Refurbishing Some Red Shoes I Love for Pink Saturday 12/5/09

A friend of mine is doing a series of photos of Victorian Christmas' through this whole month. It is "eye candy" for sure. So won't you please go visit her at Aunt May's Cottage.

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Visit with Beverly at howsweetthesound for more participants for Pink Saturday. You'll not be sorry. Hope your holiday was wonderful!
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Beverly has asked us to share a Christmas memory and mine just happens to be about a pair of red shoes!

In the late 1950s we lived in Yorktown, VA. and did our shopping in Williamsburg. One day while shoe shopping my mother wanted these red shoes for me and I wasn't particularly fond of the style. I would only agree to them if she bought me a pair I liked. I was a teenager and a bit obstinate. So we bought 2 pairs of shoes that day: the red pair and another pair that the color escapes me after 50 years, but I rarely, if ever, wore those red shoes and never did hear the end of it from my mother. Oh, I loved the color, just not the style.
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I've had these shoes for over 25 years. They were my favorite pair of shoes but as you can see they've just about had it. Who am I kidding; they've definitely had it. They just went with anything: skirts, dresses or pants. I love them. So instead of throwing them away I've redone them to keep in a spot in my home. If I could find a shoemaker to duplicate them I'd have another couple of pairs made. But, alas, around here no one would take on the challenge. That surprised me because they definitely look easier to make than a pair of cowboy boots!

First step was painting them. I didn't necessarily want them to match so I painted one pink and one white. It took several coats of paint for them to even start to look better.

First I added german glass glitter to the outside. Then I started with the embellishing.

I painted the heel alizarin crimson red. That's about as red as you can get. I've given it many coats and may have to do many more through the days just as high end house painters and decorators do to those fabulous homes in magazines. Do you realize that in some cases those homes get 25 coats of paint? Yep, they do. The more paint the more luminous the wall. I've never done less than 3 coats of paint to any wall I've ever had.

Then I added some gorgeous vintage lace and some ribbon roses.

Since I call just about everyone "chick" I decided to add a little chickadee and a frivolous bright pink feather. A paper rose tops it off.

I wrapped some beautiful fabric around some poly filling and stuck it inside the shoe. After all, who wants to look at the yucky inside. On the sole I glued some pretty paper on but didn't take a picture of that.

And voilà the end result.
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I'm grateful to have lived in many places in the U.S. and having visited other countries because I then can truly judge about how wonderful this country is.
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