M A K E | Painted shoes

I've been seeing a lot of cute printed Keds and other tennies lately, and I've had serious shoe envy. From the first lemon-printed pair of shoes I saw, my creative spark was ignited! This project couldn't be easier (or more economical). I had all of the paint supplies at home already, and all I had to get were the shoes. I got three pair, two if which you'll see here today. (I haven't painted the third yet!) I picked them up at a local big box store for $5 a pair. Score!

 

 Below, you'll see the shoes beforehand. The fact that they're denim gives them a bit of extra charm, but they're kind of blah in my opinion.

 I decided to give them metallic gold tips. I used this frog painter's tape to give me a crisp line. 

Here they are after one coat...

And after two coats, all done! This project literally took me ten minutes. I couldn't love these shoes more! 

My creative spark was ignited, so about a week later, I was inspired to turn these plain white shoes into awesome summery cuties. I was inspired by a pair of Kate Spade for Keds shoes, and I painted some lemons on them! These took more like an hour to complete, as the painting was a bit more detailed.

 I took the out and started by painting in the basic shapes and shadows/shadings of the lemons. You can see that I had some spill over onto the lip on the side - that is really easy to clean up with a knife or razorblade when you're done!

Then I added black outlines to define the fruits and painted certain sections bright yellow to define them more.

They are so cute and add instant cheer to any summer outfit! :)

If this post inspires you to make any shoes of your own, I'd love it if you shared!

Happy Thursday, brave & wonderful friends!

M A K E | Home-sewn aprons

Those of you who know me know that I love to make things. I have lots of projects going at any given time, and I thought that by sharing them more often in this space it might push me to be more creative and more joyful in this small thing I love doing: making.

This was a springtime project I tackled a few weeks ago. I bought some pretty fabrics to make napkins to use in food photoshoots, and I bought extra of this particularly beautiful cotton with yellow roses and purplish-gray leaves and another rust-colored greenery. I immediately made a simple apron out of it. This isn't exactly a how-to, but I'll tell you how I did it. 

I have several wonderful aprons my mother made me about six years ago, and rather than use an apron pattern from the store, I just laid this down for my pattern, cutting and apron front and back (on the fold) with about 5/8 extra for a seam allowance, as my aprons are double-sided & reversible. Then I used the ties as guides to cut out ties, also leaving that 5/8 allowance. Then I sewed the ties together, leaving one end open, and turned them inside out. I did the same thing for the neck strap, leaving both ends open. Then I pinned the whole apron together with right sides facing in and with the straps pinned to the inside (where the right side of the fabric is). Then I sewed it all around, leaving about a six inch unsewn portion around the bottom so I could turn it right side out. Then I trimmed the corners, turned it right side out, used a corner turner to make the corners crisp, and ironed it. Last, I slip-stitched the opening closed. The whole project was fairly easy and only took me about 45 minutes. 

The rose apron cost me about $3 total in materials! You can't beat that.

I was on a roll, so I made this other apron out of scraps I'd had lying around for awhile. I found a bunch of old flour & seed sack towels on the attic awhile back and decided to make some aprons. This fabric sat around as scraps for two years, but now it is a lovely seed-sack, gingham, and cotton apron. I love it.

What are you making, lovely friends?