So a while back when I was hunting good wedge boots for Captain Marvel I stumbled across some of those cheap-o Halloween costume witch shoes.
They were my size and they were only $5 on clearance. So I bought them. One day I will splurge on some American Duchess shoes, but for now, $5 is all this broke-ass can budget for shoes.
Thursday night I started painting them white; I was covering them in fabric, but since I wasn’t sure EXACTLY what I was doing, I wanted a white base in case whatever fabric I ended up using ended up being transparent. I used some of my Jacquard Super Opaque white fabric paint on them, since I had it on hand from painting the skirt (it’s what I dialed down all of the other colours with.) It went on a litttttle bit thicker than I would have liked (maybe should have used the regular white instead? I had some of that but didn’t bother with it). but it covered it really well and really fast, and the part that mattered – the heels, since they would be seen – looked fine!
Here’s the painted base, along with a mockup.
You can see how thick it went on – it clogged up the eyelets in places!
I used some leftover lining to trace out a mockup and just followed the seamlines of the original shoe. I decided to use the pink taffeta I had used for the trim because surprise! It was a 2-way stretch taffeta. I had no idea when I bought it, and was a little frustrated by that while making the trim… but it was a blessing in disguise for the shoes because having a stretch made it SO much easier to work with.
I ended up covering the entire shoe – including the bottom. That way I didn’t have to try to glue or sew the fabric along the sole, once I had the whole piece made (two pieces for the front; two pieces for the back; one piece as the sole), it slid right onto the front, and then the back went over the heel. I hemmed the heel opening, and then hand-stitched the rest in place. This was the hardest part, because working the needle through the vinyl shoes required a good thimble and a pair of pliers, and my fingers are very sore today.
In my last post I mentioned the pink rose satin I’d wanted to use as my smaller trim, but it shredded as I worked with it and I realized it would be impossible without cauterizing it. But! I decided to use it on the shoes, because the pieces were big enough to hem. I made pieces that stretched over the lace-up sections, and down around in front of the heel.
As you can see, I use my regular pins to hold the fabric in place – I just stick it all the way through the fabric and the shoe, instead of trying to actually pin it. I usually end up getting jabbed a few times but it’s the easiest way I’ve found to hold it in place all over the shoes (not just along the edge) while doing this.
The satin still ended up being a butt to work with (constantly trimming frayed edges while working), but I really liked how it looked so I stuck with it.
Almost finished!
I cauterized all of the unfinished edges on the interior (important for that crappy satin) and glued them down, then I glued down a strip of some scrap pink grosgrain ribbon I had to hide (and pad) the raw edges. I also fray checked every single edge of the satin — even after cauterizing it, just to be doubly sure.
I was initially going poke holes through the fabric back through the original eyelets, fray check them, and use a thin pink ribbon I had to tie it. But I realized that was going to not work well with this fraying crazy satin, so instead I made loops out of that thin pink ribbon, sewed them in place, and used those instead! I think it’s much cuter!
I used a 1.5in pink ribbon as my lacing. It’s a little too thick, I think I may go through and sew part of it in half – the part that will be laced through on the shoe, and leave the bow part thick.
So in all I spent $5 on the shoes and $4 on the ribbon. Everything else was scraps from the dress. Not bad for $9 shoes.