After signing up for J. Crew's catalogs, I have been endlessly inspired. However, I can't exactly afford to buy everything I love from there. After seeing some lovely flats there, I got the idea to simply make them myself! Here are instructions on what I did, and I LOVE the results. Happy Holidays!
You will need:
1. Pair of cheap, basic flats. I chose metallic flats from WalMart, $9.
2. Small paper plates.
3. Newspaper, unless you are somewhere where you can get glitter everywhere.
3. Thick, paintable craft glue. I chose tacky glue, available at any store with craft supplies.
4. Foam brushes in a medium size. Too big and it will be impossible to apply the glue.
5. Glitter of your liking. I decided on a mix of gold and silver for this pair.
6. High gloss sealant. This is of the UTMOST importance.
7. Optional: spray adhesive, I used some from Elmer's.
1. Pour a decent amount of tacky glue onto the paper plates.
2. Apply glue to about a quarter of the shoe's surface (half of one size). Less will take forever to get the shoe covered and more might not be sticky enough by the time you get all of it covered.
3. Shake enough glitter over the glue to cover the surface of the shoe completely. If mixing two colors, it might be better to have an empty shaker and mix them before hand for an even application. Otherwise, the shoes may turn out somewhat splotchy with different colors.
4. This step is an optional measure to make sure there is enough glitter on the shoe to fill the entire surface. Apply spray adhesive to one half of the shoe.Shake enough glitter over it to fill in any gaps from the original glitter application.
5.Thoroughly coat the entire shoe with a gratuitous amount of the high gloss sealant. This way, your glitter will stay in tact and you won't leave a trail behind you wherever you go. This step needs to be done outside and will allow some drying time before you can handle the shoe.
6. Repeat 1-5 for other shoe :).
The finished product!
Troubleshooting:
1. When using the spray adhesive, make sure the inside of the shoe is covered, otherwise the glitter will end up inside of the shoe as well.
2. The sealant will cause the shoes to become VERY wet. Do not touch the glittery part of the shoe because the glitter will "smudge" and have your finger marks on it. The sealant also is very potent so seriously, spray them outside :)!
3. When I spray the sealant on mine, the black coloring on the soles started to come off on my hands. Just be careful because it will probably stain!
4. Resist the temptation to watch your sparkly feet with each step ;).
