DIY Sparkly Shoes: Take 2

Two years ago (almost to the day) I made these sparkly shoes. What I didn't tell you is that they ended up being a complete and utter fail.

After one wear the paint and glitter started peeling off. No good. But my love for sparkly things persists so when this tutorial came around I gave it another go.

I started off with a pair of Tom like shoes from Lands End. I loved the idea of them, but the light color just wasn't practical.

I grabbed some gold fabric paint, gold glitter, and fabric Mod Podge and went at it. In the end I sprinkled even more glitter over the glittery paint just for the fun of it and then sealed it all in with MP. I let the whole thing cure in the sun and gave them a walk about.

Good as gold.

What was different this time? I think the fabric paint adhered to the fabric shoes better than the acrylic to the faux leather. Only time will tell but I've worn them on two long-ish city walks and no peeling or chipping. I'm calling it a success!

Glittered anything lately? Nothing is safe I tell you.

Cheers!

Glamming up the Closet

I've done other jewelry organization posts (see here) but with the new closet slowly coming together I wanted to do something different. Should I have been working on the kitchen? Probably. But this seemed way more fun.

Here is the before (closet as kitchen):

and after:

 Looks more like a closet now right? Lets zoom in a bit.

I lined the edges with just simple cork for even more storage and then glued corks on the back wall (I probably should have done it on thin wood or cardboard for removability but I'll bite that bullet when I get to it). Closer?

 I painted the jewelry box last summer in Bher's Lipstick. I love the coral hue with the natural cork color. I also added some cute antique tea cups for corralling my bangles.

Though I do feel like I should disclose the true state of the closet.

Not quite there. Once the kitchen is done we will tackle the rest of the mess in here. There is one little bonus I also included.

With such a chic display I wanted more than just your average stick pin for hanging but I wasn't really willing to go out and buy anything nicer. So, I took my boring yellow sewing pins and a few of my favorite nail polishes and fixed them up.

Much better! Now these are ready to hang my pretties. All in all the project cost around $4.00 for the cork squares. Everything else was on hand. Now I can actually wear my jewelry which is a huge plus.

I've had in-laws here and Daniel has been traveling but things are still poking along in the kitchen. We've got 2 weeks until we go on our 3rd honeymoon (yay Jamaica!) so I've set myself a goal to have the kitchen cabinets painted before we go. Ambitious I know, but if Young House Love can do it in 14 days then I should be fine! (here's their method) Sometimes you just need a hard deadline to motivate right? Who wants to take bets on whether or not I finish in time?

Cheers!
 Linking up to
Frugal Friday
 

Beach Lovin'

via

I've got vacation on the mind. 

Cheers!

Put a Feather On It

I pinned this picture a while back and finally got around to putting it together.

The blog is in German but her tutorial is really easy to follow. She took great pictures of all of the steps and really broke it down nicely. 

Here is what you need

And this is what you end up with

I have gotten so many complements on it so far and it took about 10 minutes to make which I love. I could see this being a great Christmas present for your fashion forward girl friends. What I love even more about the necklace is that I made it using feathers that I have been carrying around for 10+ years. 

When I was young we lived next door to an older woman named Nancy. Her house was a zoo with parrots and toucans and dogs and cats of all sizes and shapes (she even had a pot bellied pig for a while). I used to visit when I was young to play with the animals and as I got older I would help her with chores. When a bird lost a particularly beautiful feather she would save it for me and I have been saving my favorites for years.  She passed a few years ago and I still miss her so having something to remember her by is great. I love that I can wear my feathers and think of her. It is amazing how people can really touch you life. 

Anyone else get overly sentimental about strange items? Nancy loved Christmas most of all so I think about her a lot this time of year. 

Cheers!

Linking up to
Show and Share Friday @ Just a Girl
Beneath My Heart

DIY Knitted Bangle

I don't know about you but I have never been able to find a bangle that fit over my hand. It has always been frustrating because I love the look of stacked bangles but I just can't pull it off. But you know what does fit over my horribly gigantic man hands? Masking tape rolls. Or any of the cardboard innards that are left over after you finish that painters tape/ label roll/ etc. What do you know, I've been collecting them. I didn't know why until I saw this pinterest post.

Re-posted here

How cool are these? I totally know how to knit (one of my many mostly useless talents) so I thought to myself why not?? So here it is, attempt one. This is pretty easy if you know how to knit (and I'll get to a work around if you can't at the end).

Step 1: Cast on enough rounds to be twice the width of your tape roll. (I'd love to teach you all how to knit but I am seriously a novice at it so I suggest you find some you-tube videos. They will confuse you far less than I would).

Step 2: Knit away. If you know how to do anything fancy go for it! I just did a basic knit stitch the whole way.

Step 3: When you have knitted a band long enough to go around your cuff, stop and cast off. I did mine a little shorter so that the pattern would stretch a bit and look more interesting. 

Step 4: Sew ends together. 

Step 5: Slide over cuff and center.

Step 6: Hot glue that sucker down! Work slowly and carefully since the glue goes through the pattern but don't worry since this is the inside of the bracelet.

Step 7: Cover your seam with coordinating or contrasting ribbon. Contrasting is fun because you can add a pop of color to a neutral knit or if you'd rather it blend in go coordinating. This serves two functions: it covers your seam and makes it much less itchy to wear so go for a ribbon almost as wide as the bracelet. 

Step 8: Enjoy! Knitting included it took me about 1-2 hours to do this project. If I didn't have to knit (or was faster at it) I would think you could finish in about 30 min. I passed the time watching HGTV and entertaining myself with Norman pictures. 

If you can't knit you can easily replicate this by going to your local thrift store and buying some sweaters. I looked this weekend for some ones with neat texture and designs but they were all more than I wanted to spend on the project (I don't mind spending 10$ on a sweater I will be wearing but not one that I plan to cut up). The only step you would change would be step 4. Instead of sewing the ends together I would glue them and then cover the seam with a coordinating piece of ribbon to hide it. Crafty Farm Girl did a pretty good tutorial for all you non knitters out there but I think once you give it a whirl it will be easy. I'm still on the look out for some pretty neutral sweaters to chop up so I'll keep you posted when I complete a non knitted version for comparison.

Cheers!

Laboring Away

I hope everyone is having a wonderful three day weekend! Mine has looked mostly like this

Yup. Rewiring the walls for the new TV (more on that later). This is all part of the great library/ office switch. I've gotten a few more things started on my list to end all lists and the back porch is coming along nicely (hope to show you Wednesday). I also did this

Chopped it all off. I'm still geting used to the layers but it is nice and cool and boy has it been hot!

Keep enjoying your weekend people! There is still a little bit left.

Cheers!

New Dance Shoes

I love me some sparklies! So why not put them on your shoes? Suburbs Mama had me at the Mod Podge with these babies.

Is there nothing Mod Podge can't make even more awesome? I had a pair of shoes sitting around that I never wear so I thought, why the heck not??? If I ruin them, well, I wasn't wearing them anyway (it helped that I had an abundance of Mod Podge and Glitter too so it was a free project in my eyes).

I took my shoes from this

To this

Couldn't you just die???? I love them! 

Since I didn't start with tan shoes I painted mine with some acrylic paint I had laying around from the craft store. It took three coats to get them to this state

Then I mixed my gold glitter (Martha Stewart's Smokey Quartz) that I had left over from some sparkly candles I made last Christmas with my Mod Podge. It is really hard to tell if you are putting enough glitter in. My first mix gave me this

Not enough glitter. It should almost cover completely the first time so I added more and got this

Oh Mod Podge how I love you. I let that dry and added one more coating of the glitter to even out any missed spots and then topped it with a clear coat of Mod Podge to seal it in. Then I just let it dry over night and voila, gold shoes for a whopping $0.00 (way better than some of the $500 ones I've seen around like these). I figure, even if I never wear these shoes again they will at least look smashing on my closet shelves (it wasn't like I was wearing them very often in the first place). 

Do you dare to glitterfy some shoes? Dare, dare! If I had a daughter I'd make her be Dorthy for Halloween just to make a pair of these in red. Hey, I might do that any way. Now please excuse me while I stare at my feet.

Cheers!

Check out some other great ideas over at The Shabby Nest,

Showing it off!

I don't know about you, but I have a TON of jewelry I never wear. Mostly because it is gaudy or not my style but still is beautiful in its own way. I had an elderly friend who gave me quite a bit of costume jewelry and I love it because it reminds me of her (even if I would never wear it). So I've been on the lookout for a way to showcase my jewelry and not let it hide in a box somewhere.

I've seen lots of fun shadow box designs (like this one from Martha) and was hoping to find boxes for cheep somewhere (seriously, why are frames so expensive???)

Lucky for me I was wandering through my local Goodwill and found the perfect thing! Its a shadow box that opens up so you can add things to it after it is hung (Micheals calls it a "Keepsake Float Frame"). Not only that but after I found the one at the thrift store I walked into Micheals and found the exact same one in a different size (on sale!). (I know I should have gotten a picture of them before I put it all together but I forgot)

Here they are hung up

You can see the one on the bottom has some dings but that is probably why it was on sale in the first place. Oddly enough the thrift store one was cleaner and cheaper but oh well.

To put them together I bought some pretty gold tipped pins and arranged my pretties as I saw fit. Hanging them to the wall was a bit of a challenge because you want them to be secure so I ended up hanging them and then adding command strips to the corners for extra stability.

You could probably bracket them to the wall also but I am not sure where they will end up in the long run so I didn't want to put more holes in the wall than necessary.

This is my favorite feature

Everything is neatly behind glass but you can still get to all the jewelry without taking it off the wall! In the long run I may refinish them and put some decorative fabric for backing but I like them as is right now so we will see how the room evolves.What I really love about having it all displayed is that I wear everything so much more. I've never been great at accessorizing so keeping them where I can see everything has really helped me out. And I love that my broaches are out on display finally!

Starting new with everything this could be a pretty pricey project (new these frames cost something like 30-40$ each) but you could always get cheap Ikea shadow boxes and remove the glass so you can get to your jewels.  I may do that as my collection increases but who knows. I would probably advise against putting your really expensive jewelry in there since they are pretty easy to steal (I keep my nice stuff in a different place) but if you are not worried go right ahead!