Sassy Feet! blog

In Their Shoes

On Monday, April 15th, 2013, something unspeakable occurred in the city of Boston. Two blasts rocked Boylston Street in the midst of the Boston Marathon, and a third went off at the JFK Presidential Library a few hours later. The loss of innocent lives and the hundreds injured and maimed made one of America's toughest cities hold its breath as it struggled to understand what the hell just happened.

After evil momentarily hit the "pause" button in Massachusetts, the helpers, caregivers and sacrificers hit "play" again and worked diligently in the spirit of humankind. As said best by Mr. Rogers, "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' "

Comedian Patton Oswalt chimed in on Facebook, sending his inspirational message to Boston about those who intentionally try to make us afraid. Speaking to the fearmongers, he said, "The good outnumber you, and we always will." I believe he is right.

What does this have to do with shoes? Boston Magazine.

Inside the May issue of Boston Magazine are stories from 120 runners. Staff spent over 40 hours collecting the 120 pairs of shoes, using social media to find runners who were affected. There are so many grizzly images from the pain and aftermath, but this is a piece of beauty, unity and solidarity. Especially the heart around the simple words, "We will finish the race." Boston Magazine has made photos of the individual shoes and all the stories available online, too.

"We have been humbled by the reception our May cover has received since we released it this morning," writes the magazine's John Wolfson. "To me the cover is about two things: perseverance and unity.

"By itself, each shoe in the photograph is tiny, battered and ordinary. Together, though, they create something beautiful, powerful and inspirational. Remove just one shoe and you begin to diminish, in some small way, the overall effect. Collectively, they are the perfect symbol for Boston, and for our response to the bombings," he wrote on the magazine's website.

"This staff is filled with people who feel the same way. Our home is hurting right now, and our hope, together, was to produce something that reflects the intensity of affection and pride that all of us here in the region feel for Boston," he added.

For those still looking for a way to help, visit The One Fund.

Pin, Re-Pin, and Pin Again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Solving the Identity Crisis

Sometimes I think the various styles of shoes should be like animals, scientifically classified in their taxonomy groups. There are SO MANY types out there. If you aren't a shoe maven, you look at a style and think "What is this one called?" Then a shoe maven tells you, "It's a T-strap, platform, peep-toe d'Orsay." D'Orsay-what?!

While browsing Pinterest, we found this cool chart that I wanted to share with you all.

From http://pinterest.com/pin/285204588874306375/

By the way, Pinterest is an EXCELLENT source of information and design inspiration. If you haven't checked it out, you should! It's becoming like a visual search engine for crafters, DIYers, cooks and hobbyists of all types.

Margot and I have two boards on shoes. DIY Tips for Shoes and Bags offers suggestions for copying the shoes we've pinned. Here's a recent pin, to give you an idea.

Alexander McQueen feather shoes -- DIY using clear vinyl straps and feather trim stitched on top of them. Whatever sandals you start with, cut off the straps, leaving a stub 1.25" long at each end. Fold over each "stub" and stitch together with STRONG beading thread (Fireline, Dandyline,etc.)

These will be the anchors for your new vinyl straps. Make similar loops on the ends of the new straps (you could even cut your own out of heavyweight vinyl from the hardware store) and either sew or use a STRONG split ring to connect with the old straps. Now stitch on feather trim!

Our other board is called Shoes We Love!  I like this title because it means we can include stuff that's just plain gorgeous as well as shoes that have aspects you might want to copy. For example, we pinned the shoes below from the shop of a talented etsy designer:

What a great idea -- painting a bright design over the entire sole, breast (the  inner face of the heel) and platform of a solid-color shoe!

There are lots of other shoe blogs on Pinterest, too. Two that I like to check for eye candy and ideas are Bergdorf Goodman's shoe-a-day board called Today's Shoe, and Beth Livesay's The Shoes Have It. Beth was formerly the editor of Altered Couture and she has delicious taste in shoes!

FAQs From Our Fans

Before we get to questions and answers, I want to tell you that Destiny and I have completely updated the Sassy Feet website -- new and bigger before-and-after photos of shoes and bags, plus links to our two YouTube videos, our Facebook page, our Twitter account and our Pinterest photo boards. Whew! Go enjoy this stuff so we'll know it was worth doing!

Now to the Q&A. We get several emails a week with questions about painting, glittering and embellishing shoes, and we answer each one of them personally. I am going to try posting these more frequently since some of you may have the same questions. Let's get started.

QUESTION: I finally had some time to sit down with your paints and give this a shot. Took a pair of old cap-toe shoes that have been collecting dust for a while, and decided to gild them up, a la Martin Margiela (whose biggest size is three sizes too small for my colossal feet). I used three shades of Lumiere.  Your Glitter It Glaze is on the middle section.  

They turned out fantastic -- hopefully the first of very many. One question -- if I wanted to do more of a distressed look, do you think it would work to rub on some Neopaque Black and then quickly rub it off?

I'm indebted to your site for its exceptional clarity and ease of presentation.

Ronnie  

For just $525, you can have these lovelies....

ANSWER: Thanks for your kind words -- and your shoes look great!  Yes, you can give them a distressed look by rubbing on Neopaque Black, just remember that distressing doesn't happen evenly, so rub in on lightly and unevenly. And keep a damp rag nearby to immediately remove any black that goes on too heavy or you otherwise don't like the look of.

By the way, have you seen Martin Margiela's new paint splattered sneakers? $525 for something you could SO do yourself! And they would look better, too....

QUESTION: I really, really like your shoes and I thank you for being so generous with your knowledge. My name is Jill and I live in Perth, Western Australia. I am a textile artist who paints, dyes and sews wearable art. I have been looking for Pledge Premium Floor Finisher with Future Shine but it is not available in Australia.

We do have Pledge Wood Floor Finish with  Future ^® Shine and Pledge Tile & Vinyl Floor Finish with Future^® Shine. Are either of these suitable to finishing the painted shoes?

ANSWER: Oh, good question! The marketing meisters at Pledge changed the name -- you can use the Wood Floor Finish with  Future ^® Shine for sealing your shoes.

QUESTION: Can you use Lumiere paint on fabric such as suede? If so, how would you seal in the paint? Also, can you use Lumiere  on Nike Air Force Ones? Their shoes are made of genuine leather.

Manmade suede boots painted with Lumiere -- if you click to see this image full size, you'll see the nap is no longer soft

ANSWER: You can use Lumiere on genuine or manmade suede. (Genuine suede is made from leather, manmade suede is actually fabric.) The only downside is, it will no longer retain its soft nap. The paint adheres well, but it makes the suede or manmade suede hard to the touch. If you are working with genuine suede, you could use suede dye instead. We wrote about this in an earlier blog. 

As to the Nike Air Force Ones, they should take the paint well, as long as they are leather, manmade leather or fabric. But  paint won't stick for long to the plastic Nikes swooshes and soles. (If the Nikes' soles are rubber instead of plastic, however, read on.)

QUESTION: Hi! I love your book and can’t wait till next weekend when I’ll have time to try my first pair of shoes. Here's my question. I have a few pairs of sandals that have rubber soles.  Can I use the same paint to decorate the sides of the soles, or do I need to use something else?  Also, is a different kind of prep required for the rubber parts?

Susan 

Before and after sneakers, painted and glittered, and with the toes and soles tinted with StazOn ink

ANSWER: The Lumiere paints we use and recommend are not made to stick to rubber, though one artist I spoke to says she always uses them for the soles of her sneakers. For me, they've always peeled off whenever I applied them to rubber!

What I use for coloring the rubber soles of shoes is alcohol-based stamp-pad ink. To do this, you'll need:

• Rubbing alcohol and a couple of cotton balls
• 1 bottle of re-inker for StazOn or Adirondack stamp pads (not the pads themselves), which come in LOTS of colors
• Something to squeeze the ink into
• A little paint brush you can throw away

Before you apply the ink, rub the soles with a cotton ball dampened with rubbing alcohol to be sure they are clean and ready to absorb the ink.

Squeeze some of the ink into a cup and use a cheap brush to brush it onto the soles and toes. One coat should do it. The ink will penetrate the rubber and stain it. Hang onto the little bottle in case you need to do touch ups later.

QUESTION: Do you guys have much experience in painting canvas shoes? That's what I usually do. I normally use fabric paint (since canvas is fabric, and the paint is washable/waterproof.) But I need an emerald green color for a specific project I'm doing, and I haven't found any fabric paint that color.

So I used a regular craft acrylic paint and mixed it with robin's egg blue and white to create the turquoise look I wanted. But I am worried about how the craft acrylic will last -- is it going to chip off? So I'm thinking about using a paint sealer. But does that give it a rigid finish, or can the finished product bend and move?

Eliana

ANSWER:  When you use craft or artists acrylic paint on shoes of any kind, you end up with the problem that this paint isn't formulated to be flexible. It can crack and peel, especially if applied thickly. You can get around that in the future by adding a little of what's called fabric medium.

As to the fabric shoes you've already painted, adding a sealer isn't the answer. Sealers protect from the outside, where as cracking or peeling is something that happens on the inside -- between the canvas and the paint. (FYI, if you use our sealer to seal painted shoes, it will flex and bend. You won't get a rigid finish.)

So your craft-acrylic-painted shoes may crack and peel, but If it were us, we'd just wear them and enjoy them and see what happens. Good luck!

QUESTION: I made several pairs of shoes using comic strip papers and Mod Podge. Problem is, the comics keep cracking and pulling away at stress points on each side. The shoes are of manmade materials and I did not prep them in any way.

Kelly 

ANSWER: Lots of bloggers and even some supposedly reputable magazines say you can use Mod Podge or glue to attach comic strips to shoes, but they simply don't last! They WILL crack and peel off because paper is neither sturdy nor flexible -- it tears when it bends. And Mod Podge is not flexible when it dries, so it will crack. Even if you use a glue that will be flexible when it dries, any paper that's attached to the surface of your shoes will crack when the shoe bends.

What I do with cool paper designs that I want to put on shoes is I scan them into my computer, then print out the scans on cotton fabric that's made to go through an inkjet printer. Then I glue down the fabric using a glue like Fabri-Tac (if the shoes are leather or fabric) or The Ultimate (if the shoes are manmade leather). You can buy sheets of inkjet fabric in many craft and fabric stores. I wrote a blog post about this awhile back -- check it out!

QUESTION: I have seen lots of blogs that have instructions on how to glitter your own shoes. I know you have the special paint and sealer to do it, but if I just wanted to use glue and loose glitter what glue would work the best?

I have tried Mod Podge and it cracks. Some people have used rubber cement, fabric glue, tack glue, gemstone glue. I am using it on pumps that are faux leather. They tend to crack where your toes bend. Also I know you use acetone to clean your shoes before painting them. Will wiping them with acetone also cause the glue to adhere better?      

                                                                                

Katrina

ANSWER: Yup, all the glues we've tried for applying glitter do crack eventually (plus the glitter comes off all over your house, car, etc.), which is why we use a clear glaze made for leather and manmade leather as the base for our glitter. You can buy a bottle of it without the glitter in it, and add your own if you want. It's $5.99 and if that's all you buy, it is light enough that we can ship it first-class, which is pretty cheap. One bottle will cover at least two pairs of shoes.

By the way, wiping manmade leather (GENTLY) with acetone will make glue adhere better, but it won't do anything to keep it from cracking where the shoe bends. Nor will a sealer (see Eliana's question above.)

And that's it for this week! Go forth, use your new knowledge and PAINT SHOES!!

Sassing Up Social Media

Since our popularity is growing, we are too, in an eKind of way.  Sassy Feet is barreling full steam ahead into the twenty-first century and sassifying (in the best possible way) our social media!

   
You can now find, follow, and like us on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. So if any of you wonderful blog readers out there happen to partake of one or more of these amazing social tools, please add us! We will have a ton of fun sharing new DIY techniques and interacting with you in an immediate and personal way. (And we promise not to post or Tweet about what we're eating for lunch....)

 PS: If anyone has a smart phone, try out our new QR Code!

Also, the latest issue of Altered Couture has Margot's article on her Gold Leaf Wedges. You can read it by clicking on the photo of the shoes on our In the Media page. Enjoy!