Updates and WIPs

Less than 200 days until Mardi Gras 2015 and 185 days until Muses 2015, by my count (which is this countdown, minus 5 days).

Of course for me the work window is a little narrower: my due date is about a month and change away. So onwards with the glittering!!

The Lucky Dog Shoe is now on wheels!!

The front wheels are wooden craft wheels from Michael's (these, or something quite close/) and the back wheels are from a Pine Car derby kit glittered in Martha Stewart "onyx" with white paint and glitter on the front wheels. These don't roll freely (the axels are glued to the bottom of the shoe), but I'm thinking about re-doing them so the shoe can roll. Too far? Possibly.

And here's a collection of shoes that are all approx. 80-90% finished (glittering and finishing is more or less done, still need "Muses" and "2015" written on them and some extra touch-ups/detailing). As a bonus, none of these are food-related so I can feel a little less silly about my theme choices this year.

This one I call the Mermaid Treasure shoe:

The teal on the exterior of the shoe is Recollections "Paradise. "Recollections makes two teals: "Paradise" and "Peacock." I love both, but "Peacock" is a little bluer and "Paradise" is a little greener. The interior (which you can't really see) is Recollections "Champagne" and the sole and heel are ArtMinds stackable purple. I was going for a teal and purple color scheme to invoke the aesthetic of the Sirens of New Orleans (it's also a slightly darker-hued/more jewel-toned version of The Little Mermaid's color scheme). Edges were lined with a gold braid, which while not glittery I thought might give the shoe a more nautical vibe than sequin trim would've. My mermaid shoe research is on this Pinterest board: Mermaids and Sirens.

For a while now, I've been bookmarking art shoes where the interior of the shoe is sort of used as a vase and completely filled up, often with flowers and often as (I'm assuming) a centerpiece. If you're curious about examples of what I'm talking about, see this Halloween centerpiece, this flower and feather filled hot-pink shoe or this sort of Victorian-esque piece

I wanted to completely fill the shoe like an overflowing treasure chest. To keep the weight down, I filled the shoe interior with a base layer of little purple glittery foam balls (I wasn't sure how much they're show in the finished so, and the answer is they don't really), then layers shells on top. I had a pretty decent collection of shells, both personally gathered and store-bought, so I mixed in a couple different types and hot glued them into place. I also added a few pearls (from a strand of beads) and some sprigs of glittery "seaweed" which I bought when Michael's Christmas stuff went on sale last year (they have a really wide range of floral decor at Christmas time so it's entirely possible to pick things up that can be repurposed into something not particularly Christmassy).

So, she's done except for lettering, and maybe a little more embellishment.

Here's another shoe in the category of me experimenting with filling up the entire entire of the shoe, which I call The Golden Goddess Shoe:

As described above for the glittery seaweed, I picked up some glittery gold branches in the Michael's post-holiday clearance that I thought didn't look too Christmassy and might be repurposed. I thought on a monochromatic shoe the effect might be more mythological. 

The shoe is glittered in several different shades of gold: Martha Stewart on the exterior, ArtMinds on the heel and sole and Recollections on the interior.The edges are lined with gold sequin along the bottom and a wider looser almost lace like gold trim I had in the stash on the upper edge and open toe edge. Then the shoe is filled with different shades of golden leaves, vines, branches, fruit and berries (all of which was Christmas clearance). I'm going for a Greek myth vibe, some kind of hybrid of the King Midas myth and the Golden Apple from The Judgement of Paris. Still needs "Muses" and "2015," which I'll probably do in that angular Greek font.

Moving along, here's my a Frozen-inspired shoe:

Here I was really playing with layering sheers to see what kind of effects I could get. I was also experimenting with the Recollections tinsel glitter, which I hadn't ever tried on a shoe before. Jazz Fest made me a little braver with texture this year - I don't usually stray from ultra-fine glitter because I haven't really had great experiences with the super cheap chunky stuff in the past, but I think that made be an issue with the low quality of the chunky glitters I was using: there was some really cool use of textured glitters at the Muses demo at Jazz Fest.

The exterior is several coats of Recollections tinsel glitter in "Frost." The base shoe was a pale taupe and I thought I could get away ignoring my own advice on translucent/pale glitter and just skip priming with white spray paint. I WAS WRONG. It took twice as many coats to get an effect I was happy with. The interior and heel are Recollections "peacock" covered with the much more sheer, iridescent Martha Stewart "blueberry slush." The sole (which doesn't really show in the pictures) is Recollections "bling" (a mirrored iridescent silver) covered with Jefferson Variety iridescent white glitter. The layering gives a nice icy effect.

The trim around the top edge is a white sequin trim that I thought looked nice and snowy and the bottom edge is teal sequin trim. I made a teeny little snowman for the shoe out of two small glittery white foam balls with sticks for arms (glittered with Martha Stewart "brownstone"), a toothpick piece for the carrot nose (glittered with Martha Stewart "copper") and little black glitter facial features drawn on with Scribbles puff paint and glittered in Martha Stewart "onyx."

Still needs lettering, and I'm trying to decide what else this shoe might need...

Hope everyone's glittering/planning/dreaming of shoes is going swimmingly! I can't wait to see what people share for 2015 (though I really a lot of that sharing probably won't happen until later in the year/closer to Mardi Gras...*sigh*)

Next post will be about Snoball shoes, including some how-to tips, so check back!

PJ's Coffee Shoe

I suddenly notice that I have a string of shoes to share here that are all food or drink related! That's probably about 25% coincidence, 25% the fact that food and drink are such big parts of the New Orleans cultural experience and (if I'm being perfectly honest with y'all) 50% being pregnant and homesick! While there will be more food and drink shoes coming, I'll be mixing it up with some other themes too, I promise!!

For this shoe, I used the same general approach that I used on the 2014 Shoe Bliz shoe, I converted the back half of a shoe (the heel area) to a to-go coffee cup with lid. I glittered the main body of the shoe with a nice dark coffee brown (Recollections, color "espresso") then decorated the to go cup as a PJ's coffee cup. The red is Recollections "cherry." The black lid is Martha Stewart "onyx" and the white glitter on the bottom is probably ArtMinds (I have about 4 different brands that I use interchangeably when I need white glitter).

For the logo I traced and transferred using my go-to technique and did it in two pieces (the PJ's letters and the box). The purple is Martha Stewart "charoite." The yellow in the logo came out a little exaggerated because I could only get the lines so thin (I used WOW! brand "sunflower" over yellow Scribbles paint). I would've liked to have gotten the logo tracing a little cleaner, but it should still be recognizable. There are two logos on the cup, one on each side:

I covered the arch across the top of the shoe with some "whipped cream" (silicon based caulk) sprinkled with "cinnamon" (Martha Stewart "copper").

I got the idea to use silicon caulk to create texture from the DIY slice of cake postcards and I am having so much fun playing with it. I can't wait to share some of my other experiments with it here.

2015 Fried Shrimp Poboy Shoe

Another 2015 shoe in progress: The Shrimp Poboy Shoe!

I've had this Robert Tabor sandwich flipflop pinned on my inspiration shoes board for quite a while now and finally got around to making one this year. I liked the sandwich concept and loved the idea of using flip-flops for something because I like to try a shoe-shape outside of my traditional pump comfort zone and flip-flops are super cheap (this pair was like $1 at Michael's). I did think I could make it more New Orleanean, so instead of just a sandwich I went with a nice iconic fried shrimp poboy. I should also point out that Mary Ross totally beat me to the punch on this one, making an awesome roast beef poboy Nyx purse last year.

I started out by making some paper mache shrimp to stuff my poboy. I used paper towels, Elmer's glue and pink tissue paper:

Here are my shrimp before "breading and frying"

I achieved the "breading and frying" by covering them with a chunky copper glitter (not sure what brand, something at Michael's). I usually never use chunky glitter, but I thought it would work for this. I mixed in a little fine gold, copper and black glitter as well, but it was mostly chunky glitter on the shrimp.

For lettuce, I bought some pale green tulle (same as I used to make the ruffle on the KaleGate shoe, but a different shade). The tulle was already a little glittery, but I also added some extra glitter (Martha Stewart, "limeaid"). Adding glue to the tulle to apply the glitter also allowed me to add some more naturalistic creases and wrinkles in the lettuce.

For the tomatoes, I cut circles out of foam (I traced the same circle six times, but didn't worry about following the lines too closely when I cut them out so they would seem more real). The tomatoes are Martha Stewart "carnelian" with Tulip dark red glitter around the edge for the tomato skin. I thought about adding more detail to interiors of the tomato slices like seeds, but figured it wouldn't show when the poboy was assembled.

For the bread, I removed the strap from one of the flip-flops, then covered them both with Martha Stewart "copper." On the bottom piece, I added a nice generous smear of "mayo" (white Scribbles 3D paint with white iridescent glitter). On the underside of the top piece (with the strap still attached) I added some red glitter hot sauce (which doesn't really show in the pictures or in the finished sandwich).

Here are the finished ingredients all lined up ready to assemble:

Fried shrimp and lettuce

A little more lettuce, tomato slices and bread

Everything lined up (I have a table just for my Muses shoes to work on now!)

Next step, I hot-glued together the top and bottom pieces; fried shrimp went on the bottom flip-flop and lettuce and tomatoes went on the top flip flop (when I tried assembling it and the shrimp kept overflowing my husband said "don't worry, that happens on real poboys too." Sounding more and more like a native, that one...)

Lastly, I assembled the top and bottom pieces into the finished poboy:

Still needs some touch-ups, and of course it needs "Muses 2015" (maybe relatively small on the straps?). I  also really want to photograph it with a bottle of Barq's before it's thrown.

Overall I'm pretty pleased...it's not a perfect recreation or anything, but it certainly makes me hungry for a trip to Parkway (granted, that's pretty much always the case).

Lucky Dog Cart Shoe

After all my big talk about how much I love working on shoes year round, I went and took a very long hiatus from glittering. Apart from the Kale-Gate Shoe I posted in March, I hadn't really worked on any 2015 shoes. Various things came up: big exciting stuff at work, moving to a new place and (the biggest impediment to glittering) I got pregnant. My husband and I are expecting our first (a boy) in about a month and change. So, while I don't think I'll be able to get many shoes done for 2015 (certainly nowhere near as many as I finished in 2014), now that we're moved and settled and I'm trying to make some now while I still can. I have about a dozen shoes in progress right now. I've been working very slowly, but I have a handful of shoes in progress that are close enough to done to be worth sharing here.

We moved so we'd have more room and (joy of joys!) this included a garage where I could set up a little work space for shoes:

This was before I actually starting using it...It's a LOT messier now

It's nothing spectacular but I love it beyond words. In our old place, I had to unpack and repack things whenever I wanted to work on shoes because I didn't have dedicated space, so I spent about as much time cleaning up after myself as working on shoes. Now I can work on things and leave them out, and it's way easier to find things now that my supplies and shoes are better organized.

Anyways, without further ado, let me share some pictures of a nearly finished 2015 shoe - The Lucky Dog Shoe!

This shoe is inspired by the Lucky Dog Cart, which I would guess is recognizable to any New Orleanian whose been in the French Quarter and was, of course, featured prominently in Confederacy of Dunces. The "bun" is Recollections "champagne" and Martha Stewart "copper," to achieve the two-tone effect. I could probably have gone a little browner to get the top of the bun a little toastier, but that was the closest thing I had in the stash without custom blending.  The "hot dog" is Martha Stewart "carnelian" and the mustard  is WOW! glitter in "sunflower" (over yellow Scribbles paint because the yellow glitter is  pretty translucent). The top and bottom edges of the top bun are lined with gold sequin trim.

The interior is Martha Stewart "garnet" (to match the red box on top of the cart). The big chunky heel is meant to stand in for the brown box on the end of the cart, with "New Orleans Tradition" rotated 90 degrees (artistic license). The heel is Martha Stewart "brownstone" and the yellow lettering is, like the mustard, WOW! glitter "sunflower" over yellow Scribbles paint.

The "LUCKY DOGS" lettering is Martha Stewart "orange topaz," with yellow edging (again, "sunflower" over yellow Scribbles paint). On the other side, "MUSES" is written in the same font as "LUCKY DOGS."

  The umbrella is a little drink garnish umbrella painted with WOW! "sunflower" and Martha Stewart "garnet." Where on the Lucky Dog cart's umbrella "Enjoy Coca-Cola" would be written, I've written "2015" in (Scribbles paint in "white mist" with white glitter).

Wee glittery "2015" umbrella

Profile view showing the lettering on the left side

I'm toying with getting some wheels on there as well to make it extra cart-like. I'll post more pictures if/when I add the wheels. More shoes very soon!

Weekend in NOLA

My husband and I drove down to NOLA to catch the second weekend of Jazz Fest and visit with family. Long story short, we had a BLAST. 

Weekend highlights included my sister and I taking a trip to Hansen's (we hadn't been in forever). My sister got a half cream of almond, half cream of nectar with condensed milk and I got a Brown Pelican (cream of root beer float), both excellent choices. I saw my 2014 Snoball Shoe posted on the Hansen's Sno-Bliz Facebook page after Mardi Gras, and as it didn't wind up getting thrown in 2014 I thought it would be nice if it had a good home. The shoe lives at Hansen's now so if you stop by, you can see it hanging out above the t-shirts next to St. Joseph:

I'm working on more new-and-improved snoball shoes this year, can't wait to share them with y'all.

We hit up Jazz Fest on Saturday and (surprise surprise) I was drawn to the Muses shoe-glittering demo station like a moth to glitter flames. So much awesome. If you didn't get a chance to stop by (or did and just want to relive the glitter glory), here are a few pictures of the gorgeous shoes at Jazz Fest:

Shoes on display

I so love the bedazzled tulle on the cowboy boot!

More shoes on display

Jazz Fest 2015 Muses Shoe

Really hard to pick, but if I absolutely had to I'd say this was probably my favorite. The colors, the big rhinestones, the marabou around the top...so gorgeous!!

I was also pretty crazy for this one, with the pink crown and intricate pink and white pinwheels wedge.

The work area, with Muses signs in the background (We Can Shoe It!)

The lovely ladies posing for a picture with their handiwork

After an awesome weekend and much strawberry lemonade, we're back in Memphis now. We're more or less moved into our new house (including a new shoe work space for me in the garage) so I'm planning to start glittering again this weekend. If my sparse posting has left you feeling a little deprived, here are some sources for extra inspiration I wanted to share:

(1) Muses Shoes by Ani Facebook Page. Her shoes are amazing, transcendent works of art. Her 2014 boots are awe-inspiring. I was literally speechless looking through them - so much detail, creativity, cleverness and artistry!!

(2) Check out Melissa Lee's Nyx purses and magician-themed Muse shoe. Gorgeous work and she includes lots of great detail on the process of making them (which I love and always wish I could find more of online). Be warned - if you're anything like me, the realization that that's her first Muses shoe will drive you mad with jealousy.

(3) Pinterest user Jenn Solberg has compiled a really impressive board of Muses shoes (and I'm not just saying that because some of my shoes made the cut!!) 

Glitter rec - WOW! sets on Zulily

If anyone's on zulily, they have a pretty good deal on the 24 packs of WOW! glitter (usually a 24 pack runs about $20-$30, but they're $12.99 right now) BUT it's only for about another day and they're running a little low...

Update 05/03: OK, I checked back and there are now only eight of the extra fine 24 packs and 22 hours left on the clock...

All That Glitters - UPDATED FOR 2014

We're still in the process of packing up to move next week, so I haven't been glittering any shoes lately (and yes, this is hazardous for my mental health). I'm so glad there's only a week or two left standing between me and more sweet, sweet glittering. I have been stocking up on supplies and organizing my stash, so that's keeping me borderline sane.

One of the very first posts I did here was my summary of glitter options available to the casual shoe-glitterer: All That Glitters. A smidge over a year later I have learned a lot, and so I really wanted to do an update of that post. Since I've been reorganizing my stash and don't have any new shoes to post, now seems as good a time as any. Obviously, a lot of personal preference plays into glitter selection, but this is an overview of my relationship with various glitter options:

Some general observations:
- My rule of thumb is still to try and stay under $2/oz and to buy at least an ounce of any given color (though you can blend or mix)
- If you're getting supplies from Michael's, make sure you use coupons. Because I'm terrible at hanging on to actual hard copies of coupons, I go in with a coupon on my smart phone. I get my Michael's coupons online at (http://weeklyad.michaels.com/) or in my email. I'm signed up for the mailing list so I get a heads up on coupons/sales (like last weekend there was a 20% off entire purchase including sale items; this was a great time to pick over the sale Spring/Easter stuff for butterflies and flower and also a good time to stock up on bottles of 3D puff paint for glettering, which almost never go on sale but are pretty much a waste of a 40% coupon). If you're into that, by all means sign up. The most common coupon is a 40% off, so I've included that in my pricing chart (see below). Whenever we're in the neighborhood, I pop in to use a coupon...shopping year round rather than buying all my glitter in one trip means I rarely buy glitter from Michael's at full price: slow and steady wins the race.
- I haven't been to Joann's in forever, but I think if you sign up for their mailing list you get coupons in the mail (this used to be the case, maybe they've gone digital?).

(1) Martha Stewart Glitter - As I've pointed out before, this is the fanciest pants of the glitters and is nice and fine. You can buy it in big multipack (a selection of 0.37 oz tubes) are bigger bottles (see chart). You do usually have to pool or mix the 0.37 oz tubes, it's not quite enough to cover a whole shoe. The multipacks aren't a bad use of a coupon. Some of the iridescent Martha Stewart glitters are somewhat sheer. If you're working with a sheer iridescent glitter (especially pink, yellow, white or orange) you'll probably want to prime your shoe in a similar color of spray paint before glittering, mix some similarly colored opaque paint into your glue, consider some extra coats of glitter, layer these colors over a base coat of more opaque glitter (like so), or some combination of those options. The multipacks are a pretty good price on Amazon compared to Michael's, but the 1.5 oz bottles are way more expensive on Amazon. At my local Michael's, the 1.5 oz bottles are $4.99 or $5.99, depending on the color, so I wouldn't ever buy a bottle of MS glitter without using a coupon.

(2) Recollections - Still one of my favorite options: not too expensive if you use a coupon (especially on one of the larger 5 oz containers) and a nice range of colors that includes a shade of purple that's called "Muse" (love it). It's available at Michael's (I think Recollections might be Michael's store brand?) and comes in rectangular tubes. Product info here. The 1.5 oz tubes are $3.99 at my local Michael's, the 5 oz tubes are $8.99. You get more bang for your coupon buying the larger size, but it's only available in a few colors. I have noticed that the hues aren't totally consistent, so sometimes a particular color looks a little darker/brighter than you remember that color being (I've definitely seen this for "Marine" and "Muse").

(3) Jefferson Variety Crystallina Glitter - I blogged a little about Jefferson Variety in this post. If you've never been and you're into crafts/sparkle/glitter, you should really really go - it's magical. I don't get to go often as I don't live in NOLA, but it's one of my favorite glitter sources. It's utterly unlike anything else I've ever bought, and a really good price ($4.98 for 4 ounces). I have many little cups of it in my stash now. You do want to go wait in the line to have fabric cut even if you're only buying glitter and don't need anything measured, I think that's just their system and will probably result in the least annoyance for all parties concerned. It's become my "tradition" that I get lunch at Crabby Jack's after a pilgrimage to Jefferson Variety...that's not an essential component of the glitter purchasing process, but I nonetheless recommend it.

(4) ArtMinds Extra Fine Glitter - I also get this at Michael's. It comes in neat little 2 oz stackable containers, and is comparable price-wise with Recollection. Product info here. It doesn't come in a ton of colors, but the colors are nice and vivid and there's a shade of green in this line that has a little gold blended into it that I'm in love with. Also (and this isn't in my table, shame on me) my Michael's sells a double stack package of the silver and gold together, so that's a great potential use of a 40% off coupon, especially because those are two incredibly useful colors to glitter with.

(5) Tulip Glitter - I used to use more Tulip because I liked how bright the colors were, but I've realized Tulip's a little pricier because it's machine washable. Since that's not a feature you need in a Muse shoe, I don't think it's worth the increase in price for shoe glittering purposes. Recollections or ArtMinds would be a perfectly reasonable substitute brightness-wise and are cheaper, particularly with a coupon.

(6) Oriental Trading - I blogged about OT glitter in this post, but to summarize Oriental Trading sells packs of 2.5 oz bottles of fine glitter in 4 or 5 bottle sets (including the Fall Glitter assortment, the Springtime Glitter assortment, the Halloween Glitter assortment, and the Bright Glitter assortment). It's about $0.85/ounce (the cheapest option I've ever found), but that's not including shipping costs AND assumes you'll use all the colors in the set. I can tell you from experience that the orange in the Fall and Halloween assortments isn't really very sparkly and since it's not a color I need all that often (perhaps you're more creative than I am with orange), and I haven't been able to use very much of it. I also want to point out that the black in the Halloween assortment isn't as sparkly as the one you'd get from Recollections or ArtMinds, but is fine for a first coat. The green, purple and red glitters are all awesome. Regarding OT glitter, a reader (Melissa Lee) kindly left a comment that reminded me to include a recommendation that y'all sign up for the Oriental Trading mailing list to get announcements of when they have free shipping deals going on (which, in my experience, is pretty often). They also have other craft supplies that I bet would be great for shoe embellishment, though I've only ever bought their glitter.

Here's my new and improved detailed price chart of glitter options. I did the research so you don't have to! The updated version includes a heat map comparing price per ounce (red = more expensive per ounce, green = cheaper by the ounce):

Happy glittering to all, and to all a good night!