The weather in Boston was drop-dead gorgeous today (so warm!) and I was feeling that spring has sprung and the idea of new beginnings and creativity and so I decided to take a trip to my favorite art supplies store a couple of blocks from my apartment. My Swear patent leather jazz shoes were gathering dust and were in need of a quick DIY freshening up.Swear patent leather shoes
I wanted an all-over pattern on the shoes, something that approximated the feel of these Louboutins:Christian Louboutin Freddy flat and Rollerball shoes (via 00o00)
But I felt that if they weren't those exact Louboutins, my shoes studded would look like just another tired blogger DIY project. I was hoping to find tacky 80's plastic gems to stud my shoes much like these:from Stockholm Street Style
But alas, there were no plastic diamonds in sight. However, what I did find to stud my shoes with was something far more clever and amusing than faux-tough spikes or glam gems: googly eyes of varying sizes.Googly eyes are the new studs.
For this project, I used Scotch double-stick tape to affix the eyes onto my shoes, meticulously cutting off the excess tape from the edges of the eyes so they don't show when stuck on the shoe. The shiny patent bonds extremely well with the adhesive tape, and I wanted to have the option of being able to peel the eyes off if I wanted to go back to wearing the shoes plain.Besides googly eyes, what you'll need for this project is probably in your house: scissors and double-stick tape.
I decided I was going to stud just the vamp. I first strategically filled the whole vamp to the seams with the biggest googly eyes, then filled in the gaps with the smaller eyes.halfway done
The Dandy Project DIY projects may be easy (in that people such as myself with sub-par manual dexterity can succeed in doing them) but they certainly aren't lazy. I spent a substantial chunk of my afternoon cutting tape, trimming the edges, and meticulously pressing each eye on to the shoe.
Here are the shoes all decked out with eyes. (On a side note, check out this Power Rangers villain I found on Lactose Intoler-Art Inspiration that may just be a distant cousin of my shoes.)The result isn't half as amazing in pictures as it is in motion where you can see the eyes simultaneously look around and end up staring at you.
I like how the eyes appear to be either a print or studs from afar and how kooky they appear up close when you see them moving.Of all the DIY shoes I've made that typically get a lot of stares, these are the first and only ones that can actually stare back.