MAKING OLD SHOES SHINE : THE BLINGY VERSION

It's the official party season. (Which for me is more of a work season; no time for parties.) All display windows ad billboards fill up with black and gold and red and glittery sparkly things for the season. Well, it's Christmas all year round in many ways for me (not just the lights here and there) as the amount of sparkly stuff  I nowadays have to drape myself in is, well, a lot. For all the obvious reasons.

I was blinging up an old pair of shoes for a show, but, this is of course something you can do without having to strut with them on stage in. You may remember my tip from some years back about attaching jewellery to a pair of heels? Another quick and easy way to bling a pair of shoes up is to use some rhinestones and glue and TA-DA, instant party shoes!

I normally use a fabric glue that is still elastic when it hardens but as the shoes I decided to pimp up are made of (faux) patent leather I used hot glue and pre-glued rhinestones instead. Because theses are for a themed act I put the bling on to resemble daisies. (I also made a glitter surface on the sole but we'll get back to that in another post.)



Be sure to clean the shoes before you start. The smaller rhinestones were pre-glued and came in lines (from Tiger)  which made this an easy task. Otherwise I use a chrystal pen or a pair of tweezers to grab and place the pieces.  Remember to be quick if you work with hot glue as it dries instantly - for bigger stones it's easy but for smaller ones that you might want to add in a formation (a line like here) I'd suggest another kind of glue that takes a little longer to dry. Haberdashery stores also sell rhinestones on a string, which would work nicely for this - the price per meter is high but you will not need so much for a pair of heels so it's doable.



And then it's just on with the heels and off to shine and sparkle!
(and yes I know, my working space is a mess as I, in my usual manner, am working on too many things at once...)