Merlin Rainbow: The World's Most Unusual Wizard!

This shoe was one of my 2015 favorites, but I had to keep it a secret because it was a surprise. As we are now post-Carnival and it is safely in it's new home, I can now share it: The Merlin Rainbow Shoe!

I myself was never able to go to Pontchartrain Beach, but New Orleaneans have an uncanny talent for keeping special shared memories alive. How else to explain the fact that my husband can pick out K&B purple even though (a) he isn't from NOLA and (b) didn't even meet me until K&B had closed? And the fact that my son will grow up knowing who Mr. Bingle is? Even though it closed when I was a baby, I can (and will, with very little prompting) bust out the Ponchartrain Beach jingle. You've got it in your head now, don't you? Sorry not sorry.

One of the key players in this beloved, ain't-dere-no-more NOLA institution was of course Merlin Rainbow. As it so happens, I've known the actor who played Merlin Rainbow for well over a decade, and made this shoe especially for him:

Reference Images of Merlin Rainbow (photos courtesy of Edward Cox)

Knowing the shoe was headed to Eddie really put the pressure on because he does gorgeous work himself in such a wide array of- sets, costumes, masks, decor...you name it! Check out Simple Stunning Designs NOLA and you'll get a taste of what I'm talking about. So, while I always try to do clean work because I want shoes to be treasured, I was extra-especially particular on this one. The two things I really wanted to nail were the character's fun facial expression and the color scheme of the robe. I figured if I could capture those, adequately the rest would fall into place.

The head is a foam sphere with the eyes, eyelids and nose cut out of sheet craft foam. The toughest bit was the bead, mustache and hair, which I fashioned out of some scraps of white faux fur in my mom's fabric stash. I sewed the wizard hat out of white felt. I drew on the mouth and eyelid borders in puff paint with Martha Stewart "onyx" glitter". The pupils of the eyes are black rhinestones (so he'd have a nice wizardly twinkle in his eye), the irises are Martha Stewart "turquoise." The nose is Martha Stewart "garnet," with the lettering (Muses 2015) done in the same color to match/pick up the red of the red satin ribbon bow tie.

Merlin Rainbow's face (front view of the shoe)

Back of the shoe. This picture shows the "robe" colors and pattern most clearly

For the robe, I used Martha Stewart "yellow barite"  for the mustard yellow/gold. The teal was a lot tougher - I custom blended several iridescent glitters in my stash to match, then layered that blend over a base layer of Recollections "peacock." As I've mentioned before, when you're working with a semi-translucent iridescent glitter (like any of these), it helps to first put down a base layer of a similar shade of opaque glitter. It can give you a richer, deeper color than you'd get using either the opaque or translucent alone.

Finishing touches: I drew in the pattern of Merlin's robe (stars, crescent moons and saturn-ringed planets) with puff paint and glittered them (working my way around the shoe and hat in batches to avoid smearing/smudging/general messiness). The sequin trim along the edges is the holographic faceted gold sequin trim from papermart.com, which is my favorite source for sequin trim (but that's another post for another day). Finally I gave him a little extra punch of magic in the form of a nice burst of glittery white stars (using papermart.com sparkling star sprays, another papermart.com product I love).

Here are some additional pictures of Merlin Rainbow and Mr. Bingle with their recipients, Eddie and his husband Vatican (who I've known even longer, and whom I must credit with the suggestion to do a Merlin Rainbow shoe). Y'all can probably guess how much I adore these two, as they're holding two of my favorite shoes :)

Photo courtesy of Edward Cox

Photo courtesy of Edward Cox

Handsome men and glittery shoes...never let it be said there's a shortage of eye candy on my blog!