2015 Shoes Recap

Finally getting around to a post on my 2015 shoes! This year I was a little way less prolific in terms of shoes. For the first 4 months of being pregnant, I would pretty much come home from work, get in bed and only get out of bed to go be sick (sorry if that's TMI). After that, we were pretty occupied with moving, and after that - the baby showed up and my hands were very full (full of awesome, but full nonetheless).

With all that going on, I'm pretty proud that I got ANY shoes done at all, let alone 15. Truth be told, I've done more shoes in the last month than the entire last year. I also, for related reasons, did a truly awful job taking pictures of shoes this year. My phone (which used to be full of pictures of my cats, my shoes and food) is now all baby all the time! Somehow the time between shoes being finished and going to their forever homes just evaporated, and I now find myself without any real pictures to speak of for several of my 2015 shoes...as such, this is going to be a little patchworked together. Anyways,  in no particular order, here's a list of my 2015 shoes.

1) Flamingo Shoe
My friends who first introduced me to Muses shoes (a mother-daughter pair, Lynn and Shannon) are in the Flamingos, a subgroup of Muses women who all ride on one float together. When my sister rode in 2014, she was with the Flamingos. Check them out here: Muses Flamingos Facebook Page. Inspired by this shoe, I made this as a little homage to the Flamingos and as a present for those friends, some of the funnest, kindest smartest ladies I know. It's also worth noting Lynn is an exceptional decorator of shoes: some of her shoes are on my "Other People's Muses Shoes" board (look for Koplitz Collection 2014 in the caption), but her 2015 shoes were so stunning I'm devoting a whole board to them because I don't think she Pinterests and I want people to be able to fully appreciate the "dRK" shoes. The technical execution is flawless, and the color combinations are breathtaking. And that's not even going into the fact that she gets 60 done a year without breaking a sweat! I haven't got the pictures up quite yet, but the board link is here and I'll post a note here when I manage to get it together.

And if you need some encouragement, take a look at the shoes Lynn and I did the first year she rode here. Now, I think they came out great for the first attempt at it and I'm still very proud of us, but when you compare it to how far we've both progressed....well, I'll just say I hope it helps anyone frustrated by riding the learning curve right about now.

Here are a few so-so pictures I took before it was totally finished:

The face is Martha Stewart onyx and pale pink, the main body of the shoe is ArtMinds hot pink. Accented with hot pink sequin trim, black sequin trim, hot pink marabou and, of course, some nice big googly eyes. I added "Muses" and "2016" in black. Here's Shannon with the shoe:

2) Mr. Bingle - He's in the front row on the above picture. Making this shoe led to me finding out there was a Mr. Bingle fan group on Facebook (my shoe was posted, and a friend gave me a heads up), which I've certainly enjoyed and has given me some great inspiration for future shoes.

3) Merlin Rainbow

4) Ice Cream Sundae Shoe - one of the three that were auctioned at the Muses Twelfth Night event, I didn't get any great pictures of this one, but luckily the auction winner put a great picture up on Pinterest:

Via Pinterest user Sayde Faraday - so glad she posted this!

The bottom scoop of strawberry ice cream is Martha Stewar "kunzite." The chocolate sauce on that scoop is brown 3D puff paint with Martha Stewart "brownstone" glitter. The top scoop is Recollections "champagne" with Martha Stewart copper glitter for the caramel sauce. A little swirl of silicone caulk for a whipped cream dollop, plus a glittery red sphere cherry and multicolored bugle beads (glued on w/E6000) for sprinkles. The shoe is Martha Stewart "aquamarine" and white gold. I chose that shade of mint green to evoke the paint color of the Creole Creamery uptown. It also went really nicely with the aurora borealis rhinestones I decorated the strap and cup with (I have such a weakness for aurora borealis rhinestones). Muses is written in whipped cream white and 2015 is on the toe in strawberry pink. The trim along the edge of the strap is silver and iridescent to match the rhinestones, the lower edge is finished in silver sequins. Probably one of the best executed shoes I've ever done.

5) Shrimp Poboy Flip Flop - This one was also auctioned at the Muses Twelfth Night event. In addition to the pictures in that post, I found this one on Pinterest as well and it shows some of the details I didn't really capture well in my photographs so nicely: the hot-sauce-red "Muses" on the strap, the smear of mayo (or rather mynez) on the bottom, the chunkier glitter as breading on the shrimps. And I love how it seems to twinkle in its bag - the sparkliness can be so tough to photograph (I know other glitterers must struggle with this too):

Fried Shrimp Poboy Flip-Flop via Pinterest

My specs are pretty well detailed in the post I linked to, but I will add that I think packing peanuts would make an excellent substitute for handcrafted paper mache replicas (as suggested by Lynn) if you aren't a crazy person like me (see the Hollywood South shoe below for more on that).

6) Lucky Dog Cart Shoe

7) Steel Magnolias 2015 - Shelby's Wedding Bouquet

8) PJ's Cup Shoe

9) Hollywood South Popcorn Box

I owe the credit for this idea to Lynn who, when she saw the Shrimp Poboy shoe, asked if the fried shrimps were packing peanuts, which is brilliant. I had laboriously paper mache'd them when packing peanuts would've been just as good! It's one of those suggestions that's so obvious you feel silly when someone points it out. Anyways, I starting thinking about other things I could do with packing peanuts, and thought that, covered in a nice bright yellowish gold, they might look like buttery movie theater popcorn, and I could do a Hollywood South theme. I didn't really get pictures of the finished shoe, but do have some of the assembled box on the heel:

Boy, I am a truly terrible photographer. Anyways, you can see the finished shoe in the group shot at the top. The shoe was silver (for the silver screen) and black, with a little clapper on the front that said Muses 2015. I also used the platform on the shoe as a marquee and wrote in blue and red 3D lettering: "NOW PLAYING" on one side and "MUSES 3D" on the other. Black rhinestone polka dots gave the finished shoe a nice retro "classic Hollywood" vibe. I'm planning to make more popcorn shoes, so I'll document the process a little better this time (fingers crossed).

I also want to go ahead and share two other movies/popcorn Muses shoes I've found, in case you were feeling inspired to do your own:

• Jamie's Movies shoe - it looks like she made the popcorn kernels out of three white pompoms with yellow glitter glue in the middle - really clever and cute! I also love the stenciled font and the ticket stuck in there!
• https://www.pinterest.com/pin/285978645062106663/ - not sure who's this is? Anyone? Bueler?
• https://www.flickr.com/photos/picsbywendy/6815657329/in/set-72157627453993933/ -not popcorn, but Wendy's glamorous Hollywood shoe included a walk of fame star, spotlights and palm trees! See more picture in her 2012 Flickr album

10)  Mr, Okra Truck Shoe - the only one this year that went into my personal collection, but it doesn't have a year yet, so it may go to a new home in 2016.

11) Little Miss Muffin Shoe - back row, between the PJ's coffee cup. I had some pretty cream and gold  Little Miss Muffin ribbon from a baby shower gift, and since we're big fans of LMM (and "downtown Lakeview" as my mom used to call Harrison Ave.), I decided to do a shoe. I picked out shades that, to me, felt like they'd be at home in the store and went for a girly/pretty/embellished/but-totally-still-tasteful vibe on the decor (gold trim, a cluster of calico flowers and a big bow).

12) 2015 Hansen's Snobliz Shoe

13) Rainbow Snoball Shoe

14) Nectar Cream Defend New Orleans Snoball Shoe - blogged about it here, though I wound up adding "Defend New Orleans" to the cup (in ArtMinds magenta and Martha Stewart turquoise) to make it a little more visually interesting:

Defend New Orleans

Bagged up and ready to go to its new home!

15) City Park Flying Horses - another one I don't have great pictures of. I found a tube of wee plastic horses on clearance, and decided to do this shoe. The color scheme is to match the carousel (Martha Stewart "turquoise," "cotton candy," and "copper" with Recollections "champagne") and wee mirrored tiles to invoke the mirrors inside the carousel, including "MUSES" written in mirror tiles.

My husband drilled a hole through each horse (he would like co-credit for this shoe for his contribution) and I glued in wee dowels glittered with copper glitter and added a crystal bead to the top of each. Then I painstakingly glittered the horses and added teeny tiny rhinestones so they'd look like the horses in City Park. Here are some in process pictures of the horses:

Drying between coats in their little foam rack

In the end, I added the horses to the shoe (a cluster of three in the front, a cluster of three in the back) and added some little vintage-style banners saying "City Park Flying Horses" to emphasize the theme (the banners show up pretty nicely in the group picture above; it's in the front row middle-ish)

16) Proud to Kale it Home - the #kalegate shoe!

17) Golden Goddess - shown in early stages here, it got lettering before being thrown

18) Mermaid Seashell shoe - shown in early stages here, this one didn't get finished for 2015 so it'll be a 2016 throw,

19) Frozen shoe - shown in early stages  here, it got lettering and some more detail before being thrown.

Phew! That's it...all caught up, now on to posting 2016 shoes!