Purple, Green and Gold Sandal

As I've said before, I think it's mighty tough to have too many purple, green and gold shoes. This is my second 2014 shoe in the traditional colors of Mardi Gras and I'm sure there will be more. 

The purple, green and gold on the main body of the show are all Tulip glitter. I love the brightness of Tulip, though it's worth pointing out that it's probably more expensive than some other options because it's made to survive machine-washing. Also, maybe I'm imagining it, but Tulip seems to be getting coarser/chunkier than I remember.

I was out of Tulip green, so I glittered the sole of the shoe with green ArtMinds (a glitter from Michael's that comes in stackable containers). This is the first bottle of ArtMinds I've ever tried and I love it, the green I bought has some gold glitter mixed in and the finished effect is gorgeous.

I lined the edges in gold sequin trim (I bought a big roll a while back) and purple sequin trim along the bottom edge (one of those great cheap 5 yard rolls from Michael's I've mentioned before). The puff of feathers on the back are about an inch of the boa I picked up at an estate sale. 

Finished shoe! (Apart from lettering)

I don't seem to have any decent pictures of the shoe before it was trimmed, this is the best I've got of the shoe with finished glittering/no trim.

 

Side view of the finished shoe that shows a little of the green sole and stripes on the back bit of the show. This picture also shows the bottom edge lining of purple sequins.

 

Top view of the shoe - gold interior will be a little less monotonous when I add "MUSES," probably in purple but I'm considering doing the blue and white tiles.

Weekend Update!

Lots of work this weekend! I'll post more details through the week, but here are the eight new >90% finished shoes to throw on the 2014 pile (figuratively of course):

Heard it through the grapevine

Who dat?

Water Lilies

Silver and lavender mule

Gator Loafer

Hot pink and blue heel

Harlequin Shoe

Purple Haze

Purple, green and gold sandal

Glitter Recommendation - Oriental Trading

A big project at work has kept me too busy to put in any real shoe work the past month, but I did want to share a quick glitter recommendation.

A while back I came across the sets of 4 or 5 bottles of fine glitter on Oriental Trading. I bought the  Springtime Assortment and the Halloween Assortment and both (particularly the Halloween Set) have been awesome. I would really recommend the Oriental Trading glitter for Muses Shoes: it's nice quality glitter, the colors are great and the price per ounce is excellent: four 2.5 oz bottles comes to only $0.85 per ounce (though that is without without factoring in shipping).

In addition to those two they have a Fall Assortment and a Bright Glitter Assortment at the moment, but I think the stock varies (I would just search "fine glitter" on Oriental Trading). I think the Halloween Set is an especially good buy for Muses shoes because you can get a lot of mileage out of purple, green and black (the latter to be combined with gold, naturally).

There are lots of other craft supplies on Oriental Trading. I haven't tried anything besides the glitter yet, but if you put some time into hunting through the site you could probably get a pretty good bang for your buck shipping-costs-wise.

258 days until Muses 2014! Happy glittering!

More trim recommendations

In addition to sequin trim, which is pretty much always a good bet, I also really like to trim shoes with a sort of braided trim called Chinese gimp.

I used 1/2" Chinese gimp in metallic green on this shoe, and on a blue 2012 shoe.

You can also see shoes trimmed with Chinese gimp in this article

I think you're more apt to find it at Fabric stores (Joann's, maybe Hancock's) than craft stores. It's a really nice way to finish edges because it bends to follow a shoe edge so beautifully. It also gives a little more dimension than sequin trim because it's got a little more thickness.

Finished Sno-Ball Shoe

I posted some work-in-progress pictures when the shoe was glittered, but not trimmed/finished, and here's the finished shoe:

Finished shoe! A teal and white Hansen's-style cup (modified logo, naturally) with a Nectar cream flavored snoball and a glittery white spoon combined with a gold and raspberry slipper.

"2014" in Recollections glitter (color "teal") to match the teal in the cup and give the toe a little color punch.

Side view of the finished shoe; the actual shoe of the shoe was trimmed in gold sequin trim along the bottom (got a big roll of that off of Amazon) and some of the more elaborate trim I got 50% off at Joann's (also used on this shoe).

Bird's-eye view, interior is Recollections in color "champagne" 

Black glitter sole (glitter is Tulip)

Finished Sno-Ball heel. Modified version of the Hansen's logo (MUSES SHOE BLIZ, rather than HANSENS SNO BLIZ). There's a logo on both sides. The cup is white glitter (Tulip) and Recollections in color "teal." The snoball on the logo is Recollections "raspberry," the same as the shoe. The Nectar Cream color is achieved with Martha Stewart in color "cotton candy."

FInished Blue, Green and Silver shoe

I'm currently working on two green, blue and silver shoes, and added all the finishing touches to the second one in that post (still finishing up the first):

The finished shoe: blue and silver glitter, green trim and green sole, blue feathers, Muses tiles and silver lettering

The glitters are Recollections for the blue and silver (colors "marine" and "bling") and the sole is Martha Stewart (color  "Emerald")

The shiny green trim around the edges is 1/2" chinese gimp that I acquired at ton of at an Estate Sale. The shoe also got a set of MUSES mini-NOLA tiles to add to the title-float vibe.

2014 in Recollections "Bling," transfer method (I tried and failed to do direct application about three times before I gave in)

Silver interior, nice fluffy cluster of blue feathers with some metallic spangly bits int there (about a quarter of the blue boa I also  got from the estate sale)

For good measure, an extra "Muses" on the back along the heel in Recollections (color  "Bling"), semi-hidden by the feathers. There's also a row of silver sequin trim around the bottom edge of the shoe.

Finishing touches on Purple, Green and Gold Striped Shoe

Shown in its semi-finished state in this post, the striped Purple, Green and Gold got some finishing touches:

I added a bundle of purple feathers with a lovely cream colored Louisiana iris (from some  Krewe of Iris beads)

Wrote "Muses" and a tiny 2014 on the other side in Raspberry glitter to match the sequin edges on the stripes.