Ain't Dere No More!

Possibly my favorite 2014 shoe so far.

Sometimes a shoe is born out of covetousness on my part, like the 2013 King Cake shoe. I was craving King Cake so bad but wasn't going to be in NOLA the whole of Carnival season that year,* so I made the King Cake shoe partially to exorcise my King Cake craving...

For quite some time I've been coveting this gorgeous but out of my price range sterling silver Heather Elizabeth Designs bracelet. There are also some great items in Fleurty Girl's Ain't Dere No More line, including these great magnets. As much as I loved the look of those magnets, I didn't want to pay $15 for a set of seven to decorate a Muses shoe, and they're relatively easy and cheap to make.

I bought a bag of glass stone "decorative accents" at Michael's (I think about $2/bag; I also bought a fresh tube of Recollections glitter in "Muse" that day, and probably used a coupon on the glitter rather than the stones, but you could of course use a coupon):

I pulled up a bunch of logos online, and printed different sizes and versions of the logos to experiment with. Included in my first round of Ain't Dere No More glass stones: Pontchartrain Beach, Bali Hai, Rosenberg's (1825 Tulane!), DH Holmes, McKenzie's, Dixie, Schwegmann's, K&B, Falstaff, Jax, Maison Blanche and Mr. Bingle:

For this shoe, I used one of a pair of size 6s that were on clearance at Target ($8.98 for the pair)

The main body of the shoe was coated with K&B purple glitter from The Glitter Source, the sole was coated with Recollections in gold, and the heel and interior of the shoe was done in that green glitter with a little gold in it (that stackable brand from Michael's that doesn't appear to be online, Art Minds, I think?)

Shoe after glittering with glass stones and feathers; before the addition of gold sequin trim along the bottom edge and lettering

Cream and purple feather accent on the back, with an emerald green rhinestone at the base:

*But is a testament to the kindness of others that I ate from no less than three King Cakes that season nonetheless, two that were sent from NOLA and one which was brought back to Memphis by my loving husband.

Wait! There's Shrimps!

The interior and sole are Tulip gold glitter, the heel and lettering are Tulip black glitter and the main body of the shoe (the color is tough to capture in pictures) is a salmon from Jefferson Variety. The shrimp sequin applique is also from Jefferson Variety (Jefferson Variety trip covered in this post).

Opa!

Went to NOLA this past weekend for Greek Fest and brought down 17 shoes which were either totally finished or finished except for lettering, which I'll add later (I don't want to date all of them in case they all don't ride in 2014 and it's easier to do the lettering and the year at once so they match).

I want to record what I brought down and stashed so it helps me keep track of overall numbers:
(1) The Sucre Shoe, (2) Purple. Green and Gold Stripes, (3) Hard Out Here for a Shrimp, (4) Oil Slick, (5) Sno-bliz, (6) Spumoni, (7) Red and purple with sequin heart, (8) Pink and gold with butterfly, (9) Hornets, (10) Geaux Tigers purple and gold stripes, (11) Ain't Dere No More, (12) Zebra Diva Shoe version 2.0, (13) King Cake Shoe version 2.0, (14) Blue, green and silver shoe (15) Jewel Box (16) 1950s Housewife (17) K&B shoe.

Those are all safely squared away...on to the next batch!

Lots of work this month, so I expect the work on shoes to grind to a bit of a halt for most of June. I do have some finished shoes I have to post about though, so I may find some time to catch up on those (Sno-bliz, Ain't Dere No More, Shrimp...)

Work in Progress - Carnival Harlequin Shoe

I wanted to do something that screamed Carnival without being purple, green and gold (though, don't get me wrong, I LOVE purple, green and gold) had been bookmarking some Harlequin mask reference images (like this one), so even though the heel was a little low for a Muses shoe, I snapped these shoes right up at Goodwill:

They were originally red patent leather, I base coated one with gold spray paint and the other silver. 

I've been following the existing checkerboard pattern using bright colors alternating with gold (green and purple are in there, but so are teal and pink). The interior is hot pink (Recollections in color "Raspberry"), the heel is purple (Tulip) and the sole is teal (Recollections in color "Peacock).

Most of the colors still need second coats, but you can get a sense of where it's going:

Once I'm satisfied with the glitter, I'm going to outline the checkerboard pattern with this Simplicity trim that's black with little wee rhinestones studded through it (I like it because it picks up the colors in the shoe, and it's very narrow and delicate so it'll emphasize the pattern without blocking most of it out). I bought some odd and ends on clearance at Michael's, but I spotted it still on the spool at Joann's and took a picture of it in the wild:

Also, this one has lots and lots of feathers in it's future. The main top and bottom edge will likely be trimmed with sequin trim (likely purple).

Work in Progress - Sno Ball Shoe

Inspired by these great shoe sculpture works of art, I thought about trying something a little more sculptural myself, and landed on the idea of doing a shoe with a Sno Ball where the heel would be. The silhouette would still be shoe-like, but with a little more dimension.

Some links saved from my snoball research:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/snobliz/2734924408/in/photostream
http://nolacycle.blogspot.com/2010/08/snoball-search-mid-month-rides.html
http://www.flickr.com/groups/snobliz/pool/?view=lg
http://www.gonola.com/2010/05/20/sno-balls-new-orleans-other-famous-frozen-treat.html
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/cream-of-nectar-sno-ball-recipe/index.html
http://foodio54.com/photos/hansens-sno-bliz-new-orleans-2423303

I did a small Facebook poll of how people envisioned the quintessential Sno-Ball, and a lot of people picture the Plum Street Snoball style Chinese take out container, which I will keep in mind for future iterations (I wanted to go with a cup the first time around). On the subject of what flavor snoball, nectar emerged from the (admittedly somewhat small) pool of answers. Given nectar cream's aesthetic potential and nectar syrup/soda's history in NOLA, it was pretty much a lock.

Started out with a foam sphere from Gary's, trimmed it and glued it onto the heel of a pointed toe, low-heeled mule (I needed the shoe to be backless and approximately the right height). Attached the modified sphere to the shoe with E6000.

I glittered the snowball sphere in MS glitter, color "cotton candy" (tip: foam brush = very helpful for getting a good coat of glue and glitter on Styrofoam) and did the interior of the shoe in Recollections color "champagne" and the shoe itself in Recollections color "raspberry."

I cut down a plastic Mardi Gras cup to be the right size (I had to but off the cuff around the top and re-glue it onto the shorter cup base). I got the first couple of layers of glitter on the cup before attaching it, because that seemed easiest (I can still do touch ups, and of course transfer the logo onto the cup). Cup-wise, I didn't want a solid white cup (it seemed a little plain) and since I so love riffing on classic NOLA logos, I decided to go with a modified Hansen's cup (reference image 1, reference image 2)

Some pics of the shoe-in-progress; it's nowhere near finished, but the cup's been glued to the shoe, so the shape's mostly there:

I'm working on the logo separately, and will transfer when done. The picture below more or less encapsulates how I do re-worked logos:
- First I print out a nice big clear reference image (top left)
- Next I trace the salient features of the logo (trying whenever possible to remove tiny features/details that are going to be tough to recreate in glitter) and I change relevant aspects of the logo as I trace (here, "HANSEN'S" becomes "MUSES," "SNO-BLIZ" becomes "SHOE-BLIZ" and the little red headed fellow on the side (assuming I can keep him in the final version) is holding a little Muses shoe instead of a Sno-bliz (top right)
-I photocopy the logo to reduce it to the size I'm aiming for, and tape it inside a ziploc bag (preferably a freezer bag because the plastic is thicker) and trace with 3D fabric paint followed up with glitter, one color at a time (bottom):

I'll do the teal lettering in the same blue as the cup and the Sno-Bliz itself and the red hair in the same Recollections color "raspberry" as I used on the the shoe (the white of the cup will probably be MS in color "crystal"). The details are pretty fine on this one, so I'm going to have to see how much I can do for the shoe. May rework it as needed; specifically I'm considering a version of this style of sno-bliz cup or a version of the above logo that doesn't have the grinning little red-head (though of course that would be sad).

Before and After pictures:

Left = working out the shape of the cup and sno-ball on the shoe's heel, pre-glittering and gluing the pieces together. Right = the glittered cup and sno-ball (minus the spoon, which will get attached last)

Finished Sucre Shoe!

I finished up the Sucre Muses Shoe I've been working on, and here she is!

The glitters are Martha Stewart "aquamarine" and "brownstone," with Recollections in "bubblegum" on the sole. For the lettering I traced the u, s, and accented e on the Sucre bag, and drew what I thought an m in that font might look like. I used transfer (traced the letters onto a ziploc in 3D fabric paint, covered in brown glitter, dried 24 hrs, peeled and glued on the shoe). On the opposite side, I added "2014" in crystal glitter to look like sugar and a little retro feather accents I made. I used pale pink, teal and blue feathers and arranged them with one little brown and white pheasant feather and a pink heart shaped rhinestone. Edges (including the peep toe) were all lined in chocolate brown sequin trim I got at that estate sale back in April.

Hornets Shoe

Though the Hornets are transitioning into the Pelicans and making a switch from teal, purple and gold to blue, gold and red, I think the old color scheme will still live on in our collective cultural memory. I'M IN.

The shoe started out a teal shoe with some teal sequins, so I preserved that band of sequins in the final shoe. The gold, teal and purple glitter are all Recollections (colors "gold," "peacock," and "muse," respectively. All the edges are lined in gold sequin trim.

A nice simple, basic shoe. I haven't decided yet what additional dressing up it's going to be receiving, but it's bagged for now.

Glittery shoes? Moi?

I love this picture:

http://fashionista.com/2011/11/check-out-all-the-muppets-movie-merch-from-595-miss-piggy-shoes-to-weird-fuzzy-hoods/screen-shot-2011-11-17-at-1-32-42-pm/

Purple Green and Gold - Mardi Gras Striped Shoe

Happy Kentucky Derby/Second Weekend of Jazz Fest/Star Wars Day to all! I will personally be celebrating by sharing another more-or-less finished, 2014-or-later shoe!

I think you can't overuse the purple, green and gold color scheme, so when my first attempt at doing a green and white striped Cafe du Monde/Muses shoe wasn't really panning out I decided to salvage it by covering the white stripes in purple.

The green and gold glitters are both Tulip, the purple is Recollections "Muse." Green with purple stripes on the main body of the shoe, gold heel and interior and purple sole.

After the shoe was all glittered, I wanted to glitz it up some more with trim. I lined purple stripes with hot pink sequins and then lined the top and bottom edges with this great gold trim I bought 6 yards of with a 50% off coupon at Joann's.

I liked the shoe just fine before the trim, but I just love the finished effect. It's like a Sparkly Marie-Antoinette-ish Carnival Time Birthday Cake.

Googly Eyes Shoes

Researching Googly Eye Shoes:
Awesome Googly Eyes Muses Shoes on Pinterest
Shoe on pinterest that's more taxidermy-than-googly eyes, but still awesome
Martha Stewart Googly Eyes crafts
There are some great tutorials for copycat versions of the Christian Louboutin Deja Vu Patent Leather Heels, including this one at Glitter 'n Glue, and this one at New Dress A Day.

Obligatory Googly Eye Links:
Everything Looks Better With Googly Eyes (YouTube)
Lady Edith With Googly Eyes (tumblr)
The incomparable Chrisopher Walken SNL Googly Eyes sketch (Hulu)