Yet Another Shoe Post

Shoes officially done. Though not exactly how I thought....

I received the shoes from Oxford Heaven in the mail today. I was sort of pleased. The overall ideas were cute but weren't really executed very well. For one thing, She spray painted the shoes. Wha? Why? The original grey suede was perfect. The spray painting job is messy at best- the heels are a little puckered from the paint and there are silver fingerprints on the bottom. The glue she used was pretty weak, which in this case was actually fortunate for me. I was able to easily remove the bad ribbon job and pearls without taking any paint off the shoe or ruining the vintage lace (which I LOVE). Without the pearls all over the place, the shoe looks much better. I also removed the plastic leaves on the back since in person they looked a tad cheap. Finally, I removed the extra lace on the heel. It was just too much. Overall as is...a five out of ten. Cute, but not wedding worthy.

Fortunately for me...I'm crafty.

I whipped out my own high quality satin ribbon that is also featured in the boutonnieres and corsages and read: CAREFULLY attached it around the opening of the shoe. This covered up the rough edges of the awesome vintage lace that the wimpy "hand knotted" ribbon was exposing. I then added a little sprig of vintage millinery leaves on the side of each rosette (with ONE pearl and rhinestone each...not a dozen). I also added another leaf on the back of shoe and topped the whole thing off with a huge and superfluous bow in the same satin ribbon. I love them now!

AND they're actually pretty comfortable. Each shoe has extra padding on the inside. I'll still need to add more before the wedding, but its a great start.

The only problem left is what to do with the bubbled heels. The paint just looks bad. The fact that the silver paint is shiny only highlights the mess. I'm thinking of stripping the heels, sanding them smooth then painting them a matte black. Any better ideas?

Don't get me wrong- the price of the shoes, lace, and rosettes alone is probably worth the $40 they cost on Etsy. I'm sure Oxford Heaven makes better shoes when she's not so pressed for time. But I don't think I would consider buying her shoes for special occasions.

What do you think of my shoes?