Tuesday, June 28, 2011

A shoe refashion

This weekend, I refashioned another pair of shoes. I started with some cream pumps that I'd gotten at the dollar-a-pound quite a while ago...I'd worn them once or twice, but cream wasn't proving a really wearable shoe color for me. Also, as they were fairly old, they were already scuffed and had some dark smudges on them. Worthy of a renovation!


So I grabbed some nail polish...


Covered the trim and soles with masking tape, and painted away with the tiny nail polish brush:


After some detail work and a couple of coats in a few places, I had pink shoes with cream trim:



I wore them yesterday with a black-and-white floral dress for a bold bit of color (no pictures, sorry!). Definitely a lot of fun!

And, for the IFB Challenge #2, a brief haiku:

Refashioning time:
Old cream shoes plus nail polish...
Presto! New pink heels!


What else? I've been keeping up with my goals for Me-Made June of wearing at least one refashioned or self-made piece every day, but I haven't really been documenting the process this time around. I'm also going through a major decluttering phase...am completely hooked on decluttering and organization and home design blogs right now! However, this desire to clean up and streamline my closet and my apartment doesn't play so well with my pack-rat/magpie/lover of collecting beautiful things tendencies. For example, I read the forum posts on Unclutterer about things people are giving away/trashing/donating/getting out of their homes, and I find myself both inspired to clean out more myself and wishing that I lived near their thrift store so I could pick myself up some of those rejected items!

So, last weekend, I worked on cleaning out the wardrobe where I store my dresses (of which I have a ridiculous number...my style has swung very heavily to thrifted dresses in the past few years). I wanted it to look like this, with a small assortment of my favorite carefully-chosen pieces:

However, while my wardrobe looked like that, my bed, covered in the rest of the contents of the wardrobe, looked like this:


Reorganized and after some dresses that just don't fit me/look good on me/end up getting worn were given to Goodwill, the closet looked like this (a major improvement from before):


And here's what I'm wearing today, now that it's finally back to summer in Boston (after a week of rain, clouds, and temperatures in the 60s)...cleaning out my closet has reminded me of some pieces that will work well this season!


Dress: thrifted. Tank top: Express. Shoes: Nordstrom, thrifted. Earrings: Me-made.

Hope everyone is having a good last week of June! Can't believe it's almost July...

9 comments:

fashionhacks said...

Wow great refashioning! And I really like your haiku, this IFB project was so fun!

http://www.fashionhacks.blogspot.com/

Trixie Falsae said...

Those shoes are adorable! How does the color hold up? I don't wear polish on my fingernails because it chips so quickly (though it is fine on my toes), so how does it hold up on the shoes?

Sal Kaye said...

Great job with the shoes, Elly!

Elly said...

Thanks!  At least the first day I wore the shoes (yesterday), the color held up just fine...even with a fair amount of walking.  Even the top of the shoes where it flexes with each step didn't start to peel or weaken.  I suspect that I've given the shoes a much thicker coat of polish than I'd do on nails, so it may be more chip-resistant... but I'll have to see after I've worn them a few more times!  (and I do have some more polish, so I could still fix a chip...)  

Daxia said...

You're so creative. I never would've thought of that!

xoxo
Daxia
http://silkandsatan.blogspot.com

Terri said...

For all the thrifting I've done, I've yet to go to one of these by the pound sales.  I really like what you've done with the shoes...and that maxi you're wearing.

Kristin & Megan said...

Love your wedges. Such a perfect summer shoe!

Audrey Allure said...

I love what you did to the shoes, they look fabulous in pink!

Shybiker said...

That's so cool!  I never would have imagined shoes could be re-fashioned -- and they look so good now!  Impressive work.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...