Sassy Feet! blog

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?!

Quick Makeover for Plain Pink Sandals

I'm not really the pink sandals type, but when I saw these in a Paris shoe store on the rue de Rivoli for only $20 . . . well, I had to have them. After all, I was on my honeymoon! This was back 2004 and I think I've worn them once. As I said, I'm not a pink sandal type.

But on Thursday night, I was putting together an outfit to wear at my wearable art group's fashion show. I had everything I needed -- pale gray silk top and pants, silk scarf in a William Morris design, necklace and earrings . . . and no shoes! Uh-oh. Destiny and I have taught this talented group several classes on painting shoes and bags, so I HAD to have cool shoes.

Good thing I work well on deadline! I combed my closet for something I could paint and rediscovered these pink sandals. My next stop was my embellishment stash. I was looking for something delicate enough to work with the patterns on the scarf. I came across a pair of embellishments I had made for shoes then turned into pendants. Time to turn them back into shoe decorations!

Then I got out my Lumiere paints. I mixed Citrine and Metallic Olive and sponged it on the wedge using a corner of a George Foreman grill sponge. If you're not familiar with this sponging technique, check out this post. At the bottom you'll find tips and a photo that will introduce you to this fabulous shoe painting tool!

When I was dry, I got out Lumiere's Pearl Magenta and sponged a little of that over the green sponging. Using two or three layers of sponging gives you the best effect. Here's the wedge looked like afterwards.

Next I looked at the sandal straps and decided to sponge some of them with my green paint mixture and some with the Pearl Magenta, which was slightly darker than the original pink.

The tiny points on the Foreman sponge make much tinier "dots" than a sea sponge can. Also, they stay nice and stiff the whole time you are painting.

Then it was time to position and stitch on the embellishments using Fireline beading thread and a leather needle.

I decided to position the roses with filigree background off to the side of the sandals to increase their interest.

I also dabbed some of the Lumiere Pearl magenta onto the green of the roses to tie it in with the colors on the sandals.

I finished these in about two hours, and the longest part was stitching on the embellishments. Here they are with the scarf they were planned to complement. I wore them 36 hours later at the fashion show and was relieved I had something to show off when people asked, "What shoes do you have on this time?"

Hurrah for shoe paint!

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!

 

Delicate Sandals of . . . Barbed Wire!

 

I love shoe designs that are a little bit in your face. So when I saw these leather "barbed wire" Milo sandals by Gio Diev last summer, I was intrigued. Then serendipity took me to Fire Mountain Gems, a jewelry-supply site, and I found they were selling barbed-wire-design leather cord.  It was more than I could do not to order some!

I immediately stared searching through our shoe stash for just the right sandals, with straps I could replace with the "barbed wire." I found a pair with genuine cork wedges and manmade leather straps. 

The key to swapping out the straps on sandals like this is to use the existing straps to anchor the new ones. First I MEASURED the existing straps. (Dont' forget this part!). Then I cut off the ankle strap and two toe straps, leaving a scant inch anchored into the wedge. I prepped and painted the remaining straps and the little stubs with Neopaque Black (since the leather barbed wire was black).

Before we go any further, I want to apologize for not taking work-in-progress pictures. But I do have "after" shots and closeups to show you.

The next step was to fold each little stub in half and stich it closed, leaving a loop through which I could thread the barbed wire. (Don't just glue these loops -- I have tried that in the past and they invariably pop open after a certain amount of stress. Not. Good.) I used a leather needle and Fireline beading thread to do the stitching.

Once the loops were secure, I measured out the necessary lengths of barbed wire cord for the toe straps, added an inch to each one (allowing for a half inch extra on each end to fold into connecting loops), and cut my new straps. I threaded one end of each barbed wire cord through a folded stub, then used fairly hefty silver jewelry wire to TIGHTLY wrap the end to the new strap and hold everything closed.

Now, I am NOT a beader or jewelry maker, so if I can do this, so can you. Look at the pictures and you'll see what I did. (The ends of the wire are bent back upon themselves and squashed flat with needlenose pliers so they won't poke the foot.) All this was actually much easier to do than to describe!

For cutting new ankle straps, I added the extra inch to each strap, then a generous amount extra so the ends could be crossed around the ankle several times and tied. (The original straps had buckles, but the "barbs" on the new straps wouldn't allow for that.)

Once I had all the new straps in place, Destiny and took a look and said, "What ELSE can we do??" We are never satisfied with just a little change, barbed wire or not. I recalled having some black chain maille left over from a previous project, so I got that out and headed off to the hardware store for black brads I could use to nail the maille to the wedge. I did so, cutting raggedy edges in it with my metal shears.  

Of course, even that wasn't enough for Destiny and me. We added little brass and black safety pins and a few silver charms to dangle from the chain maille.  Only then we were satisfied!

And this concludes tonight's episode of "Art Girlz Adventures in the DIY Shoe Studio" with Destiny and Margot. Hope you've enjoyed it!

P.S. Our next blog will feature THREE articles we have just had published in Altered Couture magazine.

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.

Spring Sandal Round-Up

 

Since the warm weather is teasing us to bare our toes, I thought I'd give you a tour of the blogs we've done on sandals over the years. Sandals are wonderfully easy to customize and upcycle, whether you are painting, stitching on a few flowers or adding more unusual embellishments. If you click on the link in any description below, it will take you to the original blog with its how-to instructions.

Ato the top of this page are the results of a challenge Destiny and I set ourselves to transform a pair of plain gladiator sandals. Destiny did the black sandal on the left, called Gilded Greek Goddess. I did the color blocked one on the right, called Shades of Turquoise.

These little slides got a major makeover that involved using the shape of my fan brush in two different ways. It also used one of our original embellishments. Check out Taste of the Tropics.

These wedge sandals by Destiny won a place in a juried wearable art show at the airport in Los Angeles. They are called Practically Paisley, and in her blog about them she tells how to paint those tiny lines.

These were the first shoes I painted. They started out as pale pink faux suede with tan-colored footbeds. The little leaves on them were stenciled and then touched up with a tiny paintbrush. I call themn Gypsy Summer -- and they were also the first shoes of mine accepted into Altered Couture magazine. 

At the other end of the design spectrum are these strappy wedge sandals. All I did to them was stitch ribbon rose trim to the ankle straps and across the toe, then hang a swag of the trim along the side. These may look confusing to the eye, but they look GREAT on the foot! 

Here's a variation on the theme above: black sandals with bright flowers. These rose-bedecked satin heels were also in Altered Couture. Called Carmen Miranda Sandals, they feature surprisingly EASY TO MAKE rolled roses using wired ombre ribbon. 

Here's another pair of sandals that we made over without using paint. I stamped these using alcohol ink stamp pads and little number and letter stamps. 

We used the lines of the shoe to guide our design for these dramatically improved sandals, worn by our friend Judi at her outdoor wedding.

These formerly nautical-themed wedge sandals got the glitter treatment, plus some unusual red snap tape around the sole. I also painted the insole black.

Apparently Mephisto sandals cost a fortune, but I found these in a local shoe store's bargain bin for $20. They were red, but since I already had red sandals, they needed a paint job. Destiny came up with the formula for this beautiful color.

Last of all, these two-tone sandals -- a snap to make! - alternated their original black with a gold glitter to go with a chiffon top I'd bought. 

So grab a pair of your old sandals and see what your beautiful brain comes up with. Spring is a time for new ideas and great new adventures!

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.

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!

Every Picture Tells a Story

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Questions? Ask me in the Comments!

Clip, Two, Three, Bore

When we are out and about we get a lot of questions about different ways to adhere embellishments. We usually go through the lists of what's supposed to stick to what and then recommend a permanent solution. Either stitches or glue. But, eventually we get THE question. "What about shoe clips?"

Margot and I usually wince at the question and stick to our tried and true methods. But, we decided we needed to revisit this issue and test it properly. Margot rummaged through our stash and found some embellishments she created. The embellishments are stacks, from bottom: carved black coat buttons, hand-tinted (red) brass buttons, cast brass stars, and crystal beads. We decided they would make the perfect shoe clip test.

She attached the shoe clips to the back using E6000. After they dried (24 hours), we tried them out on my well-loved pair of Champion flats.

The plan was to wear them a week and report back. I didnt even make it the rest of the night! Talk about itchy, flimsy weirdness! This was not a sucess for us. They rattled, and felt like they were going to pop off at any moment. Plus, I had to keep readjusting them because they move as you do. I'm really thankful we never recommended them to anyone.

No experiment is a true failure, as they give us data and knowledge regardless the results. In the humorously true words of Thomas Edison, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

Tips of the Trade: Fine-Line Gluing

Last Sunday I took a break from writing about painting shoes and showed you several of the ways I'd simply embellished some yummy heels I'd scored at the Steve Madden site back when I fancied myself  still vamp-y. One of those pairs of heels was a beautiful dark chocolate suede, and I promised that I'd tell you how I made the coiled-chain embellishment I put on the toes.

The easiest way to cut all but the flimsiest chain is to use real metal shears

The chain is called flat snake chain, it's tarnished (okay by me) brass, measures 4.0mm wide, and is fabulously flexible, just like...uh...a snake.  I found a couple long pieces of it several years ago at Kit Kraft in Studio City, a suburb of Los Angeles, and was entranced by how supple it was. Since then, though, it's been sitting in my box of chains waiting for me to figure out how to attach it to a shoe.

Usually I recommend stitching chain to shoes, but there are no holes in snake chain. So I knew I would have to glue it. That meant two things: First, I would have to attach it to an area of the shoe that wouldn't need to bend a lot; and second, I would have to figure out how to get glue on the chain and NOT on the shoe. The latter was going to be a REAL challenge for me. 

That's because I'm just not tidy. (My mother used to say, when referring to the disatrously messy state of my room, "Margot isn't sloppy, she's just very very busy....") So when I glue stuff, I get glue ALL OVER THE PLACE. Which is why this cool chain had sat in a box for four or five years. However, I AM ingenious. So I decided to try transferring some of the glue I wanted to use (E6000) into a plastic syringe so I could squeeze out a tiny line onto the back of the chain as I coiled it in place. 

Lo and behold, it worked!! I started from the bottom, made a big circle and worked my way up, creating a sort of bee hive shape. (I was making this up as I went along. If you haven't discovered yet, sassifying your shoes requires you to be willing to take risks.)  When I got to the top, I just lapped the tail down to the bottom coil and around a bit more.

Then I cut it off. I did the same thing with the second shoe and although it didn't come out identical, it did quite well. The only caveat is, you can't reuse the syringe. (But they are pretty cheap to buy.)

I use a similar trick when I'm applying glue to piping or other trim. It SAVES my hands when I have a long line of glue to apply and it helps me from doing a messy job. We sell little glue applicator bottles like this in our online store for the outrageous price of 89 cents each. I keep one filled with Fabri-Tac which I use to glue fabric trim to unpainted leather) and the other filled with The Ultimate (for gluing fabric trim to painted leather or manmade leather).

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! 

Our Fab Fans Are at It Again

Every so often Margot and I get emails from Sassy Feet fans all over the world with pictures of their imaginative creations. This, personally, is one of my favorite things about being a part of the Sassy Feet team. Wild color combinations, unexpected embellishments, unique ingenuity. There's so much creativity and fearlessness out there! It's really refreshing and inspiring. I'm going to share with you some of our most recent fan-shions.

Hannah sent us before and after pictures of her well-loved cowboy boots with the following email:

Your website was a great way for me to figure out how to fix up my old cowboy boots. I had worn them to death and my mom had gotten them resoled for me. Before the resole, I hadn't realized how cracked and scarred they were. Afterwards, I knew I needed to do something to make them wearable again. Your site gave me the information necessary to bring them back. Thank you.    Hannah

Hannah said she used Pewter, Pearl Turquoise, and Halo Blue Gold. She left the stitching lines in the original brown. What an amazing transformation! They look like a completely new pair of shoes. And, the colors are wonderful together.

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Cowboy boots, part two. Susan used Bright Gold, Pearl Emerald, and Pearl Blue for these fab numbers.

I attended your shoe painting class at Costume College last year and have been painting shoes ever since. Now I want to repaint a pair that I painted previously. They have leather uppers, so I had prepped them with alcohol, but now that they have been painted what should I use?

BTW, I painted some western boots for a show called Cowgirls that was produced at our local community theater. See attached. Unfortunately I did not get them photographed until AFTER the show. You can see they were well-worn!

Thanks for your help, Susan

I personally think they look amazing even after all the performances. This really goes to show you how well the paint sticks! And, to answer Susan's question: YES! You can paint over a color if you change your mind. No problem at all. Just prep the surface by very lightly wiping with rubbing alcohol to remove any dirt or oils.

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These viridian beauties come to us from costumer Cherries Jubilee of Cherries' Orchard. She is no stranger to having her inspired visions grace our fan features. She already knew we would want to use them! How could we not?

Hi Margot,

These are a recently completed commission called The Absinthe Fairy for a young lady attending Fairy Con in January.  Of course you may use them if you wish.  -- Cherries Jubilee

Metallic Olive is a favorite, and you can see why! She smartly attached that line of crystals to parts of the shoes that DON'T flex. This ensures they won't pop off. The Neopaque Black trim finishes it nicely.

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Last today, but certainly not least, these lively sandals sent to us by Leanne who "inherited" the shoes from her late mom (sorry, no before picture!). She said she was inspired to re-do them because they are one of those "comfort brands" beloved of older ladies, and she wanted to make them sing -- and maybe dance!

Each embellishment is made of a pipe cleaner wrapped with ribbon, then brushed with Paverpol and twisted into shape until it hardened. (Paverpol is a product you can apply to fabric and it will harden into a sculpture-like material.) She then glued the pipe cleaner to to a small scrap of limed-colored felt, glued down the googly eye in the center and then glued the whole thing to the shoe using The Ultimate. 

Why shouldn't we make things uniquely our own? I'll follow the wise words of "the countess of fashion," Lynn Dell: "My philosophy is: Fashion says, 'Me too,' while style says, 'only me.' "

A Painted and Embellished Journal

This embossed leather journal came to me by way of my favorite journaler, who is so busy making her own art journals, she no longer needs any of the readymade kind. I grabbed it -- not because I am much of a journaler, but because it was made of LEATHER and had wonderful texture: It was stamped with a pattern to look like alligator or crocodile (I can never tell them apart).

I decided to do color blocking in diagonal lines and picked several colors of Lumiere (from upper right to lower left): Metallic Bronze, Pearlescent Magenta, Halo Violet Gold, Burgundy and Metallic Rust.

Frankly, it looked terrible! I've included a photo here as testimony to the fact that we all have "great ideas" that flop! The only thing that matters is what we do next.

My next step was to remove some of the Pearlescent Magenta paint -- and here's the secret to doing that. Brush on a thick coat of Glitter It glaze -- the base only, without the glitter. Let it sit a minute or so while It softens the dried Lumiere. Then you can wipe most of it away with a rough rag. 

In this case, the magenta wouldn't come all the way off because it clung to the texture of the leather -- and then I decided to paint a darker color over it anyway. But keep that tip in the back of your mind if you ever need to "erase" any Lumiere. (If you have some Glitter It glaze, just let it sit for a while until the glitter settles and you can skim some of the white-looking base off the top of the bottle. Or you can buy a bottle of the base only, no glitter.)

Now it was time to change the color palette! I kept the Metallic Bronze in the upper right corner, painted over the entire middle section with Burgundy, and painted the lower left corner in Metallic Olive. 

I used masking tape to paint crisp, straight lines that continued from the front cover to the back. Once that was done, it was time to add some visual texture back in.

I did this by brushing on small amounts of Neopaque Black then rubbing most of it off with a rag before it had a chance to dry. This changed the colors to darker shades of themselves and highlighted the texture of the "scales."

I liked the result pretty well, but it seemed to me that the upper right corner of the front cover needed... something! I dug through my stash and found a couple of raw brass filigrees I'd gotten awhile back from B'sue Boutiques, a great online resource for unusual metal embellishments.

Raw brass, besides being bright yellow, will darken over time, so I decided to tint the metal using StazOn stamping inks. 

I applied this alcohol-based ink from the stamp pad (you can also use a re-inker bottle, which is a better buy) with a cotton swab. I tinted one filigree in a shade called Mustard and the other Olive Green. Then I dabbed the edges and very center of each with a very little Jet Black. 

(I keep a little collection of different colors of StazOn on hand for tinting metal embellishments, buckles, buttons, even cheap earrings. Once it's fully dry -- a day or so -- it's permanent. And if you keep the stamp pad or bottle tightly closed, it will last for years. I think I bought that Olive Green stamp pad in 2007!)

I stitched the two filigrees onto the journal cover using a leather needle, smoke-colored FireLine and a small square bead apiece to serve as an anchor atop the filigree. 

Whew. This was a bit of an odyssey, but I had fun (except for that little detour with the clashing magenta...). I like the results, and I may give this custom journal to another favorite journaler of mine, Susan Borkin, who has written an impassioned book about using journaling to discover your true self.

Me, my true self has something to do with color, paint and leather! What about yours?

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. 

Power to the (small) People!

I was remembering the other day how back in the 1990s when I was in therapy to deal with the aftereffects of being abused as a child, I used to do art as part of my healing process. I made stuff out of clay (nothing you could recognize!), drew with oil pastels (ditto), and played with colored pens and rubber stamps. Recently, a friend suggested I might want to do some more playing -- and I thought of using children's shoes as my canvas.

It occurred to me that it would be really fun to make a pair of little girl's shoes that expressed what I could not express when I was a child. Below are the two different "art-therapy" shoes I created. I had a blast doing them!

These are called "Don't Step on Me!" They use screw-in cone-shaped spikes to make their point (pun intended).

These are tiny little stomper boots called "I said NO!" They are painted with Sharpie poster paint pens, which work pretty well on leather and manmade leather, though if you put them on too thick they tend to crack.  I added the chain at the last minute. I like how it breaks up all the NO's. It also looks sorta tough, which I also like.

I highly recommend hitting your nearest thrift store for children's shoes and -- whether you choose to express old feelings that didn't get aired at the time or you just want to create something wonderful and unusual -- get out your paints and your embellishment stash!

P.S. Destiny and I decided that she is going to take the other shoe in each of these pairs and do something exactly opposite -- sweet, girly, delicate? I'm not sure what, but we'll find out when she blogs about them. 

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.

Going All Out for New Year's Eve

I know that isn't the most fascinating shoe you've seen all year, but hey, you try to find a New Year's greeting that's no longer under copyright AND has a shoe in it!

Today, besides wishing you a richly creative and interesting year to come, I want to show you a shoe that one of our fans embellished to wear on New Year's Eve.

Her inspiration was this Christian Louboutin hidden-platform heel.  It is covered with crystals, triangular spikes and taller cone spikes. Plus it has the Louboutin signature red sole and underside. It is called Highness and it costs ... **trumpet roll** ... $3,995!

Heather wrote to us in early December for tips on recreating this design, and I want to share with you our dialogue and her results.

Dear Margot,

I have never embellished shoes before.  I wear a size 13 so it is hard to find fabulous shoes in my size.  That being said, I purchased some Payless shoes made of faux suede. 

I also bought flatback rhinestones and metal studs on ebay to glue onto the shoes to create my own version of the Louboutin shoe in the top picture.  Those shoes cost nearly $4000 and my version will cost a total of $70. 

What is the strongest glue I can use to apply all of the stones and studs that won't melt the fabric and will stay on strong?  Your advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Hi, Heather,

What a great project!  You can glue flatback rhinestones to faux leather (which is actually fabric) using Gem-Tac  glue.  As to the spikes, that's a whole 'nother challenge. You might try a glue gun, which I don't usually recommend for gluing stuff onto shoes because it's not flexible when it dries. But since the bottom of the spikes aren't flexible either, it shouldn't matter.

Whatever glue you decide on for the spikes, test it first with a single spike and a similar (polyester) fabric. Let it dry completely then try to pull off the spike.

Happy embellishing!
Margot

Last week Heather emailed me this picture. Wow! 

Dear Margot,

This is the final shoe. I have been gluing on rhinestones for countless hours but they are turning out beautifully! I used G S Hypo Cement on the smaller stones and a glue gun on the larger studs and spikes. I thought you would like to see!

I am going to a masquerade with a Mardi Gras theme on New Year's Eve.  That will be where I showcase them. I have a sexy metal laser-cut mask embellished with rhinestones, a gorgeous textured shimmery black dress and fishnets. 

Heather

I got a kick out of noticing that Heather had painted the undersides of her Louboutin "dream shoes," as she called them, in that startling Louboutin red. Then, the other day I came across a product on the Internet called Walk on Red that is made for coating the bottoms of your shoes red! It's made by Angelus, which makes excellent leather paint, so it's probably a good product. 

Now, I have to mention that Christian Louboutin recently won a lawsuit preventing other manufacturers from making and marketing shoes with red soles, so I don't recommend going into production with this stuff. But one or two pairs of Louboutin-lookalikes, just for special occasions? I'd risk it!

P.S., dated January 1 -- I just got an email from Heather, who discovered a glitch in her process:

Dear Margot,

FYI, the glue gun felt sturdy, but, the spikes are coming off already. If I had to do it again I would have found a way to screw them into a sturdy ribbon or strip that could be glued onto the shoe and then rhinestoned over that so that they would stay.

Normally the manufacturer would have screwed the studs onto the leather upper, but, since I had to improvise I should have known this would happen. I will most likely fill in the lost stud zones with rhinestones because they stay on perfect!  I am getting lots of compliments though ;)

Hi, Heather,

What a good idea to screw the studs onto something you can glue to the outside of the shoe!  (I did just see a tutorial online where a young woman takes a hand drill and drills holes into her shoe so she canuse screw-in spikes.... If you did that, you could always cushion the flat screw heads on the inside by gluing suede or faux suede over them.)

You know, sometimes "mistakes" make us think of new solutions, ones that turn out even better than the original idea. 

 

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. 

Our Zipper Magic in Altered Couture

The Nov-Dec-Jan 2013 issue of Altered Couture magazine has just come out -- with an article I did on using new or vintage zippers to make zipper spirals or ruffles to embellish your shoes. I have added the article to our As Seen In...  media page on the sassyfeet.com website. If you click on the little picture of it, you will open a pdf so you can read the article and learn how easy it is to make zipper ruffles. 

This shoe was sponged with four colors of gold and orange, then embellished with a ruffled orange zipper that was itself lightly sponged with crimson paint

Here's the other half of that orange zipper, painted with black dots on both sides, ruffled, and transformed into a very cool necklace

*          *          *

BY THE WAY, in case you haven't noticed, the little counter in the upper left-hand corner of this page is SHOUTING OUT the news that our blog has now had more than 100,000 visitors!!!!! (Not that we're excited or anything.) Destiny and I thank you ALL for your continuing interest and support!

NEW! We've Opened an Etsy Store!

So... several years ago Destiny and I started making embellishments for shoes and bags. These were in the nature of button stacks that not only used new and vintage buttons, but included charms, stampings, beads, crystals, vintage bits and bobs, washers, anything that caught our eye. 

Glittered washer, faux hematite donut and an Italian button

We took them to classes and folks purchased them to use on their shoes. We blogged about them, telling our readers how to make their own. Then we added them to our onine store. Where they just sat. And sat. And sat. Somehow, you had to see these in person to see how cool they would look on shoes or bags. 

Then we started "borrowing" some of them to wear ourselves -- as pendants. They looked great! Finally we figured out what the universe was trying to tell us. Sell them AS pendants! So today we opened an etsy store with two artist friends called 4ArtGirlz. 

 

Both of these pendants use vintage watch faces as a major design element.

It's got our "two of a kind" pendants plus a few things -- more to come! -- from our fellow Art Girlz. All the pendants are strung on a generous length of hand-dyed silk cord in complementary and/or contrasting colors. You shorten the cord to whatever length you want.

We'll be adding a lot more pendants in the next couple of weeks, so check out 4ArtGirlz for design ideas if you've already finished your holiday shopping (as if!).

As an "Opening Month" special for our Sassy Feet & Glitter Sweatshop fans, we'll give you 15 percent off any pendant -- just use the coupon code SASSY. This offer is good untl Dec. 15, so live it up! You can tell people you KNOW the artisans.

Wonderful Creations from ETA-California

Pam patiently painting her huaraches

Margot and Destiny here, with apologies for being offline for longer than usual. We spent the weekend before last at the Education in the Textile Arts (ETA) Conference in Irvine, CA, and came home beat!

Pam painted the woven leather strips in her huaraches in multiple colors, using an imaginative and non-repeating pattern

Between Friday night and Sunday late afternoon we ran a booth in their expo hall, did a shoe-painting demo and a slide show, taught a class in painting and embellishing shoes, did a simliar class about doing the same to handbags, and held a Saturday night Painting Party for folks who wanted to learn how to paint, sponge and/or stencil their t-shirts. 

We had a blast, but as you can imagine, it took a lot out of us. Now the energy is flowing again and we want to share some photos of the work our students did. They were a smart, lively and creative bunch and as usual, we learned almost as much as we taught.

The pictures you'll see in this post are ones Destiny took of the shoe-painting class, and they include a handbag getting a new color scheme (we always tell folks they are welcome to bring a bag instead of a pair of shoes).

We are saving the photos from our Paint Party for another day -- wouldn't want to overwhelm you!

Karen combines Lumeiere's Pewter with a slightly muted version of Pearlescent Turquoise for a really elegant look

Cathy eventually ended up with bright circles of color all over her black boots

Melissa meticulously hand-painted daisies on a pair of red canvas sneakers

At left, Leighann gives her bag a makeover. Right, a pair of sandals done by Diane. Both of these projects use color blocking to create their effects.

The dance of opposites: At left, Rayna paints her sneakers with the color and patterns of the Flying Glove from the Beatles movie "Yellow Submarine," while at right Nancy uses Lumiere's Crimson to color a pair of peeptoe flats. When the paint was dry, she stitched on a spiral-gathered red zipper from our private stash.

Elaine wanted leopard-print flats, so Destiny showed her how to paint leopard spots. After these were done, Elaine painted the leather ruffle around the opening of the shoe in a nice contrasting black.

Our apologies to those of you who didn't get your shoes in this post -- it wasn't because they weren't wonderful, just that not all the photos came out well. 

Erin's Mixed-Media Loafers

These loafers -- well-loved but a bit dull -- started out their second life when they were purchased in a thrift store for $5 by my favorite mixed-media artist, Erin Perry. They were plain tanned leather with that natural unfinished-leather look, and very, very comfortable -- essential for an artist who leads a double life as a librarian!

With Erin's consultation, we came up with a design that would use multiple-color sponging and quirky embellishments. I started by prepping the surface, then brushing on a coat of Lumiere's Halo Violet Gold using a nice soft fan brush.

Next I used a sea sponge to sponge on two Lumiere colors, Super Copper and Metallic Bronze. (To learn how to sea-sponge, see this post.) Sea sponging gives you a soft dappled effect. If you click on this picture to enlarge it, you can see how the subtle undercoat of Violet Gold shows through a little and gives the pattern more depth.

Erin liked the effect, but wanted something with a little more zip! So I used a technique we developed when painting ourleather couch (!), sponging with a George Forman synthetic sponge.

Here's a closeup. I used Neopaque Black for high contrast and got a nice speckled effect using the Foreman sponge. This type of sponge has little points that stay crisp no matter how much paint you get on them. For tips on using this kind of sponge, see the notes at the bottom of this post.

The next step was creating suitablly artistic embellishments for these formerly boring loafers! I started with a base of square, wavy-cut stone beads. I topped these with bronze disks that I'd colored with Staz-On ink, applied with cotton swabs. (Staz-On is permanent on metal once it fully dries.) Next came little enamel number plates, beloved of mixed-media artists. They have little holes on the sides so they can be attached to a page or collage with brads, so I covered those holes with black flatback crystals. The whole thing was glued together with E6000.

I also glued a dome back button converter on the back of the embellishment so I'd have little loops to use when attaching the whole thing to the loafers. I did that by stitching them on with Fireline and a nice strong, triangular-tipped leather needle.

Whew, I thought, and TA-DA! Finished!! My beloved mixed-media artist, however, is also into assemblage (adding 3-D stuff to mixed-media collage), so she thought the shoes needed something more. The answer was CHAIN.

She dug around in my chain stash and found a couple of short pieces of embossed copper chain, then convinced me to use E6000 to glue them onto her loafers. I agreed -- rather reluctantly, because I thought the chain might work its way loose when she wore the shoes and the uppers had to flex and bend with her every step. But she's worn them a fair amount now and the chain has stayed in place.

Here are the finished shoes. I guess you could call them assemblage on the hoof... as it were.  Erin's happily wearing them this weekend at a workshop in the San Juan Islands (I'M ONLY A TINY BIT JEALOUS) with HER favorite mixed-media artists, Lynne Perrella and Anne Bagby.    

Creations From Costume College

We thought you'd like a peek at some of the shoes created by the wonderfully creative souls who took our class at Costume College earlier this month.

First, though, I must confess that although we got some good shoe shots, we did not do a good job of getting people's faces or names. We're sorry! We were rather overwhelmed with doing a 3 hour class for 24 people -- all brimming with energy and ideas -- in the space of just 2 hours and 45 minutes -- including complete clean up of the room. It was like sprinting instead of jogging!

So enjoy the shoes and forgive us, especially those of you who see your wonderful work here. (Feel free to comment below and take credit for your creations!)

These transition-painted shoes were created by dabbing the color-transition area with a cosmetic wedge to blur the lines between Pearlescent Magenta, Pearlescent Violet and Pearlescent Turquoise. But the design didn't stop there!

The lively young woman doing these shoes (and wearing a darling polka dot apron) added contrasting polka dots!

These shoes were done by someone who said she wouldn't be able to "do" the class well, that she wasn't at all creative.... Hah! This photo doesn't do the colors she chose justice, they are much warmer and gleaming. We think she did a great job!

Several of the students chose to do color blocking, where different areas of the shoe are painted in different colors. I love the colors she chose for this shoe -- the browns are actually dappled in slightly different shades -- you can see the cosmetic wedge she used to create this effect in the background.

We thought these shoes turned out really well. They were black to start with and were simply painted with tiny triangles in a multitude of colors and clustered in different areas of the shoes and straps. "How did she get those triangles so perfect?" someone asked. The answer is, they aren't perfect, not if you look really close. But you DON'T look closely at shoes -- you see them from at least four feet away -- and from even a little distance, they look pretty darn precise!

Someone brought a billfold type wallet to paint -- she used multiple colors and a cosmetic wedge.

Rayna, who came with her grown son, Riley, chose to work on a handbag. It started out black, and was  painted Crimson on the front and back. Then it was sea-sponged on the sides and had fabric roses and velvet leaves glued on. Parts of the bag were left solid black for contrast.

I especially liked working with the woman who did this bag because when I suggested she add purple to her color mix, she tried it, didn't like it, and went back to doing what she wanted to! Never take a suggestions just because the teacher makes it. Do what feels right to you, ESPECIALLY when it comes to color!  (By the way, Riley painted a pair of sneakers in several colors -- different on each shoe. They turned out great!)

Now I'm going to hope that the folks who did these bags and shoes will comment and take credit. You can also send me photos of the pieces that didn't get into this blog and I'll post them next time! You know who you are....

2155: A Space Accessory

In our last installment (for now) of Costume College creations, Margot and I bring you shoes from the future!  We wanted to tackle the sci-fi genre in one of our creations, and that made me think of the 1960's -- the golden age of futuristic, sci-fi "B movies" -- with their metallic jump suits and boots, and 2155: A Space Accessory (a shoe/bag combo) was born!

First, I prepped both the boot and the bag for painting. I decided to start by painting them an all-over silver, then see what other ideas that stirred up. I used Lumiere's Metallic Silver. Since the boot was darker, it took three coats, but the bag only required two.

Next I decided that "in the future" it was completely acceptable to mix metallics, so got out a bottle of Sunset Gold. On the boot I used two coats of Sunset Gold on the cuff and down the back. The purse received two coats down both sides and across the bottom.

I thought the boot and the bag should have matching (a 1960's thing) embellishments, so I dug through our mighty stash and found giant oversize shell buttons, rectangular metal beads faceted like gems, and Swarovski crystal moon-shaped beads. 

Margot kindly stiched the shell buttons in place on the boots and bag using Fireline and a leather needle. Then she glued each of the metal gems to the top center of each of the buttons with E6000. Then she stitched one of the Swarovski crystal moons to the lower center of each boot, and one to the top center of the bag.

The result was an out-of-this-world pair of accessories... A blast from the past -- well, future.

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!

Stamp on It!

There's one craft technique we haven't written about before and that's rubber stamping on shoes. It's a little tricky since shoes don't present a flat, hard surface like paper does, but with a little care and the right inks, the results can be very cool!

The key is to use the right kind of ink, the kind that will work on leather. You want to use alcohol inks, either StazOn or Ranger's Adirondack Alcohol Ink (both are easily found online and in crafts stores). They come in LOTS of colors and you can use them to tint metal, too. (I often use these inks to add a vintage patina or "paint" brass stampings, as I did on the heart shown here. In this case, I used a Q-Tip to apply the color. Once the ink is dry on the metal, it's permanent.)

After the ink, the next consideration is which rubber stamps to use. You won't be able to get as fine and crisp an image as you can on paper, but if you choose a stamp with somewhat less detail, you'll do fine. For my project, I chose alphabet and number stamps.

Next think about the kind of shoes you want to stamp on. You will need to be able to reach inside them and provide a firm "backing" so that when you press the stamp into the leather, the leather won't give. You can use your fingers to provide this backing or you can slide a small square of wood (or something similar) inside.

I had an old pair of very comfortable Dansko sandals that I thought would work. I didn't want to paint them, because I liked their natural leather color. But they were so PLAIN.... I just had to do something to them!

I started by cleaning the surface (rubbing them with a cotton ball dampened with alcohol), as I would if I were going to paint them. For my colors, I chose StazOn's Timber Brown, Olive Green and Rusty Brown (pepped up with a couple of squeezes of Adirondak's Raisin). Then I pressed the stamp into the ink pad and started stamping with abandon (which is pretty much how I do everything)!

That's when I discovered a little more finesse was needed. These particular stamps were not cut very deeply, and as a result, the edges of the stamp block picked up ink (see photo below) and transferred it to the sandals. That's what the little lines and squares are outside the numbers and letters.

I discovered that I could avoid the edges getting inked by dragging the stamp across the stamp pad instead of pressing it in. I could also use a little StazOn All-Purpose Cleaner and a Q-Tip to wipe off the corners before stamping.

I decided to stamp one sandal with letters and one with numbers. I also decided to angle some of the stamps, even do some of them upside down.

It took awhile to stamp all these little numbers and letters, but I just fired up my favorite Netflix TV show and the time passed quickly. I love the result!

I think it would be fun to try this on a handbag -- easy to reach inside it, too, to provide a firm surface for the stamps. If you try this technique, take before and after photos and send them in.

P.S.  These inks will also work on painted leather/manmade leather, as on this little Pewter-painted cross-body bag. It was my first stamping experiment, so it's a little messy, but it proves you can do it!

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.

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!

Upcycling a White Elephant... of Sorts

I've never been one for white shoes or handbags, so my friends were dumbfounded when I brought this thing home from the local thrift store. Not only was it white, it was BIG and it was embossed with fake reptile scales and it totally DIDN'T look like anything but plastic.

Ah,I LOVE a challenge! Actually, what moved me to adopt this pathetic and rather dirty specimen of manmade leather was the fact that it had all that nice texture of the reptile scales. That plus the fact that it had disintincly marked off sections. I wanted to try color blocking the different sections then bringing up the texture of the scales by rubbing black over the paint. Here are some photos of the process.

The colors I chose were Lumiere's Pearlescent Magenta, Halo Pink Gold and Pearlescent Turquoise. Both the pearlescent colors and the metallic colors in this line of paints look wonderful  when darkened with the flat black paint from the related line of paints called Neopaque. Here's what they look like painted on the faux reptile skin (AFTER I'd prepped the whole darn purse by rubbing gently with 100% acetone).

Next, I dipped a small rag in a puddle of Neopaque Black, rubbed it on each section (one at a time) and immediately rubbed some of it back off,  so the original color would not be totally obscured.

Here's a close up of the before and after showing the difference in how much more texture was "highlighted" by the addition of the black paint.

Now here's the whole purse after being rubbed with the black paint.

Now I needed an embellishment to center in the top panel. I dug around in my embarrassingly large stash and came up with a metal washer from the hardware store and a small square sample of chain maille from a batch I'd ordered several years ago. I glittered the washer and dabbed some Staz-On alcohol-based ink on the chain maille.

Then I glued a dome button converter from Fire Mountain Gems to the back of the washer using E6000 so I'd have little loops to use in stitching it to the purse.  Here's what it looks like as a whole.

I took photos of it for this blog, hung it from a hook in my studio and let it sit. Inside, I knew it wasn't quite right. It took me a month or so before I was willing to admit that the glittery, dangly embellishment was not right for the rubbed-reptile look. But what to use instead? So, as I always do when I am stuck, I asked Destiny. She started rooting around in my embellishment stash and pulled out four components.

These were,from left, an Italian silver-tone button, a copper washer from the hardware store, a vintage-look Asian coin and a 55mm resin donut from Natural Touch Beads. When she stacked them all together, they looked like this. The choice of the aqua/turquoise resin donut was perfect: It echoed the Pearlescent Turquoise paint, while the copper washer echoed the Halo Pink Gold. The bronze of the Asian coin is barely visible below the copper washer, but it made a nice rim to the copper.

I decided to ignore the fact that it took Destiny about 96 seconds to pull these components out of my stash and stack them, while it had taken me 50 times that long to design the first (and failed) embellishment...

Anyway, overlooking this flaw of hers, I glued the parts together using E6000, glued on a dome button converted to the back using the same stuff, then stitched it in place. Here's the final result.

I am finally satisified with it. It's still large, but it no longer looks like a white elephant -- or a white whale, for that matter. All it needs now is a name. Any ideas?

 

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!

A Gift for You, From Me

I came across this quote the other day and it struck me as absolutely right. It also gave me the idea for this blog post. I am going to give you the gift of contagious creativity by showing you my favorite things I created this year.

Some of these have been in this blog before, others will be posted later along with how-to instructions. For now, just enjoy seeing the projects -- and maybe do the same thing for your friends: Share the cream of your creativity and spark theirs!

A mahjong minaudiere created for an art show outside Detroit.
I made the fabric by arranging vintage mahjong cards, scanning
them and printing them on to Inkjet fabric.

Zebra print booties that I embellished for Destiny

 

A shoulder bag made by felting an old Laura Ashley sweater and using part
of a felted flower scarf (reinforced with FireLine) as the strap

 

A bootie that's been partly painted and partly fabric-collaged. It has
a fabric-covered heel, hand-dyed silk ribbon laces, and
a button-stack embellishment

 

 
Another minaudiere, this one covered in ribbon-embroidered
velvet and red suede trim. It is embellished with old-fashioned
keys, a tassel and a square glass bead.

 

Comfy black slip-ons "unzipped" to show a triangle of startling blue.
The large-gauge zipper was cut and glued in place.

 

Resin donuts (55mm) from Natural Touch Beads dabbed with various colors of Lumiere using a cosmetic wedge. Fun -- and easy -- to do and they make great shoe and handbag embellishments!

 

Last of all, here are creative projects from some of my favorite people. These are by no means their most amazing creations of 2011, however. To see others, click on the links of the names.

Erin Perry created this tiny (5"x5") copper-clad and ephemera-
embellished shadow box to display a charming resin
reproduction of a vintage shoe.

This is my Sassy Feet co-consipirator Destiny Carter displaying:
1) her new blue-streaked hair -- an art project in itself, and
  2) a beautifully dimensional beaded necklace by Debra Jurey.

That's it for today. May the new year bring you LOTS of creative satisfaction and joy! And may you share it with us by emailing photos to me at margot@sassyfeet.com.

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!!!"

Zebra Goes Urban

Sometimes I create a shoe design just for the sake of going over the top. It's good for my spirit to throw caution to the winds and come up with something that I'll never wear in this lifetime -- though maybe I will in the next!

I guess that's one of the things I enjoy so much about DIY shoe and handbag design -- it gives me a chance to let my imagination soar, invent whole new lives for the shoes and bags I play with, and envision a life where I would wear booties like these little beauties.

I bought these Steve Madden zebra-print booties a couple of years ago on sale. I knew I'd never wear them -- high heels and I aren't on speaking terms anymore -- but I couldn't resist them.

Now, hair-on hide or fur is something you can't paint. The hair would get all gummy. You could tint the white hair with transparent Pinata inks from Jacquard -- in fact, Destiny and I contemplated tinting each white stripe a different color. But then I went to a couple of re-use stores and came home with multicolored chain (formerly a belt with the word ROCK spelled out in dangling fake-crystal-covered metal letters) and big triangular chrome washers.

I played around with the chain and the washers, and decided to hang the chain in swathes from the washers, which I would anchor with a spherical silver bead.

 

The chains are held together by a large split ring underneed the triangle. This is secured to the bootie with the same ultrastrong beading thread that I used to stitch the triangle and silver bead in place.

That was all I had been planning to do to this bootie. But I am not very good at putting away my "toys" and sitting on the craft table near where I had been working on this bootie was a cellophane bag with a lavish sprig of red velvet leaves.

Well, who wouldn't be tempted to take a few of those out of the bag and hold them up to different parts of the boot to see how they''d look?

They looked fabulous (if I do say so myself....), so I glued them down using E6000. Still, it wasn't quite enough. The leaves needed some sort of focal point.

I went rooting around in my stash and found some little black iridescent-beaded appliques in the drawer labelled BLING. (Don't let anyone tell you impulse shopping is all bad -- without it, my stash would be pathetically thin!)

I glued the applique to the leaves using Fabri-Tac (my choice for gluing fabric to fabric) and the rest is zebra-bootie history.

I call this pair "Urban Zebra" and they are dedicated to Destiny, who will one day convince herself they fit and walk off into the urban sunset wearing them.

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!

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!

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!

 

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!