Pretty Little Pumps

Let me just tell you, the thrift store is awesome.  No, it really is.  We have 3 Value Village thrift stores near us (my cousins and their friends call Value Villages the VV boutique....:P) and on the last Wednesday of every month everything is half off!  So things that would normally be $2, $1.50, $3.75 and stuff are HALF off.  For example, we bought a muff for $1.75 that was real rabbit fur, a $1 regency bonnet for Caroline, and some sheer-ish--netting-ish stuff for my civil war bonnet that was only $.75 this past Wednesday.  That is AWESOME!!! And a month ago I bought a pair of heels for $1.50 that were my size, and they will work for WWII re-enacting. :D

One thing you have to do when shopping at the thrift store is keep your eyes open for things that can be turned into something else (sheets that can be turned into a ballgown, a curtain into a shirt, a pillow case into an apron, buttons of a hideous leopard print dress for a civil war buttons, shoes that can be cloth covered for a certain time period, hats that can be re-shaped or re-trimmed, pants that can be re-fitted, etc.).  When I saw these shoes they didn't look like 40's shoes.  They had this huge velvet ruffle (two velvet ruffles actually) on the T strap.  But because of the way we shop, I saw them and thought "hmmm...nice heel shape, T strap, all black, my size...$1.50" and so I bought them.  But they needed a little work, so here is what I did.  

Sadly, I don't have a before picture.  But the ruffle was obnoxious. 

Obviously, I seam ripped the velvet stuff off.  Once I had done that I realized how beat up the strap looked and realized I needed to cover it. So....

Shoes and ribbon

First I found some scrap black ribbon, just wide enough to cover the front of the T strap.  Then I cut it a little longer than the T strap.

ribbon lengths for T strap

I sewed it over the strap but not actually to the strap.  (On first shoe I did sew it to the leather and it puckered a bit)

needle in on one side of ribbon (not through the leather)

needle out on other side of ribbon (not through the leather)

this is what it looks like on the back-you can see the cris-crossing
thread

after and before

both straps covered

 Now that I had the T straps covered, I had to cover that messed up part at the base of the strap.  When I removed the velvet, it removed some of the "leather" covering on the toe too.  That needed disguising.

I  made little ribbon bows to put over that spot.  To do this, I made a ribbon loop, and then gathered it up the center.  After I stitched it down to the shoe the project was done!

making the bow

Tada! Finished bow

doesn't the lighting even look vintage? :) We had a lot of rain which made the
humidity so awful that it fogged up the camera lens and made it look
like this.  We only snapped a few pics 'cause we didn't want the
camera to get messed up.  But the fog really added to the dynamics of the
pics!

There you have it! Pretty little pumps! :D

~Theresa