Money Money Money Shoe

The money shoe was an idea my sister pitched for a Muses shoe. I picked up the coin trim at an Estate sale. The exterior is glittered with ArtMinds (green blended with gold), the interior is Recollections ("copper"), and the sole is Martha Stewart ("white gold"). 

For the "Muses" and "2014" lettering, I used Martha Stewart "white gold" and replaced the S's with dollar signs (MU$E$). I lined the top and bottom edges with gold sequin trim and added a cluster of green feathers. I had a strand of dollar sign beads, I used a big dollar sign on the front of the shoe and a smaller one on the feather cluster. I added some crystal rhinestones to the big dollar sign and scattered all over the shoe.

Purple, Green and Gold Buckle Shoe

Another purple, green and gold shoe done! The gold is Tulip, the green and purple are Oriental Trading. After all the glitter was on, I thought for a while about how to finish it up because the gold was too monochromatic and needed to be broken up. I eventually came up with swirls of sequin trim, and I love it - the whole shoe gets covered in sparkle super cheap. I added the "Muses" lettering in green glitter over the buckle strap and covered the buckle with some gold sequin trim. After this pair, I am definitely sold on shoes with straps and will be looking for them in the future.

 

Cheetah Diva Shoe (WIP)

In the same general vein as the Zebra Diva shoe, here's the Cheetah Diva shoe:

I bought a pair of cheetah print heels on e-bay, and traced over the existing pattern with Martha Stewart glitter ("smokey topaz" for background, and "onyx" and "fire opal" for the spots). The interior is ArtMinds hot pink, the heel and platform are Oriental Trading purple (I'm almost out of OT purple and starting to panic a little). The sole is gold (I want to say Tulip, but it could be Recollections). Edges lined in gold sequin trim and accented with a little puff of hot pink marabou (I feel like I'm finally getting the hang of marabou).

All in all a nice basic Muses shoe. This one is going to need a little more work before it's parade-ready, but for now I'm going to pack her  up.

Halloween comes to Michael's

Halloween is no Mardi Gras or anything, but I'd still count it as one of my favorite times of year. So this weekend when I popped in to Michael's for what I thought would be a quick trip  to pick through the summer crafting leftovers that might be on clearance, it's not really a surprise that I instead got totally distracted by their adorable Halloween stock. 

In my defense, I don't think their Halloween decor has even been half this cute or glittery.

There were quite a few things I would've loved to get for Muses shoes, but I managed to talk myself down: it's not even August yet, none of it is going anywhere, wait until you can use a coupon, etc. 

I did take some pictures to remind myself of items I'll pick up the next time I'm there and have a coupon that's not spoken for.

Item 1 - Glittered foam vase filler "bubbles." Oh, you precious glittery foam bubbles I will be back for you. So light, so glittery, and such great colors! I'm picturing the purple ones on a purple, green and gold shoe, the acid green ones on my WIP voodoo shoe and the silver bubbles on a Bathtub shoe. These are going to be fun. I only wish they also came in pearl and gold...

I hope no one is judging me for how in love with bags of tiny glittery foam balls I am.

Silver glitter bubbles, great for the Bathtub shoe I've been picturing

Item 2 = Ravens! An amazing assortment of glittery ravens of all shapes and sizes, including some wearing little glittery witches hats. I will definitely want some wee glittered Ravens to do some Baltimore shoes if/when my sister rides.

They also had life sized owls and ravens...I can't fit one on a Muses shoe, but damn were they cool.

It's too bad the white owls aren't a little smaller, it'd be fun to do a Harry Potter shoe.

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

It's worth nothing that Halloween is still 3 months off...which means I have a long wait between now and the Halloween stock going on clearance, but I think that's going to be a fun trip.

Order up! Cafe du Muses Shoe

Been at this one for quite a while, but at long last its finished: the Cafe du Monde/Muses shoe!

Working with white glitter is a nightmare, but I do like the final result (it just wouldn't have been a Cafe du Monde shoe without those iconic green and white stripes). I spray-painted a white base coat on a low heel shoe, then covered it with several coats of Martha Stewart "crystal" (I usually do about 1 or 2 coats, I did 3 coats plus touch-ups). For applying the white glitter, I also mixed a little white paint in with the Mod Podge to add some opaqueness.

I did the green stripes a few at time because mistakes were going to be tougher to correct on the white background. The green is the best match to the Cafe du Monde green in my stash, Oriental Trading green (from the Halloween assortment). The interior and lettering (Cafe du Muses rather than Cafe du Monde) are a nice chicory-coffee-brown courtesy of Recollections "espresso."

I lines the edges between the white and green stripes with white iridescent sequin trim (leftover from a friend's bridal second-line umbrella) to make them a little crisper. Regular sequin trim wasn't going to lie properly over the stripes, so I did the top and bottom edge with a heavier silver braid trim (I have that particular trim in silver and gold, both from Joann's with a coupon; I used the gold on this shoe). I made a nice big fan of feathers with coffee brown feathers in the back, and shorter green and white stripes on feathers in the front, and hid the bottom of the feather cluster with a green rhinestone.

Only trouble is now I'm craving beignets...

TGIF and Blue Dog WIP

I've been working on a few shoes that are nearly done, more pictures coming later this weekend.

Finished up a fresh set of Ain't Dere No More stones for another ADNM shoe, another couple of sets of mini NOLA-tiles and a glitter transfer of the Blue Dog for a blue and silver shoe I'm working on:

Blue dog transfer

For the Blue Dog transfer, I tried a slightly different approach: I made all the "pieces" and once, then glue them together when they were all dry. This went a little faster than usual, but I didn't find it noticeably easier than my usual approach (one color at a time, 24 hr drying time between colors).

I'm coming up on 100 blog posts soon, and would like to celebrate in some way. I feel like blogs usually do giveaways on special occasions, but  can't think of anything it would make sense for me to give away. I guess I'll keep thinking...

The finished Retro Tattoo Shoe (I call her Lydia)

Lydia, oh Lydia, say have you met Lydia? Lydia the tattooed lady?

Because I've gotten pretty comfortable with transfer, this was a shoe where I wanted most of the adornment to be just glitter and time. And, hoo-boy, the transfers for this one took some time. I posted some transfers in progress a few days back. Here they are finished (2014 on the rose banner, MUSES on the heart banner) with a few new ones:

I tried to find tattoos that were recognizable without a lot of fine detail (you can only get so fine with the puff paint). That mermaid kicked my butt...I traced her about 6 times before I was happy with her outline. I also tried to do some tiny ones to make it easier to fill in the space. My research is mostly here.To keep them consistent, they're all outlined in Recollections, color "espresso." The base shoe was glittered in Martha Stewart "smokey topaz" on the exterior, Recollections "peacock" on the interior, ArtMinds hot pink on the sole, hot pink sequin trim on the edges and a little puff of hot pink marabou. Once the transfers were at long last all done, I laid them out so they totally covered the shoe and glued them down with E6000.

Here's the finished shoe (lots of pictures, because there's a lot of detail):

Because one of the more common tattoo options is a quote, I wrote "Happy are they whom the Muses love" in script and glued it inside the shoe as a little hidden bonus message.

And, finally, here are a few close-ups of some of my favorite tattoos on this shoe:

Rose with "2014" banner

"MUSES" in tattoo font

Classic swallow

Double cherries!

"MUSES" heart and saucy red-headed mermaid

5 more finished shoes in NOLA

Shoes hanging out, waiting for Mardi Gras.

Keeping track:
- This weekend (7/20) I brought down five more mostly finished shoes: with the 20 that went down 7/7, and the 17 that went down 5/28, the total stashed is 42 (the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything).
- I'm averaging about 10 per month (3 days/shoe).

Work in Progress - Retro Tattoo Shoe

 I've been working on a bunch of retro tattoo style transfers, that I'm planning to cover this shoe with:

Here's my Pinterest board researching retro tattoos, including the tattoo font that I used to write MUSES:

Using my go-to tracing/transferring approach, here are some transfers I've been working on (backed with white paper at the moment:

Peacock Feather Shoe

I love peacock feather shoes. One of the ten shoes I managed to get in for 2013 was a peacock shoe. I recently bought a big pack of 100 peacock feathers, so I can pretty freely indulge my peacock feather enthusiasm now.

The exterior glitter is Jefferson Variety (iridescent forest green). The heel and interior are Oriental Trading purple. The sole is Recollections (color "peacock"). I made the embellishment with a little purple daisy, three peacock feathers and rhinestones (teal on the flower and dark blue on the feathers). The top and bottom edge of the shoe are purple sequin trim from Michael's.

Without flash

With flash 

Peacock blue sole

Purple interior

 It still needs lettering, and possible more rhinestones, but overall a nice, basic shoe.

Ruby Slippers!

When it comes to iconic shoes (particularly sparkly famous shoes) the Ruby Slippers from the Wizard of Oz pretty much top the list. Making a Ruby Slipper Muse shoe is what I imagine a Jedi feels like making his or her first light saber. Technically this is the second swing I've taken at the Ruby Slipper, as I was married in a pair of them (my husband is from Kansas).

I researched Ruby Slippers for a while, and ultimately decided I didn't want to go too replica-ish with mine. I wanted it to be a little more abstracted and modern, but still have a classic "designer" quality. (Side bar - for a lot of cool takes on the Ruby Slipper, I recommend checking out this etsy shop for inspiration: Princess Pumps, particularly this exceptionally gorgeous pair)

The exterior I did in Recollections (color "cherry"), though I think Martha Stewart "garnet" would also work quite well. The shoe was the one I experimented with in this post.

Inside the shoe is a little landscape from the Wizard of Oz: yellow brick road and blue sky. The emerald city is at the back of the shoe at the end of the yellow brick road, and in the sky you can see the Wicked Witch's sky writing: SURRENDER SHOES. I lined the edges with red sequin trim, embellished some red poppies with glitter and black rhinestones and made a red bow out of foam, glitter and sequins.

I did the Emerald City in three pieces so there would be depth when they were stacked and glued

Glitter on the poppies' edges, and the wee glittery black witch silhouette 

Yellow brick road and blue sky (witch, sky-writing and Emerald City haven't been added yet)

It's really tough to get a picture of it, but here's the Emerald City at the end of the yellow brick road

The sky-writing over Emerald City (SURRENDER SHOES) with the little Wicked Witch

The bow I made as a nod to the little bow on the original shoes.

Poppies!

Emerald City green sole (Oriental Trading green, from the Halloween collection)

The finished shoe (apart from "Muses" and the year)