DIY: Paris on my Feet, Poodle on my Purse

So I used puffy paint to Eiffel Tower-ize my T-strap shoes and pood'dazzle my thrifted pink box purse. Sit still for too long in my presence, you just might be next.

Well, bonjour there, compadres! It's been like, I don't know, 10 minutes since I've updated my blog with something that I've French-fried and I just knew you were going through withdraw. Obviously I was. I mean, just how many Eiffel Towers can one put on things before people start to talk? Let's review just how many things I've attacked with the image of la Tour Eiffel:

 

The Let's Go to Paris art room windows.

 

My embroidered Eiffel Tower dress.

  

The I-See-London-I-See-France Dress.

 

And, now, these here shoes. 

Looks like someone has a problem.

Now you might also recall that I have an inclination toward DIY'ing my shoes. I've crafted pencils, crayons, Santa and just plain tacky shoes here. Over the summer, I tried my hand at creating my own 1970's style pattern-y sandals. So, when I found these Nine West shoes at Goodwill recently, I got the itch to give them a redo. Of the French variety, of course.

I promise you that is not a pair of panties stuffed inside the shoe but one of hub's pink hankies. It's best not to ask.

I began by changing the color of the shoes. They were a little too scuffy for my taste, so I used some black upholstery spray paint I found at the local craft shop and hosed 'em down. 

After they dried, I used a pencil to begin sketching in a very basic Eiffel Tower. I knew I wouldn't be able to get too detailed with the silver puffy paint I used. So I tried to keep my design simple. 

And there you have it, Eiffel Tower shoes! My students were quite fascinated. And I was impressed that the puffy paint had a lot of give. The paint didn't crack or flake off as I had feared.

And then came the Poodle Purse. A friend and I recently discovered a great new thrift shop in our town of Franklin, Tennessee called Thrifty Tula. My buddy spotted this purse for me and for three bucks, I was sold. It had already been spray painted this pink color. Turns out that was the perfect canvas for my poodle.

My Eiffel Tower addiction just might become surpassed by my Poodle Problem. Not convinced? Look here, dudes:

The entrance to the art room is Poodle-y 

And, of course, there was the making of this Gladys Presley Poodle Dress.

And, now, this here bag. Poodl'ized with black puffy paint.

I even have friends that support my Poodle habit. One of them is the marvelous hair accessory designer Peachy Tuesday who crafted my poodle headband from the fabric of my dress.

Did I mention that I also have a Pink Parisian Poodle Puppet named Fifi? She was a gift from Jes and is visiting us from France. She has been teaching the kids French words and phrases. She occasionally tricks us into repeating after her and saying such silly phrases as "J'aime la fromage puant" (I like stinky cheese).

Thanks for reading, guys! I'm off to see if I can use my bumpit to craft a giant hair Eiffel Tower at the top of my head. Where there's a will, there's an Eiffel Tower. That's my motto, anyway. Au revoir!

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DIY: Anthropologie Style

Dress: thrifted Issac Mizrahi for Target, anthropologie-ized by me; belt and hair clip: by me

Tell me if you do this: you go to Anthropologie determined that you are going to avoid the full retail at all cost and head straight to the sale room. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, you are on one cheap-o mission.

And then, you see It. That dress. The One and Only. The Dress that would complete You.

The Anthro version. On sale this time last year.

And you think to yourself, "you know what, forget the sale room, I've earned this! I've worked hard, I've earned my keep, I watched someone pick his nose AND eat it today. I don't care what the price tag says, that dress will be mine. It belongs in my closet!"

And then you do it.

You look at the price tag.

And the back pedaling begins.

"You know what, I don't really even like that dress.

"I mean, look at it...it's just too perfect. And awesome. Not to mention amazing. Why on earth would I want that? Geez, what was I thinking..." And then you drive off to the nearest Target and try to forget the dress with bottles of nail polish, a tube or two of lipstick, a pair of tights and three Kit Kats...or maybe that's just me.

But this little tale has a happy DIY ending. After seeing that little navy number and being scared off by the price tag, I recalled an Isaac Mizrahi dress that I'd thrifted some time ago. Sadly, it's permanent place had become my closet as I didn't really care for the spaghetti straps. With the out-o-my-price-range dress on my mind, I anthropologie-ized my dress with some sear sucker fabric fashioned into shoulder bows...and viola! $148 still snug in my pocket book.

Anthro sandals, also from last spring.

And then I got all crazy-like and decided to try my hand at recreating these bad boys.

Ya'll would you please get yourself some of these Sseko sandals already? It's for such a great cause...and I know you are tired of hearing me yap about them!

With my favorite sandal bases by Sseko. I love that I can create custom shoes in less than a half an hour with these sandals as my base.

Please pardon the toes...they's a little gnarly.

Oh and what do you know? The sandals match the dress. I've become so stinkin' matchy-match in my old age.

There you go, an Anthro-DIY. Just for kicks, let's do a rundown on cost:

dress from Goodwill: $7.99
hair clip and belt: made by me
sandal base: $39

Total: $46.99

Yippie!

Now I know I'm not the only one that's created an Anthro-inspired DIY...what have you created? Dying to know, leave a comment below!

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DIY: That 70's Shoe

Outfit details: dress: anthropologie from a couple summers ago; flower: H&M; shoes: diy'ed by me; belt: made by me and soon for sale in my shop

Hey, kids! Can you tell I'm just a little stoked about my new shoes? I wore them out to brunch today with a friend and received so many compliments. And, being the bragasaurus that I am, you know the first thing out of my mouth was, "Thanks! I made them!" I thought I'd share with you how I did it. It's so easy!

The completed shoe. For other shoe diy's, look here.

For this super easy project, you'll need the following: 

• platform or wedge sandals (what do they call 'em these days?) I picked mine up at Goodwill.
• fabric
• glue ... I like to use Aleene's Tacky Glue found at most hobby stores.
• matte Modge Podge
• exacto knife
• paint brush

 And here are the steps I took:

1. Lay shoe on top of fabric and cut, just like above photo. You'll need two pieces of fabric for each shoe.
2. Paint glue on to platform quickly. Be careful not to paint on the rubber sole of the shoe or the shoe itself because it will stick.
3. Place fabric over glue and smooth down.
4. Flip the shoe over and repeat this process on the other side.
5. Then repeat this process again on the other shoe.

Once the shoes have dried (I waited about 30 minutes), use an exacto knife and carefully cut along the edge of the shoe. I found that it really helps to use a new exacto blade.

Don't worry about the fabric fraying. Your final step, once the cutting is complete, is to cover the entire base of the shoe with Modge Podge. That will prevent the shoe from fraying any further. It also will add a protective coating to the shoe. I prefer the matte Modge Podge for this type of shoe because I didn't want them to be shiny.

And viola! These are a pinch more 1970's than I normally wear...but I love 'em just the same.

Outfit details: dress: vintage, thrifted; belt: a super sweet friend; flower: erm, these are my shoe clips that I bobby pinned into my hair; shoes: moi!

Sorry, this is as close to my troll feet as you're gonna get. Not that you'd wanna get any closer. I have what's called hammer-head toes. No pedi can prettify this kinda ugly.

 I was having so much fun with that vintage fabric that I created a matching belt and some new straps for my Sseko sandals. Making straps for these shoes takes me less than 15 minutes. It allows me to be matchy match from head to toe, as you can see here!

Off to get ice cream! Outfit details: dress: Forever 21, a couple summers ago; belt: made by me and available in my shop; sandals: Sseko and me

Thanks for dropping by. I've had so much fun sharing my DIY's with you of late! My spring break is drawing to a close...off to make the most of it.

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DIY: Conquering the Dynasty Dress

At the Hollywood Drive-In Golf at Universal Studios. I loved their putt putt courses which were based on 1950's B-movies. This one was called The Haunting of Ghostly Green.

While in Memphis last weekend, I was taken to a gem of a place called Park Avenue Thrift. And while it was far from being even remotely Park Avenue-esque, we did make a new friend (one whom attempted to try on her size 20 bathing suit over her clothes, asked us what we thought and paid the cashier with a wad of wet cash brandished from her bra). I also found this lovely floral dress.

Before hacking into the dress, I thought I'd give it one last hurrah in all of it's shoulder-pad, big-hair-with-bow, blue-eye-shadow, and-pointy-shoe glory.

As soon as I slipped the dress on, I immediately had images of Dynasty pop into my head. The shoulder pads were mammoth. It's no wonder we did our hair up so big in the eighties. If we didn't, we'd look like a shrunken head between those pillow-sized pads.

As a kid, my cousin, my aunt and I used to watch Dynasty, Falcon Crest and Dallas curled up with my grandma in her bed. The plot was over our heads so we usually had our noses stuck in some Sweet Valley High book.

More pictures from the putt putt. I've not putt putted in ages and we had so much fun. If you've not been lately, I say go.

So, here's a breakdown of how I conquered the Dynasty Dress:

• Removal of shoulder pads. But I didn't trash them. They'll come back in style someday, right?
• Removal of 8" from the hemline. I mean really. It was like a floral parachute.
• Addition of yellow scalloped collar. Seen best in the final photo.
• Removal of belt. I love it, but you can't see it. So I am wearing my bow belt instead.
• Addition of matching sandals. I used the excess fabric to create the straps for my Sseko sandals. If you are not familiar with Sseko, you might want to check them out.

Another show we watched with grandma as kids. I always thought of my grandma as being like Dixie Carter's Julie Sugarbaker. Doesn't Charlene look like she's wearing my floral dress?

It's not the biggest dress overhaul but this one didn't really need it. I was sold on the full skirt, the floral and the pockets. It just needed some de-eighties-izing.

Dynasty Dress, consider yourself conquered, bwahaha.

When I asked hubs what he thought of the end result, he said, "It's nice. It looks like an Easter dress. That's the look you were going for, right?"

Erm, yeah. And that's the last time I let him win at putt putt. Enjoy your weekend!

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DIY: Shoes

This year's Back-to-School Shoes

Hi, guys! This is just an update...I recently created more DIY shoes, this time Platform Sandals (eep!), that you can read more about here.

I never really thought I had a thing for shoes. But the enormity of 'em in my closet (and under the bed, in the once-linen closet,  and stacked in the bathtub) begs to differ. So apparently I have a weak spot. Some people adopt little lost abandoned animals and give them a home...I like to think that I do the same. Just for shoes.

Now the prob with being a shoe hoarder is that it could easily become a costly venture. I found this out at the beginning of the school year when I saw the cutest pencil shoes at Modcloth...for about one hundred bucks. Being the thrift shopper that I am, I constantly experience sticker shock when shopping retail. After studying the pencil shoes, I realized that I just might be able to recreate them myself.

The kids love these shoes. Most frequently asked question: "How do you sharpen those?"

So off to the thrift store I went in search of a pair of shoes to use as my canvas. With a black pair of slip-ons, I drew out my design in white colored pencil. It was simple enough: a curved line for the lead, a scalloped line for the wooden part, a couple of straight lines for the end of the pencil. I used several coats of acrylic paint and covered the shoes in Modge Podge. 

Now, I'm not so sure acrylic paint is the best bet. I've worn these shoes a half dozen times (turns out pencil shoes don't  go with everything) and they have cracked at the crease of the shoe. I recently read that Martha Stuart makes an all-purpose paint (of course she does) that might have worked better. Any ideas? 

There's a reason I don't have many pairs of pointed shoes in my closet. Because putting my Big Foot-esque feet inside something dainty and small is like forcing my big bump-ited head into a hat: it's just not gonna happen.

After painting the pencil shoes, I was bitten by the shoe-painting bug. My next thrift store/shoe restore purchase was this pair of foot-torturing pointy black shoes. I went about painting them the same way I did the pencils: draw out design in white pencil, add coats of paint, seal in Modge Podge. Bind feet and wear.

My Crayola-inspired outfit: crayon barrette, made by me; thrifted shirt; skirt picked up off of etsy. Most frequently asked question: "Can you color with those?"

A couple of months ago, DIY glitter shoes seemed to be all over the blogs I frequent. And I just knew I had to have a pair for the countless Christmas parties I would attend (which was, like, two). Now, I have this inability to read directions. I see them, I understand their importance, my eyes glance over them and I think "oh, yeah. I got this." Well, before you follow suit, read these directions, friends: 

1. Spray paint any areas of your shoes (er, outside) that will be unglittered. I used high gloss spray paint over these once-gray thrift store shoes.
2. Use glitter dust (which I did not do) and Modge Podge
3. Mix a large amount of glitter with a small amount of 'Podge. Attack shoes with said Glitter Podge.
4. Allow to dry (duh) and wear.  

Notice the key words: glitter dust. Turns out regular ole glitter is just too big. After several wears, I've had to replace chunks of glitter that have fallen off. Being smaller, glitter dust seems to have a little more give.

My dear P.E. teacher friend had me glitterize her basketball shoes from high school!

I was attached several times while wearing these shoes...by my cat. The feather boas drove her nuts. And got her permanently placed on the Naughty List.

Okay, these are seriously cheesy. But I teach the littles, so I can get away with it. Using these thrifted never-worn red t-strap shoes, acrylic paint, Modge Podge, felt and boa, I Santa-ized these shoes. Because the design is on the toe of the shoe, these shoes have not had the design-cracking problem like the pencil and crayon shoes.

My favorite thing about these shoes? Being able to say, "Are you making good choices? Because," with a glance down at my feet,"Santa is watching." Worked better than Elf on a Shelf.

My Valentine's Day Shoes...you can read the complete, unabridged how-to here:http://cassiestephens.blogspot.com/2012/02/glitter-leopard-true-love-story.html

My latest, and easiest, DIY involved thrifted shoes, broken clip-on earrings and a hot glue gun. I betcha can guess how I did it.

Not sure what's up next on my shoe DIY list...I contemplated leprechaun shoes for St. Patty's Day...but now I'm leaning more toward bunny shoes for spring. Oh, the thoughts that fill my head. It's like a look inside Einstein's brain, isn't it?

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