Updated Count (12/1/2013)

I was up to ~63 shoes stashed in September, then I brought down the Saints Super Bowl ring shoe and another six shoes for Thanksgiving (these three, the googly eye shoe, the Tiffany box shoe and the purple green and gold button shoe), so with approx 88 days to go the count currently stands at 70 shoes.

Yesterday (Black Friday) I hit up three thrift stores (got 6 pairs of shoes, $3.50/pair), bought 8 tubs of glitter at Jefferson Variety (went there on a tip from a friend that there are TONS of colors on the shelves right now, maybe in preparation for Carnival season?) and picked up two big cans of AquaNet to start sealing my shoes (another recent tip: hair-spraying shoes to prevent them from shedding glitter; I'm working through the backlog in batches of ~10 because after that the fumes start to get me dizzy).

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and whatnot, and that everyone's enjoying their Small Business Saturday!

(I celebrated Small Business Saturday at the Palmer Art Market, treating myself to this shirt, which I'm counting on for extra shoe mojo)

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 heels, these 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).

Another Purple, Green and Gold Shoe

Can't have too many purple green and gold shoes! The gold and purple glitter are both ArtMinds, and the green is Oriental Trading (from the Halloween collection). The ArtMinds gold is cheaper than Tulip (usually my fav for gold), but has the same bright, brassy quality that I love for a purple, green and gold shoe. Finished up with gold sequin trim, gold lettering and a puff of feathers on the back. This color combo (OT green, ArtMinds or Tulip gold and ArtMinds purple) seems to coordinate best with the feather boa.

Profile

Other side of the shoe (where the year will be added)

Top view showing the gold interior, and green strap/gold button embellishment on the front

Green sole

With flash

A lot of my shoes don't have "Muses 2014" on them yet, of have "Muses" but no year yet and that's partially by design...I'm waiting to see how the shoes get parceled out for the 2014 ride before I finish all the writing so I can save any extras for another year as needed. I can make the transfers well ahead of time, bring them down to NOLA and glue them on the night before if need be (not planning on it, of course, but I'm a girl who likes a good backup plan).

Birds of Baltimore

Another Baltimore shoe for my sister's ride. Two of Baltimore's teams have bird mascots: the Baltimore Ravens (named in honor of famous Baltimorean Edgar Allen Poe) and the Orioles. Both teams share the color black in their team colors (Ravens = black and purple, Orioles = black and orange). Seeing the mash-up of the two teams on Pinterest (exhibit A) inspired me to make the Birds of Baltimore shoe.

The black, orange and purple glitter are all Recollections (the purple is Recollections color "muse"). The gold on the sole is Tulip. I like that you can flip to the orange side or the purple side depending on season or occasion. 

The oriole was an orange bird (on clearance with some summer decor) that I converted with black glitter and black marabou. The raven was Halloween clearance (I have another 1 or 2 in the stash, some with witch hats that will probably get removed). Gold braid around the top edge, black rhinestones along the divide between purple and orange and black sequin trim along the bottom edge.

The "0" in 2014 is the Natty Boh man, complete with one googly eye:

Still needs "Muses" written on it in Tulip gold on the purple side, ready other than that.

Tiffany Box Shoe

I've been in the planning phase of this shoe for nearly the whole year (see my research board here). The toughest part of this shoe is getting the shade of Tiffany blue right, everything else is pretty straightforward. I kept an eye out and even starting bringing a Tiffany bag with me to try and match, but never found anything dead-on perfect. I ultimately settled on blending two that were close, and I'm happy with the result. 

I started by spray painting the shoe with a couple of coats of white so I'd have a solid white base. I mixed together Recollections "Frost" and Martha Stewart "Wintergreen" until it matched the Tiffany box blue and the white base shoe got ~3 coats plus touch-ups (I mixed up ~1 oz, which was just about right, plus a little extra). 

The heel is Recollections "bling." The lettering is Tulip 3D paint in color "white mist" with a little ArtMinds white glitter sprinkled on it. The white satin ribbon is from a genuine Tiffany box. Other than the possibility of some crystal rhinestones on the heel and maybe some silver embellishment (both of which I'm still on the fence about), it's essentially ready to go at this point.

Lots of pictures of this one:

Profile - Muses

Profile - year

Ribbon wrapped peep-toe

With flash

Three more 2014 shoes: Magnolia Shoe, Perched Peacock and Purple Butterfly

When Autumn floral stuff went 80% off at Michael's, I got a bunch of these big cream-colored silky magnolias. This is the first time I've used one. The green is chartreuse from the Glitterage. The interior and heel are Recollections "champagne" and the sole and "2014" is Martha Stewart "brownstone." The edges are lined in gold sequin trim. I also added a little champagne glitter in the center of the magnolia.

Next up, I had a wrecked little bird in the craft stash, so I peeled off all the destroyer layers and glittered over the plastic base and added a peacock feather:

I perched the fixed up bird on a shoe covered with various teals (including Martha Stewart, Recollections "peacock" and Jefferson Variety dark blue) and edged with gold sequins.

Finally, here's a purple and coppery-orange shoe accented with a big glittery purple butterfly (one of my personal mantras: you can't have too many butterfly shoes or too many purple, green and gold shoes). The purple is ArtMinds and the orange is Recollections "copper." The sole is Recollections "gold" to match the swirls and thorax on the butterfly (also gold sequins along the bottom edge). Big iridescent purple sequin trim around the upper edge, and ArtMinds purple glitter for the lettering: 

Googly Eye Shoe

Inspired by the Leboutin Deju Vu heels and the fact that googly eyes are awesome (my googly eye research/links compiled here), here's the Googly Eye Shoe!

The gold is from the Glitterage, so I don't have any info on it. The purple interior and lettering are ArtMinds glitter and the wedge (including the sole) is covered in Recollections black glitter. I lined the top edge and top with a really big purple sequin trim (I don't usually use the big stuff, but felt like this shoe shape could handle it) and the divide between the shoe and the wedge I lined with purple sequin trim from one of those cheap 5 yard Michael's spools.

Then I covered every centimeter of wedge (both sides, front and back) with GOOGLY EYES. I've been collecting googly eyes of all sizes for a while so I'd have a good variety. I applied them with Jewel-It glue.

In case you're looking for a little extra glitter inspiration

I found this youtube video of someone's 2014 collection:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA0KH9NUeFU

Some really gorgeous stuff, and I'm super jealous she's finished already :)

More shoes!

The voodoo doll shoe after assembly (some pics with and without flash):

And some more work in progress shoes: