Along with the blessing of my daughter I was also "blessed" with bigger feet! I don't know if this has happened to anyone else but for me it has been a bit of a problem. My shoe size changed from a 10 to a 10 1/2, which I cannot find at all! So, I have been looking for 11's which is also a challenge. Now you might think that this is a great excuse to get a new wardrobe for your feet but when you are on a tight budget it is not that easy. So, I was on a mission to get some new cute shoes for under $15.00. I found some plain black casual shoes at Wal-Mart for $9.97 and bought some supplies to spice them up for $3.00.
There are lots of great tutorials online to make fabric flowers you can use to refashion your shoes. I used a tutorial from Emily's Little World to make these flowers for my shoes.
Spiral flowers
Supplies
- Shoes
- Coordinating fabric that doesn't fray (For both of my flowers I used black leather I found from JoAnn's, t-shirt/jersey knit fabric works well too.) If you choose a fabric that frays you might want to use a fray block first.
- Hot glue gun and glue
- Scissors
- Felt in a coordinating color cut into a circle (about the size of a quarter for big flowers and a nickel for the small ones)
- Thread and needle (optional)
Step One
To make the spiral flowers, cut one strip about 1 inch wide and whatever length you want. I made my bigger flower using a strip about 16 inches long. If your fabric isn't that long, don't worry! You can use 2 or even 3 separate pieces and glue them together (I will explain how in step 4). For my smaller flowers, I used strips about 8 inches long.
Step Two
Take your strip of fabric and fold it in half lengthwise. Hot glue it together making sure to only glue the bottom ends together. Don't let the glue get on the top part near the fold!
Step Three
Cut little slits across the entire length of the now folded strip creating oblong loops. Make sure you only cut about half way down the strip starting from the folded edge. Your glued edge should not be cut.
Step Four
Once the whole strip has slits cut, starting at one end roll the strip somewhat tightly into a spiral. Hot glue the last 1/4-1/2 of an inch into place. If you think your flower isn't as big as you would like, just take another strip that has already been cut and slit and match up one end with the end you just glued. Roll the new strip around your flower and glue the end like you did the first strip.
Step Five
Load your flower up with hot glue on the underside and press on your felt circle to keep the flower nice and secure.
*Now you have your cute spiral flower. At this point you could attach it to a clip for your hair or a pin to put on your bag or keep reading and I will tell you how I attached it to my shoes!
Step Six: Attaching your flowers
You can attach your flower in several different ways:
1. If you want to detach the flowers at some point it might be good to hot glue your flower to a shoe clip using another circle of fabric to secure it to the clip.
2. Another option is to hand sew the flower to your shoe. This can be pretty tough (depending on the type of shoe you have) to get a needle through your shoe. I would suggest using a thicker needle like an upholstery needle and a thicker, heavy-duty thread like a button and carpet thread. **I use Button and Carpet thread for most of my crafts.
3. Good old hot glue is also a great way to keep those flowers in place. Make sure you use a good amount of glue to attach the felt on the bottom of the flower to your shoe.
I decided I didn't want my flowers going anywhere so I sewed a couple of stitches and then finished using the hot glue. That's it!
Now go and spice up those boring old shoes!
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