Sassy Feet! blog

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!

Fun Discoveries to Try from CHA

From the amazing DCWV display at the CHA convention

When Destiny and I went to the Craft and Hobby Association's winter trade show last month, we combed the convention center floor for new products we could try on shoes and bags. We came home with quite a few ideas (including some not-new products that we simple hadn't heard about before), which I'll share with you today. Over the weeks to come, we'll try these products on leather and manmade leather shoes -- the toughest test! But for now, I'll just give you a rundown. (If you try any of these before we do, let us know how they worked for you!)

Sometimes the most interesting events at a convention are not the ones you're expecting. Early one morning I was sitting in the lobby waiting for the show floor to open when I started talking to the woman next to me about her wonderful bag.

She turned out the be the author of the best-selling book One Zentagle a Day: A 6-Week Course in Creative Drawing for Relaxation, Inspiration, and Fun. 

Her name was Beckah Krahula and she had heard of Sassy Feet. Then she gave me a copy of her book. I told her I thought that Zentangle designs would look GREAT on a wedge, and she suggested using Pentel Gel Rollers for Fabric for doing permanent line drawings on fabric shoes. 

The bag I was admiring was in a multitude of colors and she had painted it using USARTQuest's Perfect Pigment acrylic paints, which I hadn't heard of before. Like the other products in this post, we're going to give them a try on shoes! Stay tuned.

There were A LOT of companies showing different types of glitter, which interested Destiny and me A LOT because we have been on a years-long search for black glitter that will actually, uh, glitter! Black absorbs light instead of reflecting it, which causes a real problem when you want your black glitter to sparkle. We did find a product that might work, called WOW Chunky Glitter from American Crafts. I've ordered some and will make samples as soon as it arrives!

From the same manufacturer, we found some shiny POP! microbeads, which we want to try with our colorless Glitter It glaze. I have a concern that they may be too heavy to apply to non-horizontal surfaces without dripping, but we'll see.

The product that we got most excited about is something called Kroma Crackle, which creates a FLEXIBLE crackle glaze over your painted surface. Now, there are plenty of crackle paints and glazes on the market that work nicely on rigid surfaces, but this is the first one we've heard of that works on a surface that has to bend and flex like shoes and bags do. In fact, the folks showing off their invention had a sample painted onto a brown belt. 

You can paint the background in one color, apply the crackle medium (and you can tint it with a little bit of paint if you want), then you can apply paint on top of the crackles before sealing. Destiny and I are going to have FUN experimenting with it! To learn more, go to the Kroma Crackle site. 

One of the products we "discovered" at CHA is Elmer's Painters markers and pens, which apparently work on leather, manmade leather, and lots of other stuff including rubber! They had shoes and rubber boots on display that had designs drawn on with the Painters Pens and the paint seemed pretty stable when we tried to unobtrusively scrape it off with our fingernails....

They come in several color ranges (Bright, Pearlescent, Pastel) and we've ordered sets in medium point (called markers) and fine point (called pens) to put them to the test. 

While we were at CHA we stopped by the Jacquard booth and met owner of the the company that makes the Lumiere paint we use on shoes and bags.  

Despite having raved about his paint for six or seven years now, used it in all 40+ of our classes and sold it in our online store, I'd never met the head honcho, Michael Katz.

In chatting with him, we mentioned wishing there was a way to stamp Lumiere on to shoes and bags. "Haven't you tried our Pearl Ex Stamp Pads?" he asked.  So he sent us one the other day and we're putting it toward the top of our list for experiments. Thanks, Michael!

Two more discoveries to go! The next is a narrow. flexible satin ribbon that is embedded with tiny LEDs. It's called LED Textile Ribbon and it's made by Artistic Ribbon. The LEDs are driven by a small battery-operated unit. 

The ribbon comes in 20" pieces, with LEDs every two inches. You can set four different lighting patterns, and the ribbon can be glued or sewn onto your surface. We chose a sample of blue lights on a black ribbon, and Destiny is talking about putting them on the flap of a shoulder bag. Can't wait to see that!

Last of all, mixed-media meister Tim Holtz is bringing out a new paint later this month that is supposed work on leather. It's called Distress Paint -- not to be confused with his very popular Distress Crackle Paint. Of course we are going to try it, and of course we'll report our results. We love this mad scientist stuff!

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!