English Rose Shoe-Shoes

Lets go a little bit more avant garde this week. I've always loved roses and butterflies so it feels natural to get them embellishing my feet.

You will need:

Shoes - I chose some with mesh on to give the illusion the butterflies had simply landed on my feet.

Foil - strong kitchen foil, anything too thin will be a pain to work with. It has to go in the oven.

Modelling Clay - the type you oven bake to set.

Material - this is gold polyfoil material. Has the feel of fake leather.

Shimmer Mist - covers ANYTHING in a faint shimmer, available in all sorts of colours.

Glue - my favourite fabric glue.

Fake roses - I had these kicking around.

Paint - Acrylic, but random photo of other paints used here.

Not photographed: selection of feather and mesh butterflies, strong thread.

You will need:

Craft Knife,

Straight Scissors,

Crimping Scissors,

Hot glue gun,

Sewing needle,

Paint brushes.

Wrap your heel in tin foil, this will act as your baking platform for the clay. The backs of these shoes come up above my ankle so I needed to leave an area for flex as I walk.

Cover the heel area of the tin foil with thinly pressed out modelling clay. It's about 3mm thick and I didn't want it perfect so I just pushed it around with my fingers.

I then rolled little balls of the clay before squishing them onto my hand. When you peel them off your hand little petal-like curls automatically get made.

Press the petals onto the clay covered heel and very carefully make sure you can't see the join.

Take the clay covered foil off the shoe and, supporting the space left with more rolled up foil, bake in the oven as per your clay's instructions.

Once they're cool you can start painting. As I used black clay I did a base coat of white so my paler colours could sit over the top. I went with two shades of pink and highlights of gold. I wanted a 'realism' to them.

When my paint was dry I sprayed the shimmer mist over the top so when the light catches the roses they'll shimmer!

Using the same gold paint I highlighted key parts of the shoes I had, and painting the whole of the sole.

In my mind it helped tie it in with the rose petals.

Remember that area for flex I left because of the height of these shoes?

Well it's not pretty, so I covered it with gold fringe.

Easy peasy to make - cut a straight line with your crimping shears, then cut the other way along each 'dip' created with straight scissors.

Place your rose on the heel and mark where you can add the fringe so the base level is hidden.

Glue around your marks and stick the fringe on - I did two tiers.

While you've got your glue flowing add some leaves to the front of the shoes and the base of the rose.

These shoes are smooth leather. That's no good for my glue to grip to.

I used a craft knife and scratched the hell out of any area I needed to glue onto. You could sand or file the area down as well.

To glue the rose onto the heel I used a hot glue gun.

I applied a lot of glue to the inside of the baked clay rose and quickly but firmly pressed it into position on the heel of the shoe.

As is to be expected I'd changed the shape of the clay slightly when removing it and baking it, so I filled the gaps with material rose petals.

The roses I had kicking around were white - damn!

But that's ok, I have every colour of sharpies I've been able to get...cue bodge job!

Acetone - found in most nail varnish remover - smudges permanent markers nicely, and on a material petal that means you'll get a lovely bleed effect. I used cotton buds soaked in the nail varnish remover and rubbed them over the top of the sharpie I'd just put on.

It worked and my petals soon blended with the rest of the shoe.

I glued and stitched my selection of butterflies into place. Some of them came with wires on that I threaded through the shoe and back out again (so I don't get poked by the wire as I walk)

And there you are, crazy botanical shoes with only a degree of muttered, frustrated curses.

Enjoy!