I love a great pair of classic shoes. A pair of classic shoes have a solid neutral color, a natural fabric, and can go with just about any outfit or handbag. It doesn’t have to fit dozens of different criteria, in fact you can have a classic in many different styles; a classic pump, a classic ballerina flat, and in this case a classic wedge.
What is great about my classic wedge in particular, is that its perfect for do it yourself embellishment projects, like this one. All you need is a pair of shoes, super glue, some gemstones (any color, I got mine from JoAnn Fabrics) and an optional pair of tweezers.
If you are worried you’re going to mess up a good pair of shoes, you can do what I did and get a pair from your local thrift store. At first, it may seem gross, but a good way to tell if a pair of shoes have been worn or not is look at the sole of the shoes, and look inside the shoe on the back where the size is. If there is obvious wear, then I don’t buy them. (I have purchased shoes at thrift stores where the original price stickers were still on the bottom). If that still grosses you out, then I would recommend buying a cheap pair from Target or Marshall’s. The shoes above I bought from a local thrift store for $2.99. They’re brand new.
The first thing I did before gluing anything on my shoes was to mark where I wanted the gems to go first. This way, I wouldn’t accidentally glue a gem in the wrong place. I used a black Sharpie to put dots on the shoes where I would glue the gems on.
When I had the dots in place, I placed a gem between my index finger and thumb. I dabbed a tiny amount of glue on the flat side if the gem and pressed it onto the shoe on a Sharpie dot, and held it there for about 10 seconds. After I repeated this about five times, the gems started to glue on my fingertips, so I got a pair of tweezers and used those to hold the gem while I super glued and placed it on the shoe.
For me,the trickiest part of this whole project was getting it exactly the same on the opposite shoe. The best way to do that is to completely finish one shoe, then mark the other shoe with the Sharpie.
You know what they say:
“If the shoe fits…”
🙂
Maggie
