Friday, November 29, 2013

Krewe O' Muses Hurricane Shoe

I really like shoes with unconventional structural elements, like a lot of the shoe sculptures by this artist. I've also been bookmarking shoes with weird heels: like these gnomes, these R2-D2 heelsthese goddess statue heels and these dinosaur heels.

I wanted to try and replace the heel of a shoe with a hurricane and make a Pat O'Brien's Muses shoe. I looked around for a little version of the Hurricane glass, and found a few options (here and here, if you're curious), then settled on the version that Pat O'Brien's sells (the 1.5 oz Pony Glass). I really, really wanted a plastic Hurricane glass, and thought it might exist for parties or something, but haven't been able to find one. Also, using a glass one breaks my no more than $5 in supplies per shoe rule. As such, this shoe is more a thought experiment, and not an actual throw.

Anyways, my husband took the heel off a shoe that was the right heel height (he started with a dremel, then threw the towel in on that and switched to a full blown saw). Here's the shoe after a little trimming and de-heel-ification:


I filled 1.5 oz Pony glasses with a blend of Martha Stewart glitters (cherry and orange) with a little Recollections cherry thrown in for sparkle. I made two, so I could do more than one Hurricane shoe, though my second won't have a Hurricane heel, it's just going to be adorning the shoe. Michael's carries this awesome plastic ice clusters for floral arrangements/vase filler:


I filled the mini glasses with the fake ice (I used hot glue, though if I had it to do over, I would use something clear-drying to maintain the ice illusion), and a little bitty coffee stirrer straw cut to be the right length:


I glued the ice-filled glass to the de-heeled shoe, and started glittering. The exterior is Martha Stewart "emerald," which was the best match to the Pat-O's green in my stash. The interior and platform are the mix of reds and oranges I blended to fill the glass (~2-3 coats over a base coat of Recollections cherry because they were pretty sheer and the base shoe was black). I added a little collar of black lace around the edge to represent the wrought iron balconies in the French Quarter. I lined the edges with silver braid or black sequin trim:




I added the lettering using trace-and-transfer. The glitter I used was Recollections "bling." It says "Have Fun!" across the toe in the Pat O'Brien's font. On one side is "2014" and on the other I wrote "Krewe O' Muses" (get it?) in my best estimate of what that would look like in the Pat O'Brien's font.




I added a little orange wedge (made from foam) and a little cherry (a red glass bead with a red plastic cord for the stem) to finish off the Hurricane:




So, in summary a fun shoe to make even if it can't be thrown. Now that I've walked through it, I'm thinking I may pick up some little plastic cocktail glasses if I'm at a Party City to whip up some other NOLA cocktails (an absinthe shoe could be quite pretty).

3 comments:

  1. Nori, another amazing one. Thanks for posting the reference stuff... totally going to do a take on the dinosaur ones. I have a pair of plastic sharks that would be great for a glittered Jaws shoe. :)

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  2. Thank you! Always happy to share my inspiration shoes, in case someone else sees something that inspires their shoes and to show people where my ideas come from in case they're curious.

    Whenever I come across a cool shoe or a concept I think could work for a Muses shoe I add it to this Pinterest board - http://www.pinterest.com/shoeglitternola/inspiration-shoes/ and I browse through it from time to time to see what shakes loose.

    A glittered Jaws version of the dino-shoe sounds amazing!!!

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  3. Nori - what is "trace-and-transfer"? I always struggle with my lettering

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