Sparkly Shoes!
Anyone knows me knows my favorite color is …. glitter! I love everything and anything that sparkles or has bling. It makes my husband crazy because he is always finding sparkles somewhere in the house. Oh well!
When it was our daughter’s bat mitzvah a few years ago, I was struggling with what shoes she should wear for her party in the evening. She was always uncomfortable in dress shoes, so we decided to go a different route. Converse all covered with rhinestones. I looked on the internet and was blown away with the cost of some of these shoes – $175 for shoes with rhinestones and up to $300 for shoes with Swarovski crystals! That wasn’t happening. I did some more research and I knew I could do these myself. I ordered Swarovski crystals on-line in bulk, these are more expensive that regular rhinestones, but they shine so much more.
My next issue was what adhesive do I use? After doing some research and also speaking to my friend Tracy (her daughter does dance and they decorate costumes all the time), she recommended E6000. E6000 is sold at Michael’s and I’m sure a ton of other places too, so make sure you use your coupon. Let me give you a little warning – this stuff STINKS. There is a warning on the back that says it may cause cancer in the state of California. Lovely. So please work with it in a ventilated area. I actually had a blanket on my lap in the kitchen with all the windows and ceiling fan on in the middle of winter! Also, be sure to wear plastic gloves, you don’t want this on your skin. E6000 works so well, that you can use it to glue the crystals on clothing and wash them and it stays on! So exciting.
I use toothpicks to put the glue on, and do a small amount at a time. This can become quite tedious, especially when I did my daughter’s shoes, which I completely covered in the Swarovski crystals. I also take the original shoe laces out and replace them with ribbons, I think it looks so much nicer.
You can get the ribbons here –2cm Wide Fantastic Flat Shoelaces Voile Ribbon Shoe Laces for Sneaker Sport Shoes Grey
These ribbons come in all colors! I like to buy 2 coordinating colors – above they are black sheer and hot pink sheer.
These converse were already silver, and the bat mitzvah girl wanted pink and royal blue, so I added colored Swarovski crystals too.
This tool is amazing and it helps so much. One end with the waxy tip helps you to pick up the rhinestone and place it.
Here is another pair – these are gray shoes, low (not high tops) for a Mom.
Brides are also wearing shoes like this too, most likely, they won’t even be seen under a wedding gown.
What do you guys think? Ready to add some sparkle to something?
