lauren said, "Not a quick project, but relaxing."

Here's another take on painting cowboy boots. These were done by Heather, who started them in a class Destiny and I taught in the Silicon Valley area. These boots started out a well-worn sand color and ended up not only new looking, but quite dramatic.

At the same class, Angela partially sponge-painted these booties to coordinate with a longtime favorite Papaya! handbag. If you click on this photo to enlarge it, you'll see she added some subtle "stitching" along the seamlines. I went to the Papaya! site to see their designs, and they don't seem to be doing handbags anymore, but they have some nice totes and other accessories.

We have quite a few Sassy Feet followers in Australia, and lately I've been in touch with Kathy Guerts, who is a mixed media artisan and teacher working mainly in textiles and jewelry from her Studio Amara in New South Wales, Australia. Kathy sent us several photos and some great descriptions of what she's done.

Kathy says these black espradilles had been sitting in her cupboard for some time and not been worn. She started their transformation by going through her stashes (notice the use of the plural -- a woman after my own heart!) and choosing fabric scraps that would work with black as her base color.

"I also found some gorgeous Czech vintage glass beads which were begging for my attention," Kathy wrote. "These formed another inspiration for my shoes and so I arrived with the black, cream and rust color scheme. I used scissors and sometimes pinking shears to cut shapes which were then glued down with Helmar's fabric glue straight onto the material. Then I added lace and trims. That's it. Very simple, yet I hope you would agree the shoe now has a strong personality of its own." I do agree, and I love how many different things are going on -- harmoniously - -in this design.

Kathy also sent photos of a "cork clunker" she upcycled. "I generally find brown shoes quite boring.These shoes with their ugly cork wedge cried out for some loving. After prepping the shoes with 100% acetone, I sponged Lumiere on the front and sides. After this dried I did the soles in the same way. I followed this by dabbing circles in silver, purple and blue in a random pattern all over the shoes.

"When the paint was thoroughly dry, I  applied masking tape strips diagonally across the front of the shoe. Taking the same small circular sponge tool, I dabbed paint on in between the masking tape strips and in some areas over the strip. When the paint had dried, I gently removed the strips. This gave me the stencilled effect. The next part of sponging was the purple all over the cork wedges.

"I now needed to add one final point of attention. I found an old necklace and  twisted the cords together, then sewed them onto the shoe following a diamond shape already there. I used the remaining cords by tying them up and knotting them on the ends and sewing this at the top center of the vamp. Voila, a new shoe!"

You can't eat just one -- or two. About a week ago, Kathy sent photos of another project that I'm delighted to share with you.

These black hightops got stencilled, stamped and glittered (on the heel). Then Kathy glued on lace and made her own laces from strong yarn that she doubled up.

Next comes a pair of walking shoes transformed by Mary Ann. These are color-blocked, and Mary Ann said she chose pastel colors that would go with her clothes. She topped them off with brightly colored peace-sign shoelaces. I love the cool-tone effect of the shoes with the HOT laces tying them up!

Our last pair of radically upcycled shoes comes from Sandy D., whose work you have seen here before! (If you want to see her earlier DIY shoe designs, use the search box at the top left of this page and type in Sandy.)

These are a pair of purple suede flats from Coldwater Creek that Sandy needed to wear to a wedding. She used Lumiere paints to give them interest and pizzazz. She also painted each shoe slightly differently. I love the way the Lumiere made those purple pompoms shine!

Thank you, all you talented women, for sending in your photos and telling us how you created your Sassy Feet!

 I was shocked with how easily the lines and stitching held the paint, and it was the perfect accessory to accompany the soon-to-be hubby while watching football on Sunday   

The snakeskin painted flawlessly, and I adore that it held the texture so evidently beneath the copper. I am not done, certainly but I am stoked to get finished to start my next pair!!! One boot was about 6 hours though, and I'm not quite finished and haven't sealed them yet. Not a quick project, but relaxing  

The pink that came in the starter pack is SUPER similar to the Cooper on the boots (uppers painted halo gold pink, snakeskin in copper - true gold?) but it worked well and was a good lesson learned. I want to try something with the angelus paints next, but the lumiere paints are just beautiful!!!

Eye Candy, Great Ideas from ASG Artisans

 Apologies for being out of touch lately -- I was preparing for a big class for the American Sewing Guild in Riverside, CA, as well as keeping my "day job" editing clients happy. The class was last weekend and I'm now back home and caught up on things like laundry, dishes and email. Now, to share the wealth!

First, I want to honor Jacquina (at left), who brought a lovely lavendar faux suede bag to paint -- then announced that she didn't know what to do with it because, she said, "I'm not creative." Next thing I know, she has picked out a fabulous length of wide metallic trim and is holding it over the lavendar. This brought out shades of green in the trim (which had just looked brown to me before it was laid on top of the lavendar).

I suggested Jacquina might want to sponge the bag so as to leave some of the lavendar showing, and I pulled out a paint chip of a color that's violet with a little gold in it (Lumiere's Halo Violet Gold). The next thing I know, Jaquina  has selected three other colors to use with it -- and they look perfect! I tell her she's going to have to change her "press release" -- she certainly IS creative!

 

This is a simple pair of Payless flats that Gwyn painted so they transitioned from a rich gold-orange at the toe, through burnt orange at the sides and into a deeper crimson-orange tone at the heel. She did this using smart color choices and plenty of patience when dabbing and lightly stoking in the paint to make the transitions. I love how these look!

Here is another pair of color-transition shoes, this time going from Pearl Blue on the toes to Grape on the top and back half of the booties. Betty painted these and finished them off with bead-and-pearl embellishments that she placed just "north" of the line where the boot will bend when she walks. That way, she didn't have to stitch down the embellishments to keep them from popping off. Instead, she glued them with The Ultimate. I think they came out beautifully.

Darcy took a pair of plain Mary Jane style comfort sandals and gave them a racy coat of Crimson. Then she added tiny Pearl White polka dots in specific areas marked off by the original stitching on the shoe, as if she were doing color blocking. We all smiled when we saw how cute these turned out!

Sea-sponging was a popular technique at this class, and a subtle example of how it was used is shown above. On this pair of lace-ups, Christina used light sponging on the toe and back as part of a color-blocking scheme. What you can't see is that the tongue of the shoe is painted green. There was much discussion about what color the laces should eventually be, green was the winner. Lumiere was used to paint those, too.

Another version of sea sponging, at right, was done by Annell on a pair of simple sandals. She chose a colorful array of Lumiere paints -- blue, purple, crimson and one of the golds. The result was rich and eye-pleasing. 

Here's an example of a simple embellished shoe painted in Old Brass (I think) with the heels (sorry, the photo doesn't show them) painted a contrasting dark brown. These were done by Barbara. One of the things that makes this shoe special is the placement of the embellishment. It extends up over where the foot will be so as to change the shape of the front opening and add interest. Adds a nice touch!

Last of all is a pair of gorgeous wedge sandals painted by a young woman named Amber. She had no questions, asked no advice, just sat down and painted them in luscious colors. She even invented the color-collage treatment on the t-straps and ankle straps without consultation or coaching. (I love young people -- they just go ahead and DO things!) I will let the pictures of her wedges speak for themselves.

I wish I'd had the time and presence of mind to photograph ALL the shoes and bags done in the class -- they were all amazing!

Next week I'll share with you some fabulous shoes -- and a pair of bridal cowboy boots -- sent in by our fans around the world, including a mixed media artisan  from Australia whose motto is IMELDA, EAT YOUR HEART OUT!

Hightops for Our Favorite Girl

 Her name is Ellen, and she's a hoot! She also LOVES hightops. So it was a no-brainer for Destiny and I to decide to create some custom hightops for her.

We knew she loved blue, so we went to her site to see exactly what shade of blue we should use. I figured it would be the blue of her amazing eyes. As it turned out, her Ellen's true blue is more like bluebird. We decided to do a shoe that used both shades. We would glitter the body of the shoe with our Ultramarine Glitter It glaze, then we'd embellish the toe using Swarovski crystals in "Ellen's blue."

Destiny went online and searched until she found Ellen's shoe size (it's an 8.5), then we ordered a pair of Converse hightops in a royal blue. Since they would already be blue, we could apply the Glitter It glaze directly onto the shoe and not have to paint the shoe blue beforehand.

I did the glittering, then we turned our attention to doing the toe. The catch about painting or embellishing the rubber toes of hightops is that paint peels off and gluing small things to them is iffy. However, we discovered awhile back that we could successfully glue fabric to the toe. So now we cut out fabric to fit each toe, embellish or paint it, then glue the piece over the toe with Flip Flop Glue. (For step-by-step info on how to do this, see our post entitled "No More Big White Sneaker Toes." )

In this case, we used white Ultrasuede (the real stuff -- we figured Ellen was worth it!) as the toe covering and size SS20 Swarovski flatback crystals in a color called Blue Zircon. The only challenge in buying the crystals was finding a site that wouldn't charge us a huge shipping fee for them. We lucked out with www.artbeads.com, which shipped them to us at a low first class rate.

We played around with the idea of doing something special with the shoe laces -- painting them or doing fancy machine-stitching on them, but decided that it would make them too fussy for Ellen. That left just the round Converse logo over the ankle to deal with.

Destiny thought we should paint over it with the "E" that Ellen uses in her signature. She cut out circles of Ultrasuede, glittered the background with Sparkly Silver Glitter It glaze, then "painted" on an "E" using a toothpick and the Ultramarine Glitter It we'd used for the body of the shoe. (See her post called "Couture Kids" for details on how -- and why --to paint with toothpicks.) I glued the circles over the Converse logo, let them dry and tested them by trying to pull them off. 

They peeled right off,even though we'd used Flip Flop glue, as we did on the toes! I guess those logos are made of a different material.... We finally decided to try cleaning the printing off the logo using 100% acetone and painting directly on the surface. We tested how well our Glitter It glaze would stick and it seemed surprisingly stable. Destiny went to work with her two shades of glitter, a fan brush, and toothpicks.

That was it! Ellen's hightops will be shipped out this week, and let's hope the folks who open her mail will let her actually see them. Who knows, they might even make a special guest appearance on her show!

Show-y Shoes!

Weekend before last, Destiny and I were invited to teach and have a booth at the wonderful Education in the Textile Arts sewing conference in Irvine, CA. If you don't know about these conferences (there's one in Dallas, too) and you love to sew, check out Peggy Sager's website -- and don't miss her fabulous free YouTube videos on all things sewing. (Peggy is the designer of Silhouette Patterns.)

So, knowing we were going to a big show, Destiny and I decided we needed NEW SHOES for the event! I got some crisscross gladiator sandals from Famous Footwear on sale and decided to glitter some of the straps to go with a black-and-greeny/gold chiffon jacket I'd just

picked up for a comparative song at a thrift store. I started by painting the straps I'd chosen in a color of Lumiere called Old Brass. I only did one coat of paint because I knew that when I applied the glitter glaze it would hide any irregularities. I purchased matching high-quality glitter (this was a color we don't stock in our regular line of Glitter It glaze) and mixed it into our Glitter It glaze clear base. 

The results were subtle -- and beautifully worked with the chiffon jacket (seen in the background above)!

Then it was Destiny's turn. I'd bought her some cute flats at Payless and offered to paint and embellish them for her as a thank-you for the fabulous job she did on our new edition of the Sassy Feet book. They had nice lines and showed a bit of toe cleavage, which especially appealed to her!

She picked the Lumiere shade Halo Pink Gold, and asked me to attach a little spray of fans, as I did on the Fan Dance shoe in our book.

 Well, I cooperated when it came to the color, but right before I started to dig out more of those pretty green fans, I came across some black glass beaded fringe.... And I showed Destiny what it would look like when glued around the top edge of the flat. She was sold!

On the second day of the show, I wore some simple black suede sandals with a small sterling silver zigzag embellishment across the toe -- and took a lot of flack for not having SASSIER shoes!! So I came home, took off the zigzag (it was stitched on), got out my leather needle and Fireline thread, and stitched down six Italian silver buttons I'd gotten from our booth neighbor, Dawn Sklar, who sells outrageously discounted vintage and modern buttons and trim.

Dawn only sells at shows and flea markets or I'd point you to her online store, but her friend Judy Tomsky sells buttons like this on her site Natural Touch Beads, (The spiral buttons are on this page.) While you're there, don't miss her yummy resin beads -- they look like gumdrops or sea glass. You can use them as they are or even paint, smear or stamp them with Lumiere. Try it!

A Fabric 'First'!

Margot and I are currently creating some designs for an art exhibit at the Janice Charach Gallery in West Bloomfield, MI, called "Shoes, Purses and Mahjong: A Few of Our Favorite Things." As we discussed our plans for the exhibit, I suggested we make a couple Mahjong-themed bags. Margot liked that idea very much, so we started phase two of our process - what to make??

Margot has created nearly a zillion (I may be rounding up) incredible designs with fabric collage like the Lonni Rossi Bootie, Anne Bagby Slides, and a Kaffe Fassett handbag, but I realized I had never tried my hand at fabric collage before. I was shocked at myself! Why not try a mahjong fabric collage on a purse for the show?

Before I go further, let me tell you just a bit about mahjong. It originated in China and although it's played with tiles, like dominos, it's much more like the card game gin rummy. The tiles usually have a white background (no doubt they were originally ivory) and are imprinted with Chinese characters and symbols. These are organized in suits, as Western playing cards are.

I began my project by rummaging through our purse stash and finding a bag with a large flat front flap to use as a nice canvas for my collage. I decided I'd mimic the 3 of Circles tile because it was colorful but not too complex. Then I picked my fabric colors: a purple-ish floral cotton for the background, an aged yellowy orange for the mahjong tile itself, and red, green, and blue scraps of quilting fabric for the 3 circles.

I drew out my shapes on each color of fabric, squeezed Fray Check on the lines (to keep the fabric from raveling when I cut it), then cut out the shapes. I covered the flap of the purse completely with the purple-ish fabric, gluing it down with Fabri-Tac. Then I laid the rest of the shapes down and stepped back. It. Was. TERRIBLE!  I wish I had taken a  picture. The purple floral fabric looked so matronly next to the others that it did not work at all!  Luckily, I had chosen two different fabrics for possiblities to use as the red circle and I decided to lay everything on top of the "unused" red.

POW! It popped immediately! So I cut a new shape and glued it right over the purple flap. Since this was my first time doing fabric collage, I suppose it was the creativity Gods making sure I got LOTS of gluing practice.... Next I glued down the mahjong "tile" base, then I glued on each colored circle.

Now it was time to paint in the details from the tile I was copying, starting with a Crimson "3," the recreating the flower details in the center of each circle with Sunset Gold. Finally, by rubbing on and wiping off a little more Sunset Gold over the original dark reddish brown of the leather, I "antiqued" the rest of the bag.

Except, in purse design as in shoe design, "finally" doesn't really mean finally. It seems there's always something more one can do to make the design come fully to life. That's what happened next.

During our planning process for our purses, we raided the abundant stash of our favorite mixed-media artist for mahjong tiles, cards, and counters to use as inspiration and possible embellishments. I picked out some interesting tiles, drilled a hole into one corner of each tile, attached a split ring, and slid the split ring onto a chain. I added a large jump ring to the top of the chain and ran the purse's shoulder strap through it.  The mahjong counters and tiles became a fabulous, movable embellishment dangling fetchingly from the side of the bag.

I think it looks mighty fine for my first adventure in fabric collaging. "Yahtzee!!!" Wait, I mean, "MAHJONG!!!"

Keep Those Shoes (and Purses) Coming!

I continue to be astonished and delighted by the photos of shoes that you send me! Such imagination, such great ideas and color combinations! I want to show you several of them today.

First is a pair of clogs that Mary from Texas painted for a friend who is a quilter. These are the first pair of shoes she's painted and she did them with the colors from a Lumiere Exciter Pack. All I can say is WOW!

Next come a couple of creations from Laurel, who took a class from me at ARTS Obispo, a wonderful organization in nearby (to me) San Luis Obispo, CA. Above are a pair of booties she began in class and later finished at home. The color of paint she used is Pearlescent Violet. Coincidentally, Laurel's booties were identical to a pair that Destiny and I had just finished embellishing (at right). It was great to see Laurel's photos and see how she'd worked with the design. Interesting that all three of us were inspired to hang an embellishment from the underside of the bootie's cuff.

A few months later, Laurel created a purse for an ARTS Obispo fundraiser -- using a shoe as the base. She sent me an email describing what she did: "I made my wristlet purse by sewing and embellishing the top of the purse with beads and sequins. With the magic of adhesives, I sewed and glued fabric to shoe. The green lace ruffle is custom-made using netting, re-purposed net (for the great lime color), sequins and beads.  The bag has a self-fabric wristband and closes with a zipper."

Some people don't even have to take a Sassy Feet class, they can just have their grandmother attend, borrow her paints and use their abundant natural talent. This wallet is by Taylor T., a teenager from California's Central Valley. She painted it while she was on vacation at the beach, a very accurate view of which is pictured on the wallet.

This sweet pair of flats was done by Adrienne, who obviously has a talent for working small, since she was able to paint eight stripes of Lumiere on each of the straps crisscrossing these peeptoe flats!

Last of all come sandals from Mary W. of San Luis Obispo, who also took my class last summer at ARTS Obispo. She had a wedding to attend and was planning to wear a gray-and-white print dress. She painted her sandals in Pearlescent White and Pewter, and has included a sample of the dress fabric in the background. (And yes, this IS a color photo.)

Thanks to all who sent in photos -- it's wonderful to share your creativity with our hundreds of blog readers!

We Answer Your Emails: Episode 1!

Summers are crazy for everyone, Sassy Feet! included. Margot has been up to her ears in things to do, so I am stepping in and posting some of the questions people have emailed her, along with her answers. (If any of you have figured out how to clone yourselves, let us know! Margot and I could both benefit from the ability to be in two -- or three -- places at once!)

Question from T.:
I want to paint some purses -- they are not leather, but the regular Nine West purses of artificial material. What paint do I use? Regular acrylics? How long-lasting would the paint be? And do I coat it with something at the end?

Margot says:
You can use the same paints and supplies on purses that we use on shoes. And yes, you can paint purses made of artificial material, like manmade leather (just not plastic). Here is an example of a purse like this that I painted.

If you go to http://www.sassyfeet.com/howto.htm on our website, you will learn about the brand of special acrylic paints we recommend -- Lumiere -- and how to seal the paint using Pledge Premium Floor Finisher with Future Shine.  We sell the paint and small bottles of the sealer in our online store, and only charge the actual cost of the postage, no handling fee.

Your paint job on your purse will last for a long time! The paint doesn't chip or run or peel, as long as you prepare the surface properly before paintings (see the how-to page or read on). Also, there are lots of examples of painted purses on this blog. Use the Search box at the top left to find posts that we have written about purses.

Question from G.:
How does one change the color of the side of the sole of the shoe, like the white part of this sneaker?

The sneakers I want to paint are black with dark purple highlights. I can do the upper, but don't know how to turn all that "real estate" black. Any ideas? Or is this a no-go?

Margot says:
The challenge is that acrylic paint won't stick to rubbery plastic, like the kind used for the soles and lower sides of running shoes. It will just peel off when the shoe bends and flexes.

When the soles are white or a light color, however, you can try two things, but neither would be the perfect solution. The first is paint pens, which some folks swear by. The second is Sharpie pens, which I think will work better in terms of not peeling off, but you'll have to touch up the color over time.

In my classes, I usually recommend that people work the color of soles like this into their shoe design instead of trying to change it. As the old proverb says, "Face the direction the horse is going!"

Question from L.:
My daughter is dying for glittery orange sneakers, so I ordered Sizzling Orange Glitter It [example of this color glitter at left], and Super Copper Lumiere paint, along with the Pledge sealer. I ordered the copper paint because the directions on the website say I need to paint the shoes orange before putting on the orange Glitter It. Is that right?

If so, do I put on the sealer in between the paint and the Glitter It?  And how would you suggest covering the grommets (I'm doing a pair of canvas sneakers) to keep them paint free?  Are there any other tips you'd offer before I begin?

Margot says:
Yes, you do need to paint the shoe first because Glitter It is really like a glaze, so the color of the shoe beneath the glitter shows through.

As to the grommets, go ahead and paint both the sneaker fabric AND grommets. One coat will probably do it, but if not, wait til they're dry and paint on another. This is much easier than trying NOT to paint the grommets. Lumiere paint is not supposed to be able to stick to metal, but in my experience it does pretty well -- and you can always touch them up later if the paint starts to wear off.

Then mix up the glitter with the white-looking glitter base. There are instructions printed on the packet and bottle. STIR WELL BEFORE AND DURING USE. Pat on the mixture with a small, soft FAN BRUSH (pictured). Don't try to brush it on or you'll end up just pushing the glitter paint around. Let dry completely (could take about 45 min.), then pat on a second coat to even out where the glitter is. I wouldn't bother trying to glitter the grommets. They'll look fine just painted. After the shoes dry, it will be another couple of days until they "cure" and your daughter can wear them.

You won't need to use the sealer at all. The glitter paint doesn't need sealing -- and it serves as a sealer for the Super Copper. Tightly cap both the paint and glitter paint in case you ever need to do touch ups -- or make another pair for when your daughter grows out of these.

Question from A.N.:
I love your website and your shoes!  I have had a crazy idea for the holiday season and I am planning on painting a bunch of Ugg knockoff boots for the kids in my family (all 14 of them).  I just can’t spend the money that it would cost to buy them custom Uggs, so I decided to improvise! 

I read that you suggest Lumiere paints for painting on leather shoes.  Does this brand work for the scuffed leather that the Ugg knockoffs are made out of?  Have you tried this before?  I would really appreciate any help that you can impart! 

Margot says:
Yes, the Lumiere paint will adhere to Uggs knockoffs, but it will smooth out the surface so they are not suede-like anymore. They'll have a smoother finish, which a lot of people like. Also, you won't have to take the time to prep the surface or apply sealer, since that "scuffed leather" of Uggs knockoffs is really a type of fabric.

Question from S.M.:
Love your book "Sassy Feet"!  I am going to paint a white leather purse Metallic Rust Lumiere paint, and I wondered if the white plastic zipper could be painted as well?

Margot says:
Surprisingly enough, I have had a very good results painting plastic zippers with Lumiere paint. Keep the zipper closed and paint it lightly. (You can paint the fabric part of the zipper with a heavier hand.) Then if you need it darker, give it a second coat. When the paint is dry, open and close the zipper a couple times to loosen it up again. That's it!

Question from K.C.:
My mom and I painted our shoes and had a great time, but the paint cracked and is popping off at the stress creases of the shoes.  We did not apply the paint too thick; we did two thin coats to cover the original color.  What do you suggest we do?

Margot says:
Did you prep the surface of the shoes first? (Wipe them with a cotton ball dampened with rubbing alcohol if the shoes are leather; use plain acetone instead of alcohol if the shoes are manmade materials.)

[K.C. wrote back to say they hadn't prepped the surface, so I wrote her back this response.]

Mystery solved! What you can do now is to gently sand down the areas where the paint cracked and then prep the surface of the shoe. Let it dry THOROUGHLY. Then apply a new coat or two of the Lumiere paint.

Question from J.:
Gosh, it’s so hard to believe by prepping with alcohol it will not peel. Do you have to scrub or just lightly rub on?  What if they get wet by chance? Have you had trouble with that?

Margot says:
To prep genuine leather shoes with alcohol, slightly dampen a cotton ball and rub it -- don't scrub it -- over the surface of the shoe. Wait until the surface is dry before painting. This really will enable the paint to stick.

Once your shoes are painted, the paint will stay on even if you walk in the rain. Of course, they can get scuffed, like any shoe, but then you just prep the scuffed area and do a little touch-up painting.

If the shoe isn't prepped, the paint is not actually being applied to the leather -- it's being applied to the dirt or oil on the surface of the shoe, or to whatever finish the manufacturer used on it. Once you remove that stuff, the paint will stick just fine. Also, the paint will dry quickly, but it will continue to "cure" for 3-4 days, at which point it's permanent.

Question from B.S.:
I am finding that some of my painted shoes crack at the ball area. Is this normal? I do have rather long, chimp like toes. When the shoes crack, any surface decoration, paper or fabric, seems to fissure as well. On my first few pairs, I used Mod Podge as a sealer. Is it the Mod Podge or my monkey toes?

Margot says:
That's the Mod Podge creating the cracks (assuming you are using Lumiere paint and not plain craft acrylics). It isn't flexible when it dries. If you prep the surface of your shoes properly (see explanation above), use the right paint (one formulated for use on leather or manmade leather) and the right sealer, you shouldn't get cracks.

One exception: No matter what you use to apply paper to the surface of your shoes, the paper will tear when the shoe bends. What I do when I find a design on paper that I want to put on shoes is I scan the paper into my computer, then print out the scans on cotton that's made to go through an inkjet printer. Then I glue down the fabric (I use Fabri-Tac if gluing directly onto leather or The Ultimate if gluing onto painted or manmade leather).

If you are creating a DIY shoe and/or purse and run into a snag, EMAIL US! We will answer! We love fielding questions, and you'll become a living part of Sassy Feet's blossoming development!

Love your book "Sassy Feet".  I am going to paint a white leather purse metallic rust and wondered if the white plastic zipper could be painted as well. 

These Shoes Are Made for Dancing!

Destiny and I had a delightful time last Saturday at the PenWAG fashion show -- great clothes, great people, great energy! Thank you to eveyone involved!

One of the pairs of shoes that we brought to the show is headed to Altered Couture magazine as a submission for their June 15 challenge, "Ruffles and Rosettes."  Now, as you'll see below, these shoes don't -- strictly speaking -- use rosettes, but the wired roses I put on them could easily be flattened into rosette shapes. (I'll let you know if the Altered Couture editor agrees!)

I started with a nice little pair of black silk platform sandals by Chinese Laundry. Then I got out my collection of rolled roses, which I'd made last summer for a blog post called The Last Blooms of Summer. (For directions on how to make these, click on the link to that post.)

I had the idea that I wanted to put GREAT BIG flowers on these saucy little sandals, and I asked Destiny for her opinion. We agreed on where to position the roses, and I stitched them down with doubled black upholstery thread. The roses are very lightweight, so it only took a couple of stitches to secure each one, which means they can be removed without any noticeable damage to the fabric surface.

Then we decided that the second shoe should use the colors in different places.

I took a couple of shots of so you could see the effect from different angles. Destiny and I named these our Carmen Miranda Sandals.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the nice things about making rolled roses with wired ombre ribbon is that you can mash the flower around and it will hold whatever shape you mash it into. Then if you want it to look fresh again, just tug on the wire until the "petals" stand up.

If you haven't seen my earlier post on how to make these and where to buy the ribbon inexpensively, check it out. It's very simple, and these roses look great worn on hats and blouses, made into pins -- and tacked onto shoes!

On Turning 100: It's Better Together!

Destiny and I are DELIGHTED to announce that this is our 100th POST! To mark that amazing occasion, we thought we'd talk about how we collaborated on a particular design. For me, running my ideas past Destiny, and vice versa, is one of the best things about doing Sassy Feet!  Her artist's eye and her 27-year-old's in-your-face sense of style work surprisingly well with my inborn sassy attitude and out-of-the box thinking, which has survived 60 years of life trying to get me to obey the rules. (Not gonna happen, except for speed limits.)

Destiny and I have a booth at the upcoming fashion show of my wonderful wearable-art group, nicknamed PenWAG (if you're curious, click the link), so we have both been making altered shoes, purses and t-shirts. I have a stash of slightly used (or new) purses I've gotten from thrift stores, and I chose this one to work on, as it had a nice flattish surface for embellishing. I knew the odd spattering (of paint?) on the front wouldn't matter, as I was going to paint over it.

I had some particular embellishments in mind -- my favorites, as a matter of fact: some oversize mesh roses, a vintage watch face or two (I bought a lot of these a couple of years ago), some sample pieces of chain mail, and little wooden gears I'd found on etsy that I'd embossed to look like rusty metal.

I painted the purse with Lumiere in Halo Pink Gold, then pressed the embellishments on with earthquake putty to see how they'd look. My wife, who's also an artist, suggested stacking other, smaller embellishments on top, which I did. The result was... unsatisfying. The design didn't quite work, though I didn't know why. Here's a photo of the purse at this point.

It was time to ask Destiny for help!

Steampunk is one of my most favorite styles. I love the contrast when furturistic sci-fi meets Victorian industry. Plus the sense of fantasy the style has: airships, ray guns, wings, cogs and gears. It really speaks to me. When Margot showed me her design plan, I was intstantly excited at the idea of watch faces, metal mesh roses, and interlocking gears. But a couple things struck me as out of place.

As much as I love Halo Pink Gold, I knew it wasn't quite right for this. Much too clean, pristine and bright. I suggested that maybe Margot wanted to "tarnish" the paint job. Maybe a black rub, or some brown dappled splatters.  My eyes wanted the surface to look more like the color and texture of the gears.

The next thing I wanted to tweak just a bit was Margot's placement of the gears. I think I am allergic to symmetry (in most cases). I liked the idea of something hanging down off one strap, but I thought it would cover too many of the embellishments, positioned as they were, so I rearranged the pieces underneath the opposite strap. In my mind I had a picture of an interesting layout where the gears looked like they were actually interlocked and turning at some point.

Margot had brought a few scraps of chain mail with her, so I placed them up near the dangling ribbon, because, well, what design couldn't use a little chain mail? We took photos of our changes so Margot could reference them later. It's a good idea to do this when designing because you always think you will remember what you did. But, you won't. I promise you.

I went home and got back to work. First I got out some Neopaque Black paint, diluted it with a little water, and started rubbing it on with a wedge-shaped cosmetic sponge, a little at a time.

The trick was to not rub the paint on too thick -- we wanted the rosy gold background color to still show through. I kept a paint rag and clear water handy to immediately "erase" places where I'd gotten the paint too black. I also decided to paint the handles of the purse black. Here's the result.

Much more vintage looking! I then decided to ignore Destiny's suggestion of spattering some brown paint over the rubbed-on black.

Time to glue together the embellishments (using E6000) and stitch them down with FireLine.

At this point, things were looking pretty good, and I pinned the chain mail in place. Hmm. It wasn't quite right. Time to ask Destiny's opinion again. I took this photo and emailed it to her.

I thought the gears looked so cool on top of the tarnished golden paint job, but I could see what Margot meant about it needing "something else." My eyes were immediately drawn to the bright red roses, which were a great color contrast, but not a great texture contrast.  I suggested maybe using a little StazOn ink to add a light vintage touch to them as well.

I loved the pop of color so much, I thought it needed some red on the dangling embellishments, too. I wasn't sure what to use, but maybe tinting the lighter piece of chain mail with StazOn would work or finding a lush piece of red ribbon.  I knew Margot would figure it out!

I wasn't so sure about messing with those nice big one-of-a-kind mesh roses, which I'd found on etsy, but I do have StazOn remover (they call it "All-Purpose Cleaner"), so I figured, what the heck. It looked good!The same thing happened when I dabbed a cotton ball on to the stamp pad of StazOn's Black Cherry and pressed it onto the lighter-toned chain mail. Nice! That girl, I thought to myself, knows what she's doing!!

Here's the finished handbag -- isn't collaboration wonderful?  Here's to the creative marriage of true minds, and to our 100th post!

It's My (Altered) Bag

Have you ever bought something you thought was really great, used it once or twice, and left it to sit in your closet for four years? Of course you have! We ALL have.

In my case, it was a black leather Ameribag. This is the little back-pack-like bag that's supposed to be easy and comfortable to carry, even when it's loaded with STUFF. Now, that claim is pretty much true. There's something about its shape that distributes its weight in such a way that your shoulders don't hurt five minutes after you've slung the thing on.

It has two drawbacks,though. First, they're pricey, especially in leather, which is what I got, despite it being on sale. Second, mine sort of looked like a big black gumdrop, which is why it ended up in the back of my closet for so long. Until I remembered it was there and realized I could paint it!

I used a technique I described in a post last year where you apply four or five or six colors of Lumiere over a black background, using a cosmetic sponge to dab and daub on the color. Below is a closeup of the kind of result you get.

I started by prepping the leather surface by rubbing it with a cotton ball moistened with rubbing alcohol. Then I picked my colors: Lumiere's Pearl Violet, Metallic Bronze, Super Copper, Metallic Russet, and Metallic Olive.

I dabbed them on sparsely one at a time, and let each color dry before dabbing on the next. If you try this, don't mush the sponge around or you'll end up with mud instead of nice distinct colors. I used the flat bottom of the sponge and dabbed the paint on horizontally, then at the end I did some vertical dabs with the edge of the sponge to create more visual interest.

Let me show you the finished bag, then tell you about the detail painting and the leather beads I added.

I painted the trim, piping and pocket flap on the front in the solid colors, using the colors I had dabbed on. Then I went fishing in my stash and found some leather beads in the shape of leaves that I'd gotten years ago at a bead show. These are actually two pieces of leather glued together with a channel in between for the beading thread. Using Fireline and a leather needle (for penetrating the leather flap), I stitched down the leaves.

This was just fine - for a couple of months. Then I discovered two things. One, I just wasn't happy with the big block of Metallic Olive on the flap. It was too different from the nice daubed appearance of the rest of the bag.

Also, the leather beads started coming apart and drooping (in this photo they are still behaving themselves). When they did this, you could see the Fireline and the whole thing starting looking tacky instead of wonderful.

 So I finally decided to change things. I took off the beads and painted the flap a solid black with Neopaque Black. The black mostly hid the holes from where I'd stuck the needle through the flap, and I liked the effect better. Then I went back to my stash to find a more durable embellishment.

I ended up the other half of a pair of embellishments I'd made, the first of which I used on a demo sandal, which I wrote about a few weeks ago. (If you want to know how I made it, click on that link.)

The result worked much better to my eye. I may do some fine-tuning, but for now, here's my edited and revamped Ameribag!

 

If this type of bag interests you (or your shoulders), you can get one on sale at the Ameribag site or ebay, where you'll find other people like me, who bought one and stuck it in the back of their closet. And if you don't like the color it comes in, paint it!

Much More Than A Silver Lining

When Margot told me about her simmering idea for metal leafing on shoes, I was dazzled by her ability to envision yet another unexpected application for this wonderful DIY craft she's pioneering. Putting it shortly, I wanted in!

She had already done gold-toned mixed metal leafing on a pair of clogs (See: Rescuing Some Old Friends) and had a bag of silver (and some coppery red) she had yet to try. So, she sent me home with the all the sterling supplies and a pair of faux-straw patterned wedges to transform.

First, I painted a coat of Speedball metal leaf sealer (photo on our previous blog, as mentioned) onto the faux-straw wedges and allowed it to fully dry. Then, I applied a coat of adhesive. After about 30 minutes the adhesive was tacky enough to start applying the leafing.

 I used a pair of tweezers to pull pieces of leafing from the bag and laid them onto the wedge. An old, junky soft paint brush works exceptionally well for burnishing the metal leaf smooth. Every so often, I would add a chunk of coppery leaf in random spots. After the whole wedge was covered, I inspected it for places I had missed. There were a few, so I brushed on a bit more adhesive, let it sit and applied more leaf. When all the spots were covered, I was applied another coat of sealer over the whole wedge.

Since the wedge had coppery koi-like "fishscales" within the silver, I chose to use Metallic Russet, Pewter and Black as my paint colors for the upper and insole. I used the larger, straight-edge brush in our kit to paint Black on everything but the undersides of the straps and footbed. (Since the main body was fabric, I didn't need to do any prep.) If you aren't as steady with a paintbrush as you'd like to be, you can use blue drafting tape to mask off the areas you don't want painted.

Now for the insole! It was made of faux leather, so I prepped it t with a cotton ball dampened with 100% acetone). Then, using a fan brush, I painted the insole with two coats of Pewter. Allow the first coat to dry before applying the second. Metallic Russet was applied (2 coats, again) to the inside of the straps using the straight-edge brush. As an accent, I used a small round brush to paint some gear-shaped accents on the footbed.

The pièce de résistance was an excellent, handstacked-button embellishment created by Margot that had a very steampunk look about it. It was stitched on with a leather needle and Fireline to the gathered toe strap. I added a swarovski crystal to the center of the clockworks to finish it off.

This pair of wedges is now fit for any time-traveling, sterling silver, steampunk princess!

A Taste of the Tropics

Two nights ago I had the pleasure of teaching a shoe- and purse-painting class to a group of very talented women, sewers all, from the American Sewing Guild's Central Coast (of California) chapter. They've promised to send me photos of their creations (it's always too hectic at the end of class for me to take photos), and when they do, I'll post them here.

One of the things I do at the beginning of each class is to demo how to paint shoes and purses. WIth the paint we use (Lumiere), you don't brush it on as if you were painting your living room wall. You lay it on gently and smoothly, with just a few strokes, as if you were putting on nail polish. And you use a soft, small fan brush to do it.

That night, I used one of a pair of shoes that a stylish friend had donated to the Sassy Feet cause as my demo model. It's a very nice Cole Haan genuine leather slide in a color that reminded me of the lush tropical green of Hawaii.

I used Metallic Copper to paint the upper, which was a great contrast. Usually, that's where I stop when I'm doing a demo. But as the evening went on, this group of artisans didn't need a lot of help from me, so I picked up my brush and kept playing around with the shoe. I painted the underside of the upper in Metallic Olive Green.

Then I put  my nearly worn-out fan brush (it had gotten sort of spiky over time!) to good use. It looked to me like the fan with its slightly spayed bristles might make interesting shapes on the insole of the shoe. So I dipped it in Metallic Olive Green and started pressing it in little arcs. This took a little chuzpah, because I had no idea how it would look -- and what if it came out terrible and all my students saw what a mess I'd created?

I've always been a risk-taker, though, so I plunged ahead. Luckily, I liked the effect! The brush marks looked like palm fronds. I decided to paint little berries onto the fronds (not sure why, it's holly that has berries -- just consider it artistic license). I used Metallic Bronze daubed with Metallic Rust for the berries.

Fine. But class wasn't over yet and still no one needed a lot of help from me! So I added some detail on the top and bottom edge of the upper, again using the spikiness of my old fan brush to create interesting patterns.

At this point in the class, I usually demo how to stitch on an embellishment, and I had brought one with me that I'd created by gluing together (with E6000) a large resin doughnut, a smaller metal donut and a gold-tone button. The colors of this embellishment had dictated some of my color choices for the paint.)

Here's the finished shoe, which I call the Tropical Slide. Thanks, ladies, for keeping me company while I created it. (And don't forget to send me your photos -- you all created some amazing pieces!)

But I've always been a risk-taker, so I plunged ahead. Luckily, I liked the effect!

Our Version of Shoes Fit for a Princess

The British are revving up for the royal pomp and ceremony of the marriage next month of Prince William to the common but extraordinary Kate Middleton. To get in on the P.R. action, Footwear News asked five top shoe designers to suggest shoes for the bride to wear.

You can see the creations by Manolo Blahnik (at right), Giuseppe Zanotti and others by clicking here, then choosing the IMAGES tab or launching the slide show. In the accompanying article, each designer explains what they did and why. Of the shoe pictured here, an ivory silk pump with organza lilies of the valley and pearls, Manolo says, "It represents springtime and everything fresh and new, which is what Kate Middleton is all about."

This is all well and good, but poor Kate is going to have ACHING arches before the day is one-quarter through. Destiny and I have some alternate suggestions for the bride!

First is Destiny's Cinderella Dreams, a lovely little off-white flat juiced up with lace, Swarovski crystals, dabs of Metallic Gold Lumiere paint, and a whopper of a gold-and-rhinestone embellishment. If we were trying to be relevant (and pretentious) we would say that the shape of the lace echoes the arched windows in Westminster Abbey, if you looked at them standing on your head.... I guess that was a stretch, but other than being beautiful, these shoes would keep a smile on Kate's face through her long, long, long day.

My candidate for Kate is an adaptation of a famous Salvatore Ferragamo design. This mid-heel shoe started out black. I painted it Metallic Gold, then draped it with gold chain, including a lovely angled waterfall of chain around the front of the ankle strap.

It was something of an engineering challenge to create that waterfall, but I LOVE the results. It's called Gold Standard.

Last of all -- and returning to the somewhat painful realm of high heels -- let us suggest our Pale Gold glittered platform heel dripping with gold crystals. It is truly fit for a princess -- because it took HOURS of painstaking, unpaid labor (mine) to stitch on the crystal mesh!

If any of you want to recommend these fabulous shoes to Kate, just email her the URL of this post and tell her she ought to order by April 10, for an April 29 wedding!

Bourbon Street Beauties

Ah, Mardi Gras! The ultimate party where people strut their stuff with delight and abandon! This year Destiny and I were asked to contribute some of our "shoe art" to the San Luis Obispo arts organization's Mardi Gras fundraiser, Walk on the Wild Side!

A dozen artists were asked to contribute, and they have assembled an art auction with fused glass shoes, a shoe-shaped purse, pottery shoes, paintings of shoes, even a found-object plant arrangement reminiscent of shoes. For a peek, click here and scroll way down to "Shoe Show."

Destiny and I altered the heck out of a pair of Victorian style booties, giving them a hint of brothel naughtiness and a lot of party attitude, but keeping them totally wearable.

I'm going to tell you how we made these and show you a lot of work-in-progress pictures, but first how about a peek at the finished product?

We started by looking at the architecture of the boot, and we asked ourselves, What is already there for us to work with? We looked at the different stitching lines and how the boot worked. For example, despite the buttons and loops down the front, the boot actually fastened with a zipper up the inner side. We came up with a plan for color-blocking the bootie, then chose paint colors, glitter colors, and embellishments.

The first thing we did was to cut off those tan loops! They were sort of utilitarian-looking. Besides, it's hard to get great results painting over elastic. I'll walk you through the rest of the steps, using more photos than words to show you how.

We chose three basic colors for the color block areas: gold, copper and purple (which looks more like blue in these photos!). We painted the three areas with Lumiere in Sunset Gold, Super Copper and Grape. Then we painted the tongue of the boot and the buttons with Neopaque Black.

To keep the black paint from smudging onto the gold, we cut little squares of card stock, punched a hole in the middle to accomodate the shank of the buttons, then cut a slit from the edge to the hole and slid these little "shields" over the buttons. This saved us a lot of time doing touchups!

The next step was to apply our Glitter It! glitter paint over the gold and copper areas. We used Antique Gold and Copper, and applied it by patting it on gently with a fan brush. (That "we" is a lie -- Destiny did the glittering. She's much better at it than I am!) It took two coats of glitter to get a perfectly even effect.

For a little extra sparkle, we then glued size 20SS (4.8mm) amethyst-colored flatback Swarovski crystals onto all the buttons, using E6000 dabbed on with a toothpick.

Having the basic design done, we dove into our stash to dig up exciting, quirky, colorful and outrageous trims and accents that would give our bootie some real ZING! We brought a big basket of possibilities to the craft table and started holding up various combinations, sometimes tacking them in place on the bootie using earthquake putty (a common household item here in California!).

Our first decision was to combine orange guinea-feather pads, two squares of perforated purple suede and two black beaded appliques into a pair of embellishments we would attach at a jaunty angle to the top of the boot. We glued the various pieces together and when they had dried, glued the whole thing to the bootie.

When we were pawing through our pile of trims, Destiny's eye had been caught by a pair of gold-embroidered appliques, which she thought would look great on the toes of the boots. She touched up the lower edges of the appliques with the Grape Lumiere paint so there would be touches of purple in three places. We fiddled around with the placement (using earthquake putty), then glued the appliques down using E6000.

Next -- WHAT? THERE'S MORE?  Yes. When you are altering or upcycling shoes for a really special occasion, when you want them to truly be wearable art, don't stop too soon. Always consider whether you could add something else that will really make the design POP!

We added three more things! First, Destiny painted little black zebra stripes on the heel, with gold edges, to echo those on the appliques.

Next, we glued ruffled nylon net around the top edge of the bootie. And finally, we laced up the buttons with very narrow black double-faced satin ribbon.

At this point, we conceded that we were done. Even with our fertile imaginations (and huge stash) we could think of nothing else that our Bourbon Street Beauties needed!

This is my very favorite kind of project, one we do together, where our different skills, gifts and tastes find a way to weave themselves into something entirely new and unexpected -- our version of laissez les bons temps rouler!

Our 'Altered' Shoes in Print - AGAIN!

One of my favorite proud-moments is seeing Margot's and my name in print.  Before Sassy Feet!, the only time in my life I had ever seen my name in print publicly was in third grade when my grandmother wrote a very sweet (but extremely embarrassing) article called "Keep An Eye on Destiny" that was printed in the local newspaper.  But to be able to walk in to any Borders or Barnes & Noble, head to the periodicals section, pick up an issue of Altered Couture magazine, and see our shoes and how-to articles in its pages is still as exhilarating today as it was the very first time. It's almost surreal! 

Our lux creation of embellished, dark red ankle booties, "Ruffles at Midnight," scored us another article (and that sense of excitement) in the Spring 2011 issue. 

Since these shoes were already in great condition and a wonderful intense and sexy red, Margot and I elected NOT to repaint them.  All the better to embellish you, my dear! So, we went "shopping" in Margot's extensively awesome stash and scored ourselves black swirled soutache braid, a length of cascading stretchy black ruffles, and embellishments we made ourselves from two big black vintage buttons, two hand-hammered copper rings, two white flower-shaped vintage buttons, and two Italian silver swirling buttons.

We started by measuring two lengths of soutache braid and, using Fabri-Tac, we glued it around the cuff of each boot, starting from the zipper and clamping it as we glued. We also used Fabri-Tac to glue the upper edge of the ruffled fabric (it's actually sold for sewing tube tops) to the underside of the cuff. We glued down the edge of the ruffles at the zipper, too, so they wouldn't get caught in the zip.

The last thing we needed was something that drew your eye and went "KAPOW" - a focal point.  Margot used an oversize black button as a base, then attached the copper rings using E-6000. Two white buttons were glued on top, lining up the holes of the white and black buttons. Then she threaded a quadruple-length of Fireline through the button holes to use in attaching the embellishment.

Why? Because once she'd glued down the final swirly silver button, those handy little holes wouldn't be useable. Before gluing the top button, Margot gleefully lopped off their shanks using her big metal shears. Then she used E6000 to glue them down.

Once everything had been clamped, set-up and cured (at least 24 hours) we stitched our hand-stacked embellishment to the cuff, slightly off center from the side seam. Not everything can be symmetrical.

What stunning results -- if we do say so ourselves... -- and without a lick of paint.  We're pleased Altered Couture agreed!

 

We Can Top That

Margot and I always look for ways to put the perfect finishing touch on our designs.  It's easier on some shoes because they have interesting aspects built in, like decorative stitching or a unique shaped heel. One of the quickest ways to add an extra touch of excellence to any shoe design is adding little ruffles or trim -- and every pair you modify has a built in spot for it: on top! Here are some boot designs that were taken that extra step by adding a little something wonderful on top.

Simply wrapping the throat of this boot with decadent rhinestone mesh cup chain made a popping visual impact on this black boot. So much so, only a bit of thin chain was needed around the sole to complete the design.

After a couple coats of luminous Pearl White, the addition of dusty rose ruffled ribbon to the upper edge of Kaylie's Bridal Boots not only highlighted the beautiful appliqué but gave it a winter wedding feel.

 

The black marabou cuff around the top of these work-booties creates a wonderful and sexy contrast (as does the stiletto heel!) to originally industrial design.

 

The patina-like hue of this feather pad, along with the Metallic Rust-rubbed upper and bronze beaded medallion, help Fandango achieve it's Andalusian feel.

 

The gossamery white lace trim is the perfect final touch to these Burnt Orange boots. The lightness of the trim mimics the hand-painted Pearl White design on the toe and helps bring it all together.

Trimming the tops of your designs can help achieve that final something you were searching for, or make the dramatic pow you wanted without having to do a lot of painstaking work.  Your beholders' eyes won't realize how easy it was to accomplish, but they'll revel in how marvelous you are for creating it!

No More Big White Sneaker Toes!

A year ago, I copied a pair of designer sneakers that were embellished with glitter and chains, and wrote about it in this blog. They were pretty complicated to do, but I was quite happy with the results.

I liked the way they jangled a bit when I walked, and later I got some glittery silver laces for them. Then, sometime last summer, I noticed I hardly every wore them.

Hmm. So I put them on and looked down at my feet. All I could see were those BIG WHITE RUBBER TOE CAPS!

Now, I DO wear a size 9, and these particular hightops come from Payless, where they don't make a nice small round toe cap, like you get on Chucks. So it wasn't just the whiteness that bugged me.

But I still felt like Moby Toes. So I decided to change the color of the toe. Now, since sneaker toes are rubber, you can't paint them and expect the paint to stick very long. You can color them with Sharpies, but the color fades pretty quickly.

The best thing to do is to glue something on top of those toes, preferably fabric.  There is a great glue called Flip Flop Glue that works well to adhere fabric to rubber. I wrote about it awhile back when I used this technique to cover the white rubber strip at the bottom of some platform sandals. (If you use the Search box on this page and type in FLIP FLOP GLUE, it will take you to a couple other posts where I've mentioned it.)

So I started searching through my fabric stash to find colors, patterns, and textures that would work with the glitter-and-chains look. I pulled out some Ultrasuede scraps, some printed fabric, and a couple of stencils.

Then I needed to create a template for cutting out the fabric. This is actually quite easy. Here are the steps.

1.  Cut out a piece of lightweight paper a little bit larger than the toe. Be sure it has one straight edge.

2.  Line the straight edge up against the straight edge of the rubber toe cap. Hold it in place with one hand.

3.  With your other hand, use the edge of your thumbnail to press a crease into the paper along the ridge where the toe cap meets the sidewall of the sneaker.

4.  Remove the paper, mark the crease with a dark pen and label it TOP LEFT or RIGHT. This is for two reasons. First, once you cut out your template, it's easy to forget which side was up. Second, the rubber toe caps on your left and right sneakers WILL NOT BE exactly the same size and shape!

5.  Cut out the shape with scissors. See if it covers the toe cap, and if not, trim it or make a new, larger shape. Frankly, it doesn't need to be perfect, especially on the rounded part. Any discrepancy is barely visible from above.

6.  Now repeat the process for the other toe.

Voila! You have two little patterns you can use to cut out covers for your toe caps. Place them on top of your choice of fabric, draw an outline with a marker, and cut!

The last step is to squeeze a generous squiggle of Flip Flop Glue on the underside of the fabric. The glue is white, but it dries clear. Now take an old credit card to use as a squeegee and spread the glue evenly.  You want the glue to cover the entire area, though it doesn't need to be thick.  Press the fabric covering in place over the toe and wait for it to dry before wearing. (The package says 24 hours.)

Here are the different fabrics I used and what they look like in place. 

On the left is black Ultrasuede, on the right is blue Ultrasuede.

These two are cotton quilting fabrics. You don't have to worry about the fabric fraying because it will have glue all over the back of it.

On the left is a toe covering of Ultrasuede that's been painted and glittered the same way the hightops were (with Neopaque Black paint and Starlet Glitter It! paint). On the right is Ultrasuede that's been stenciled with Neopaque Black. You'll get great results stenciling on Ultrasuede and fabric because they absorb the paint, unlike leather.

And the winner is... This is black Ultrasuede that's been stenciled with Lumiere Metallic Silver. (I found the stencil on Mary Beth Shaw's blog.) To stencil, pour a small amount of paint on a flat surface (I use a paper plate), spread it around a little bit and dab up some paint with a cosmetic wedge. Then dab over the stencil. You can dab until you get the paint evenly applied, or you can do as I did above, and let the paint be uneven.

So if and when you get tired of BIG WHITE TOES on your cool hightops, you know what to do!

 

Words, Beautiful Words

One of the delightful benefits of working with a talented artist like Destiny is that whenever there's an occasion that calls for gifts, I can ask her to paint something for me. This Christmas it was a laptop bag that I had gotten on sale at Office Depot for $5 quite a number of years ago. In fact, the clearance price was so ridiculous, I bought two. And have never used them....

However, I recently had to go on a business trip where I needed to look, uh, business-like (rather than creative!), so I rummaged around and dug out this combo briefcase-tote that my laptop would actually fit in. (It's unfashionably LARGE. Or "humongous!" as the kid at Starbucks recently exclaimed.)

Well, I used it, didn't embarrass myself with the bigwigs, and was mightily bored with all that black. I came home thinking, There must be some way to paint or embellish this bag so it's interesting but still professional looking.

So I turned it over to Destiny! Together we decided to put a quote on it and I chose one of the  variations on Margaret Mead's famous lines, "Never underestimate the power of a few committed individuals to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

My biggest hurdle in painting and embellishing accessories comes when the lines I need to paint on, in or between don't already exist.  Even though I've been dubbed someone who can paint "things that look like things," I get nervous before I set out.  Unlike working a piece of paper, I can't sketch first with pencil -- lines easily removed by a little nib of rubber when necessary -- especially when the bulk of the surface is to stay as-is.

In this case, I first did some weird math to decide about how many words went into each panel (number of words [22] ÷ number of panels [3], adjusting based on visual size of panels/words = 6, 11, 5). There's probably an easier way, but that worked for me.  Then, I just sketched the words in using white chalk.  When I didn't like something, I could use a paper towel (and a little spit, BLEH) to wipe the bag without ruining the surface.

There isn't a lot of preplanned science to my typography blocks. I make sure to try and separate the different font types, so as to get a good mix of serif, san serif, handwritten, and script in all the panels.  Sometimes I think about the structure and meaning of a word and add a twist, like turning all the I's in "individuals" into people. I use alignment and rotation to keep things visually interesting within each block of words. I also try to remember where two words might share a letter and use that in the design, as I did in "few" and "world."

The number of colors I used (there were five, which Margot picked) didn't divide equally into the number of words. So, without the result looking too uniform, I was able to use the colors in the same order, repeated: Pewter, Citrine, Metallic Russet, Sunset Gold, and Pearlescent Blue.  I painted everything using a medium round brush.

I am a quote junky: movies, books, articles, proverbs, you name it. Margot and I both love that particular quote from anthropologist, Margaret Mead, and when she saw it on my daily sketch blog as a scrap of typography, she knew exactly what to ask for this Christmas! I'm REALLY pleased with the results. Best bad-ass business bag in town!!

Taking a Design and Running With It!

Shoe blogs, fashion magazines and online shoe stores are FULL of inspiration and ideas for DIY shoe design. When I see something that interests me, I right-click on the photo and "save image as." Then I use the picture, which I name with the designer and shoe model, as food for thought in the weeks and months to come. Here are some of the shoes I've "saved" and my ideas on how to create them for yourself.

This is Taryn Rose's "Bonny" flat.  Painting just the toe of a shoe, particularly a pump or a flat, has been quite popular in the past year. This design adds something extra with its little gold studs.  To create a shoe like this, either start with a black flat, or paint one with Neopaque Black.

Then mark a straight line across the toe with chalk and paint the toe with Lumiere's Metallic Gold. Now find something (like plastic canvas for needlepoint, available at craft stores) to help you mark a grid for use as a guide to put the gold dots on the shoe. Afer you've marked the places to put dots, paint them using the Metallic Gold paint. When the paint is dry, add a tiny dab of Antique Gold Glitter It! paint to each dot to give it the shine of a gold stud. Last, seal the whole thing with Future.

I spotted these Stuart Weizman heels in October and knew they would be comparatively easy to copy. The secret to doing color-transitional painting like this is a cosmetic wedge and patience.

You can paint the separate areas first, then pour a little paint on a palette or plastic plate. Dab the rectangular end of the wedge lightly in the paint, then blot some of it off. Now you're ready to start dabbing lightly to make your transition areas. You usually need to go back and dab the original color and the second color several times to get a decent transition, but the paint will dry quickly and this doesn't take all that long.

To see a pair of color-transition flats I painted way early on in my shoe-painting career, go to this blog post and scroll down until you see the violet-transitioning-to-orange flats.

These Nine West suede heels are called Timepiece. They feature a black beaded and sequinned applique glued onto the heel so it extends up above the top of the shoe. (I couldn't find a side view of this shoe in red, so the photo below is of a purple one.)

All you need to do to create this shoe is to 1) Find the applique (try M&J Trim for starters; 2) Figure out how much you want sticking up above the shoe; 3) Glue a soft backing onto that part of the applique (to protect your heel from the scratchy back to the applique); and 4) Glue the whole thing down. If are gluing directly onto genuine leather or suede, use Fabri-Tac. If you are gluing onto faux leather or suede, use The Ultimate.

These glittered laceup shoes are by Christian Louboutin -- and come with a $595 price tag! You can get the same effect by getting your hands on a pair of laceup shoes, painting them Neopaque Black, glittering them with Starlet Glitter It! paint, then gluing down some black trim to create a trompe l'oeil piped seam.

Here's my last offering of cool design ideas to copy -- booties swathed in chain. 

 

 

There are two tricks to adding chain embellishments to boots. The first is finding the chain in the size and finish you want -- the stuff used in these boots has a gunmetal finish. 

The second is to create some sort of anchor to hold the chain at the back or on the inner face of the boot. REPORT, the company that made these "Ortego" booties, made a sort of belt loop out of the same fabric as the boots. You can make your own belt loop our of fabric or leather and paint it to match. If you use leather, I recommend stitching it on with a leather needle and FireLine, rather than gluing it.

I hope this post gives you lots of INSPIRATION for the New Year! Do something amazing with shoes and send me the photos!

And Wings to Fly...

I was in my favorite Mexican restaurant the other night, visiting with Steven, one of my favorite young men, when I noticed his fabulous winged shoes! I asked him about the embellishment on them, and he said he'd sewn and attached it himself. Now, Steven is very creative and terrific with a sewing machine, so I wasn't surprised. But I was impressed and I wanted to share the results with you.

Steven said he was inspired to create his embellishments when he saw a pair of Adidas on the web that had wings on them. Jeremy Scott has been doing winged Adidas since late 2008 and if you search online, you'll find them in several different finishes.  All of them, however, have the wings threaded on the outer-ankle side using shoe laces to attach them.

Steven tried a different tactic. He drew a wing, cut it out, then traced it wrong side up to get a reversed version to use on the other shoe.

To make his wings, he used three layers of fabric: heavy canvas on the bottom for stiffness, gray cotton in the middle and netting on top (so the gray would show through). He transferred the wing and feather lines onto the fabric, then used a dense zigzag stitch to create the outlines and hold the fabric layers together. After stitching, he trimmed away the excess fabric.

To attach the wings to his canvas shoes, Steven used fabric glue under the large oval area and under the tip of the third feather from the top. The idea was to give the wing some room to stand up and out.  Finally, he did invisible free-motion stitching inside the oval area to provide a more secure bond than the glue alone would afford.

Steven has worn and washed these shoes many times, so he apologizes if the wings are no longer pristine.  If you're ever in Morro Bay, CA, stop by Taco Temple and say hi to him -- he's a host and sometime waiter, and a darling man!

One of the things I like about Steven's wings is that they are more Mercury-like than Jeremy Scott's, especially in their placement. Wings are in on shoes this year; Vivian Westwood has some and so does Matt Bernson.

I love the idea of winged shoes -- I'm going to have to come up with my own version and stop by Taco Temple to show Steven!

Slightly Unconventional

Margot and I both like to test, adventure, and expand what we do artistically (especially with DIY artisan projects).  Margot was the one who realized one day that women's OTHER favorite accessory, the purse, is made from the exact same materials as shoes, thus opening up purses to the same sort of fabulous things we'd been doing to shoes! This was a most excellent revelation.

Not only do the Lumiere paints we use on shoes work wonderfully on leather and manmade leather, but fabric as well. To mean, this means T-shirts! I have taken it upon myself to explore this fully, and I want to share some of the results.

Here's is a cityscape relief using our Glitter It! paint in Shamrock. (I blocked out the buildings using masking tape.) I did the wording in Metallic Olive Green using a toothpick.

Here's a fun flourish I put on the front of a T using several different Lumiere colors with Glitter It! paint:

 This one is a mendhi-inspired design in Pewter (which was slightly affected by the camera flash so it looks almost glittery):

 A chubby swallow flies through cherry blossoms down the front of this V-necked T:

And finally, a splattered Pearlescent Turquoise and Super Copper design with Neopaque Black filigree flowers:

Painting T-shirts requires a little more paint than painting on leather as the cloth absorbs some of the paint, which real and faux leather do not. But there's no prep work needed and just a 2-3 minute ironing (with the shirt turned inside-out) will "seal the deal," so to speak.

SUPER-HELPFUL DIY HINT: Painting or stenciling on clothes is the perfect way to cover up stains that refuse to be washed out! DItto those annoying bleach marks that come from out of nowhere to land on your favorite clothes!

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2009/348/3/7/Coppered_Turquoise_with_Vines_by_Killbot_Beauty.jpg

And Their Boots Were Hung by the Chimney...

By rights, this should be Destiny's post, since she did most of the work on this project, but I thought I'd surprise her by writing it for her. Several months ago the folks at Jacquard Products, who make the Lumiere paint we love to use, asked us if we'd like to be part of a Christmas project for their website. They were asking several textile artists to create (and paint, of course) fabric Christmas stockings.

They asked Destiny and me if we'd like to do a Christmas stocking from an actual boot. Heck yes, we said, then went rummaging around in our spare-shoe-and-boot stash for a good "before" candidate. We found a boot with a nice curving shape and some lines that would lend themselves to color blocking.

Destiny came up the with idea for painting a "Night Before Christmas" scene and I suggested we have dangly lace at the top, use flatback crystals for stars dotting the night sky, and add a suble swathe of Glitter It! paint behind Santa's sleigh.

Here's the result, and here's a link to the Jacquard site where you can read all about how we did it and print out a pdf of the instructions, too.  Great job, Destiny!!!

And We Will Lead You Into Outrageous

In October, Pat Oakstar, a member of PenWAG (Peninsula Wearable Art Guild) talked to Margot about commissioning Sassy Feet! to create a pair of custom boots. She wanted a wild, sassy design, but wasn't sure she could do it herself, so she handed over her tan Sketchers boots to Margot for a transformation.

Margot asked her what colors she loved, and she said red, pink and purple. Then, since I enjoy bold and unconventional, Margot entrusted the mission to me. "Go crazy, she'll love what you come up with," she directed me. Crazy? Oh, I can go crazy!

Since these boots are manmade leather, I used a cotton ball with a bit of acetone and prepped the surface (Use rubbing alcohol for real leather surfaces.) I applied two coats of Grape with a soft fan brush, allowing each coat to dry.

Then I used a round brush to paint the Pearlescent Magenta and Crimson daisy-eque petals. Both colors took two or three coats to be opaque. With a fine tip round brush, I used Pearescent White to make the little accent flowers.

At this point, we sent a photo of the boots (at left) to Pat -- and she said, "Make them more outrageous!"

So... I added large pointed petals in between the daisy petals, using the same colors. Then I took a fine tip round brush to add Pearlescent Magenta and White accents to all the large petals as well as all the Sunset Gold centers. 

The next and last step was the painstaking process that I seem to love to do so often, painting with a toothpick!  I connected all the flowers with a Citrine vine that serpentined its way around the boot.

I love the way these turned out.  I also love a woman who isn't afraid to be brash and bold. Kudos, Pat, on your choice of colors and design. More (flower) power to you! 

More Shoes by Our Fans

I've been accumulating photos of some cool shoes that our readers have created, and, since one of them was for a Halloween costume, this seemed like the perfect day to show them. (Note: I started writing this Halloween night, but by the time I finished, it was past midnight -- so it got a November dateline. So much for perfect timing....)

Beth, who made her first appearance on our blog awhile back in a column by Destiny, sat down with her neighbor to help her create shoes to go with her costume. Her friend was going as a good luck charm and Beth did her proud.

They used Lumiere gold (looks like True Gold to me, but maybe Beth will comment and tell us for sure) and what looks like Pearlescent Emerald. The four-leaf clovers are outlined in our Antique Gold glitter paint.

Destiny (who gave Beth her first and only shoe-painting lesson) was especially proud of the heels Beth painted: Green and gold pinstripes with green flat-back Swarovski crystals glued on. One of the great things about heels is that unlike the toe of a shoe, heels don't have to flex and bend. That means you can glue embellishments onto them without worrying that they are going to pop off when you walk.

Lovely job, Beth! By the way, these photos were shot with a cell phone, so if that's all you've got as a camera, you can still send us photos of your creations.

I met Lucy last year through some mutual friends and she took to shoe painting like a cat to cream. Here are some sandals she did in Pearlscent Turquoise for her granddaughter, Margaret. I think they're adorable!

Next are the latest from Sandy, whose work has appeared here several times. She started with a pair of unadorned peach-colored wedges and gave them an under-the-sea look using Pearlescent Blue and Pearlescent Turquoise.

 Don't know if the colors inspired the choice of embellishment or vice versa, but Sandy writes that she found this great turquoise/bluish/greenish confetti fringe at www.homesew.com. (I've seen it elsewhere, too.)

Before gluing down the fringe, Sandy hand-stitched beads to it. She also added crystals to the heels, and (as you can just make out from the photos) she glittered the wedge and ankle strap in Powder Blue with an undercoat of Pearlescent Turquoise. Lovely shoes!

The last shoes in today's post come from Julie, who shared her leopard-painted Ecco comfy shoes with us last June. Julie ordered paint and glitter and asked for quick shipping so she could make ruby slippers for a friend who was going to (where else?) Kansas. Great idea!

Here are the before shoes, which Julie said were the only thing that gave her problems. Her friend wanted to use these, but they were fairly old, maybe 10-15 years, and of manmade materials.

Julie wrote, "The first wipe-down with acetone took off quite a bit of the original taupe color finish -- and caused a lot of the rest to turn into powder on the surface. I ended up scrubbing everything down with more acetone and basically stripped all the taupe color from the shoes before I started with the Crimson undercoat."

After that it was clear sailing. She applied the Crimson Lumiere, then Really Red glitter paint. Last of all, she attached a bow topped with a decorative button to the diagonal strap.

She definitely updated the original Ruby Slipper look! This one is much classier -- and it did get done in time for that trip to Kansas.

Thanks, everyone, for sending in your photos -- and for remembering to take "before" shots. It's really fun to see the transformation from sows' ears to silk purses.

A Very Classy Class

I just got back from teaching a day-and-a-half class for the very creative women in the Fresno Fiber Arts Guild. It was a real luxury to have so much time! In the past I have been challenged to teach the same material in just three hours, which always leaves me feeling like my students get a bit shortchanged.

Not these ladies! I stuffed them full of facts about painting shoes and purses, gluing on trim, and stitching on embellishments. And they showed me some things, too, with their fascinating designs and experiments (successful ones) in color mixing.

I took pictures during the class with the first cell phone I've ever owned that takes pictures, and although some of the shots turned out too fuzzy to use, there were some good ones. Hope they spark ideas for you!

Shirley sponge-painted the faux-leather trim on this nylon tote, using masking tape to protect the nylon area. At the bottom of the picture is the embellishment (one of my designs!) that she will eventually stitch to the top center of the tote.

  Lora created these "Coffee Queen" shoes, which featured broad, short stripes in Metallic Olive Green and Neopaque Black on the straps and around the base of the heel (which you can't see in this picture, sorry). On the toe, she tried painting the black lines of the lettering and the images using several different shape brushes, then gave up and used Sharpie instead. She's going to let me know if the Sharpie lasts over time.

Lora also wanted to use a rubber stamp over the coffee cup, so she cut out a mask for the area around the cup, then pressed her whole inked stamp onto the shoe. I think the result is wonderful.

  Susan, whose organization generously provides a room for the guild's meetings (and who isn't nearly as fuzzy looking in real life...), painted a pair of booties using color blocking, with different variations of color on each boot. The boots were originally black, and she left some of the black intact. Then she used Brass and Crimson on one boot, and Brass and Halo Blue Green (I think) on the other. In back of the boots, you can see a purse Susan was painting with some of the same colors.

We had the pleasure of having a granddaughter-grandmother combination in the class. Carol was the program coordinator for the guild -- who took WONDERFUL care of me during my stay. Her granddaughter, Sabrina, is 11, and her enthusiasm and creativity were a joyful addition to the class.

Sabrina painted several pairs of shoes (including some Midnight-Sky-glittered flats), but the ones she spent the most time on were these Payless flats that she painted Pearlescent Magenta then meticulously decorated with daisy-like flowers.

Carol painted a purse and a couple pairs of shoes, including these formerly worn-looking sandals. If you look closely, you'll see that among the Metallic Rust straps is one that's partially painted Super Copper. A clever touch, I think.

Ann brought a couple of belts to paint, in both cases using the original color and texture as part of her design. One medium-width black belt got a geometric treatment, a narrower belt -- purchased in the 1960s, I think she said! -- was painted in subtle flowing arches with highlights.

After finishing her coral-and-pink-sponged tote, Shirley worked on some shoes, and in the process she rummaged through my stash of goodies, which I bring to each class, and unearthed some gorgeous teal blue feather trim. The result was fabulous. In the picture below, she has clamped the trim on while the glue, which she has applied to the black backing, sets. She'll trim off the extra strip of trim once the glue is secure.

Last but by no means least is our Halloween fanatic, Valerie, who brought a pair of black "witch" boots to work on.

The picture above is of her sponged creations before they were quite finished. In your mind's eye, add purple, green and gold crystals on the tip of the toes and up the back seam -- plus fuchsia-glittered little bats right at the top of the heel. Wearing these, she'll no doubt get the Witch of the Year Award!

Yo-Ho, Yo-Ho, A Pirate's Life For Me

I remember in the late ninties when a fashion epidemic of purses in the shape of women's bustiers hit the marketplace full force. For months, lacy, patent leather and fabric handbags hung from retailer shelves like tiny corsets on display. Then, as quickly as the fad erupted, it petered out again. 

That was, until a year or so ago, when Margot found one of these bustier beauties second-hand (sorry, no "before" pic -- it was just plain black with short handles). When she showed it to me I thought, "We could totally transform that into a pirate wench's bodice. How cool would that be?!" Margot liked the idea and set me to work.

First, I used some red stretch lace and cut out a new set of red lace "cups" for our girl using the existing cups as a guide. Then I squeezed a thin line of Fabri-Tac Glue around the lower perimeter of each cup line and pressed the edge of the lace down with my finger, working my way around.  At the bottom of the "U" I had to fold the lace a little bit, making little tucks to fit the roundness of the purse's breasts (for lack of a better term). I finished the cups by gluing (again with Fabri-Tac) a thin strip of flat faux-leather black cord around the edges of the curves.

To highlight the vertical seams below the cups, I glued down two strips of red velvet rickrack. This mimicked the boning an actual corset would have and gave the front of the purse extra detail.

On the back, I removed the original cheap ribbon used as lacing and cut five strips of the rickrack to repalce it with. Each strip was the measurement of the span I'd need plus about 3/4" to spare on either end. Globbing some Fabri-Tac on each end and pushing the ends of the velvet rickrack into the grommets with a toothpick, I  "threaded" it through like lacing.

I had bought a hot fix rhinestone skull months before, and had yet to use it, so I thought the center front of the purse would be the perfect spot.  I ran into a bit of a dilemma, though, on how to iron this onto such a bulky, curved surface. Margot stepped in with her ingenious brilliance and suggested I iron the rhinestone motif onto black fabric first (DUH), cut the fabric around the applique, and glue it to the front with Fabri-Tac, which worked wonderfully.

The original purse had flimsy looking hand straps that just sort of hung limply from the top edges, so I cut them off  as close to the seam as I could.  As a replacement handle we used a 24" choke-chain collar for dogs, which you can find at just about ANY retail or pet store (and it comes in many gauges, colors, and lengths). But because the chain was so heavy, we needed something heavy duty to hold it in place.

I made two leather strips to use as tabs and folded them over the large rings at each end of the chain. Margot helped me poke two holes in each side of the purse with something called a needle tool. We made matching holes in the tabs and lined up the tab on the inside the purse. Then we fed one end of a thick leather cord in through one hole in the purse and the hole in the tab that lined up with it. We brought the cord back though the second hole in the tab and out through the hole in the purse that lined up with it. Once that end was back on the outside of the purse, we tied it off with the other end in a nice non-slip surgeon's knot.

Lastly I strung a couple strands of skulls beads, tied them onto one of the big metal rings and pinned a silver shell brooch to the center of the bodice. Wow, what a transformation! This purse, hands down, gets the most attention when we are teaching classes and doing shows. It's such a hit, I decided to list it on Etsy to sell. If you're interested, go take a look!

What DIY Shoes Are All About

The best part of what Margot and I do with shoes is teaching others how to do it. We get great satisfaction out of sharing something new and then, literally, seeing the lightbulb click on above our students' heads when they realize the world of possiblities that we just opened up for them. 

A couple weeks ago, my friend Beth visited from Chicago and I told her I would teach her how to "do" shoes while she was here.  She was very excited about this prospect. 

After she arrived, we took a trip to Payless to search for some cheap shoes to upgrade.  We saw this odd quasi-bootie/sandal/heel hybrid that we both had an immature chuckle over while it was sitting in its box. It was sort of silly looking, so we kept hunting.  After a few moments, we decided maybe it was one of those shoes that looked better on the foot than in the box. Beth tried them on. This made a ton of difference. They looked FAR better AND, as a bonus, had a very large surface on which we could create a design. 

When we got back to my house Beth was very excited to get started.  She loves color and wanted to incorporate a lot of it, but was a little bit nervous about "screwing up."  I gently reminded her that we could always paint over what we had done (which is one of my favorite parts of altering shoes with paint).  She thought a Day of the Dead sugar skull theme would be a good muse for tons of color.  I took one shoe and she took the other so I could walk her through the process.

She chose Pearlescent Magenta, Citrine, Pearlescent Blue, Pearlescent Violet, Bright Gold, and Pearlescent Turquoise as her pallete.

We started by prepping the shoe (which is faux leather) by rubbing it with a cotton ball dampened with plain acetone. Then we painted a base coat of Pearlescent Magenta on the upper portion of the shoe using a fan brush.  Two coats were needed to cover evenly. Next we painted the lower portion with  Bright Gold (2 coats again) as a base.

Beth had seen my blog about the shoes I did for the wonderful Vicki Leon and wanted that speckled look, so we broke out a natural sea sponge to apply the rest of the paint colors. On the upper portion of the shoe, over the Pealescent Magenta, we sponged Pearlescent Blue, then Pearlescent Violet. (It's best to let each color dry before applying the next, but it dries really quickly.) Onto the Bright Gold base on the lower part of the shoe, we sponged Citrine, Pearlescent Turquoise, then Pearlescent Violet, in that order. 

Beth created beautiful bows with some purple iridescent wired ribbon that we found at Lina G's trim store in Morro Bay. She added a bone skull bead (picked up at Beads by the Bay) to each one. Luckily, Beth knows how to handle a leather needle and swiftly stiched the ribbon and skull onto the elastic strap at the back of the shoe, using some Fireline as her thread.

As the final touch, she asked me to use a toothpick and paint a sugar skull design with Neopaque Black, Pearlescent Turquoise, Pearlescent White, Citrine, and Pearlescent Magenta. 

And damn they looked good!!  A whole new shoe! 

Now Beth says she can use her new-found skills to open a Sassy Feet franchise in Illinois, haha.  Or maybe she's serious. Sassy Feet! goes national?  AWESOME!

I Am Accessory, Hear Me ROAR!

Margot and I have covered a lot of miles since the inception of Sassy Feet! (She much more than I) traveling to various cities around California teaching classes and peddling our craft.  This time last year we were gearing up for a local craft show at the San Luis Obispo Mission Plaza, hosted by the Women's Community Center of SLO County, called Day With Creative Women, and we were dutifully crafting a selection of embellished purses to sell in our booth.  Creative Women is an event where female crafters, artists, and vendors get together in one spot to showcase and sell their wares.

During our pre-show creative madness, Margot had a large purse selection set out so we could choose which caught our fancy and let loose designing them.  Amongst them sat a cute, purple, wallet-like clutch with a heavy brass ring. I liked the way it had these diagonal stitches that resembled sun rays.  The fact that it was already purple, and in really good shape, made me sigh with a bit of relief because I could choose not to paint the whole purse first.

I decided to use ol' reliably-fabulous color-blocking, but with a twist - animal print!  I used Lumiere's brass to paint the inside of the two diagonally stitched sections.  After the brassy coat dried, I used a thin script brush (The smallest in our brush kit)  and Neopaque black to paint "tiger stripes" diagonally the other direction. The final touches were to clamp on a dichroic glass embellishment using a small dollop of E6000 to adhere it and brush on a coat of Future Floor Wax to seal the painted pattern. Simple, yet effective!

A couple DIY Tips When using E6000:
- Keep the embellishment clamped a full 24 hours to let the epoxy setup.
- Don't try to apply the epoxy directly to your item.  The tube's opening is not fine-work friendly and it will get all over everything.  Instead, drop your dollop onto something else, like scrap paper, paper plate, or silicone craft mat (if you have one), and use a toothpick to apply the epoxy.

Magnetic Attraction

Most people assume that I got into this DIY shoe-design thing because I've always been a shoe person. You know, someone who loves shoes, owns tons of them, follows the designers, etc. That's not actually true.

I like shoes, but what I really love is discovering new things and telling other people about them. When I first discovered a brand of paint that would adhere to leather (Lumiere), I spent the next couple of years teaching myself what one could (and couldn't) do to shoes by way of painting, embellishing, and even changing their basic structure (like adding or removing ankle straps). Then I started teaching others. And that's been a huge pleasure for me.

One of the reasons I enjoy teaching so much is that I LOVE IT when my students do things I've never thought of, or come up with designs or color combinations that never crossed my mind. It doesn't make me feel stupid or envious or backward. It makes me feel proud!

On that note, I want to share with you some shoes -- and the process of how they were created -- that were done by Deb Cashatt, who took my class at the American Sewing Guild group in Gold Country (just west of Sacramento).

Deb Cashatt and Kris Sazaki's quilt "Just(ice) in Time?"
which is included in Lark Books' recently published 500 Art Quilts.

Deb is half of the zany pair who call themselves "Pixeladies." She and Kris Sazaki have a wonderful business turning photos, images, and texts into quilts, scarves, yardage, and other works of fabric art for their customers. Deb did several projects during the day-long class she attended, including getting started on the shoes I'm going to tell you about here.

She began by painting a pair of plain pumps Crimson, then she discussed with me how to glue on miniature magnetic words around the top edge of the shoe (also called "the collar"). I told her that if she just glued the magnets straight onto the leather, they would pop off when the shoe bent as she walked.

Deb thought this over. First, she said, "I was going to glue them to a strip of leather, but it didn't lie flat around the curve of the uppers." 

Then she came up with an idea that worked. She cut a piece of black elastic long enough to go around the collar. She carefully placed her ultra-tiny Magnetic Poetry words onto the elastic and glued them temporarily in place.  Then she ran the elastic, words and all, through her sewing machine, using a zig-zag stitch and clear thread. 

When Deb wrote to tell me about the solution she'd come up with, I asked if the zig zag was set to stitch over the magnetic words or through them. Deb wrote back, "The machine went right through the words. It did leave holes, but I consider that a design element!"

Her final step was to glue the elastic strip to the shoe, using wooden clothes pins to hold the elastic in place until the glue dried.

I love how these turned out! Thank you, Deb, for sharing your creative journey -- and sending along these great photos.

P.S. Deb's shoes bring to mind some boots that Destiny did when we first started collaborating. She too wanted to use Magnetic Poetry words as embellishments. We decided to puncture each one with an awl, thread a split ring into it, then attach the split ring to some chain she was using on the boot.

Take a look -- and join me in shouting, "HURRAH FOR CREATIVE WOMEN!!"