Shoooes!

I like shoes as much as the next girl. Assuming the next girl likes shoes with a breath-catching, sweat-inducing passion.
But it's a rather one sided affair, and while I love the idea of owning a pair of Ferragamos or Louboutins THIS HIGH, I'm a strictly flats girl (due to my total inability to actually walk in heels). Also, these days the idea of spending that much money on shoes seems like... well, a bad joke where someone keeps screwing up the punchline (if you see what I mean).

Anyhow, I am a sucker for a pair of ballet flats, and given that my feet have the destructive power of angry tigers with chainsaws, CHEAP ballet flats are the finest kind.

So that's the back story, this weekend I was walking past Ardene (a Canadian accessory store in the Claire's mould) and they had a three for $10 offer on shoes. And right there on the stand were three pairs IN MY SIZE! (which is unusual because I have giant clown shoe style feet).
I did a massive double take and raced in.
I scored my three pairs, each ripe for a bit of refashioning. I headed over to net-a-porter for some inspiration and to laugh quietly at the prices.

Pair #1 are a navy blue corduroy (they're not this washed out in real life, I meddled with the exposure to show the details)


I was inspired by these Miu Miu denim Ballerina Flats ($465.... heh heh heh) :

I actually tried out the bow style with a spot of velvet ribbon from my stash but it looked kinda stupid. I have big feet (BIG) and it looked like someone had gift wrapped a speedboat.
So I did this instead:



Here's what I did.
Firstly I whipped the hardware off, the band with the buckle on it was stitched down so I just unpicked the stitching.


The next thing I should have done was re-puff the corduroy wale with a suede brush. But searching and a small tantrum ("HOWWWW can you not know where it is?") didn't turn it up. So I moved on. I 'll do it when I find the darn thing.
Tiny details can totally make uh, "inexpensive" shoes look plain old cheap. Like this thing:


I snipped it, and a few of it's friends off.

Then it was time for embellishments, I tried the bow and didn't love it. So decided a bit of ruffle was just the thing. I added the little pleats as I was sewing the ribbon on like this:

hoo boy, got to love that close up, they don't look this weirdly dusty in real life... At least I hope.

Repeated the process for the other shoe, then trotted around in them admiring my handiwork and hoping the blasted snow disappears soon so I can wear them out of the house.

I've still got two more pairs to play with! Yay!