Wednesday 26 June 2013

Today's project: Sequin Heart Shoe Clips

If you have been looking at anything wedding-related on the internet over the past year or two, you will no doubt have come across those beautiful Vivienne Westwood jelly shoes with the hearts on them. I fell in love with the cream and red version, but I am SO not a heel person. Being 5ft 10", I feel cumbersome in heels, a bit like Godzilla stomping around the city, toppling buildings with my pinwheeling arms. I found a flat version, but they don't seem to sell them anywhere any more. I then found some charming little knock-offs on ebay, but they were only for people with tiny feet, which sadly did not include my size 7 tootsies. 

Alas, I thought, it's not meant to be. I never found jelly shoes very comfortable when I wore them the first time around as a young girl in the 90's, so perhaps it was for the best. No one wants blisters on their wedding day! I set about finding an alternative. That's when I found some super cute red sequin heart shoe clips by Ban.do - perfect, I thought.. until I saw they were in the US and no doubt the shipping fees would cost more than the clips themselves.

Being a budget bride, and a crafty one at that, I set about making my own shoe clips. I found a tutorial online and honestly, it is the most easy peasy DIY project I have done for the wedding! 

You will need:


  1. Red felt (or whichever colour you would like your hearts to be)
  2. Red sequins (or whichever colour you would like your hearts to be)
  3. Strong glue (I used Beacon's Tacky Glue which I got from Fabric Land for £2.89 and it's fantastic!)
  4. Scissors 
  5. Cardboard for making a template
  6. Shoe clips (not pictured as I had already used them before I posted this! Whoops!)
Firstly you need to make a template by drawing out your heart on a piece of cardboard. You can fold it down the middle to make the two sides of the heart even. 

Once you have your template, you can cut your hearts out of the felt and spread the glue across it. You might find it easier to just glue a small bit at a time rather than cover it all in glue and then having it stick to your fingers constantly whilst you put the sequins on (I speak from personal experience here).

To put the sequins on, begin at the bottom of the heart. This is a comfortable place for the start of the thread of sequins and it means you can just follow the shape of the heart round. When the outline is covered in sequins, start moving towards the centre and overlap this row of sequins slightly with the previous layer. This will help give you full coverage of the felt.

Once you have reached the centre, cut the strand of sequins and glue the end down well in the centre of the heart. Leave to dry.

When both hearts are sequinned and dry, flip them over and glue the shoe clip to the back like so:


Remember if you want the heart to be pointing downwards on the shoe, put the clip at the top of the heart in the centre with the clip facing down. Glue the clip on thoroughly and leave to set. (If you're using Tacky Glue, give it overnight just to be safe).

And then, voilĂ ! Heart clips for your shoes!


I have put mine on some cute cream lace pumps by Call It Spring that I got in the Debenhams sale.
They are currently only £7.50 and very comfortable!

So there you have it, your very own heart shoes and for just a fraction of the cost of the designer version. Plus, you can put these clips on any shoes you like, so you could have wedding flip flops, sandals, trainers, stilettos, whatever you love to have on your feet! And you can re-use them again and again after the big day, and anything you can recycle gets a gold star in my book.


If you decide to give it a go (and why not?) I would love to see pictures of your creations so please feel free to leave me a comment with the link and I will go give them some love! :-)

Thanks for reading!


Monday 17 June 2013

Today's project: Making a flower crown


So some of you will be lucky enough to be going to a festival this year, and one of my favourite things about summer fashion is the influx of hippy festival wear - big flowery maxi skirts, long printed tees and cute accessories. I particularly love flower crowns, although I'm pretty fussy. For our wedding I've been looking for a bit of a boho alternative to The Veil as I just can't seem to find the right kind of veil to go with my dress. Those of you who follow me on Pinterest might have noticed quite a few floral crowns on my Boho Wedding board, but a lot of the ones I have found in the UK for brides have been, well.. a bit big. I'm a plus size girl, and my dress is kind of busy, so the last thing I want is to be wearing half a garden on my head. 

Cue many, many nights of looking fervently on Etsy and high street websites for a crown that was pretty, purple, not too big and not a metal headband. Every time I found one I liked, it was too expensive, or it wasn't quite perfect. (You know how it is). In the end, as with many of the projects I have taken on board over the past few months, I started to think maybe I should just make one of my own.

I already have a stash of floral wire from making the buttonholes/corsages/bouquets, so I got myself some brown floral tape and some flowers from eBay, which came to just under £5.00. Bargain!

This, I promise, is all you really need:


  1. Floral wire
  2. Brown floral tape
  3. Wire cutters/pliers
  4. Artificial flowers of choice
  5. Ribbon of choice
First you want to measure how big you need the crown to be. As I was using relatively small wires, I attached three together so it would be long enough to wrap almost the whole way around my head (remember there will be a gap where the ribbon is tied, so it doesn't need to actually meet at the back). Be sure you have a bit of extra length at each end to loop the wire back on itself so you have somewhere to attach the ribbon. 

Wrap the length of wire in brown floral tape, several times over so it's nice and thick. I then made a second, slightly shorter length of wire covered in brown floral tape. I wrapped one end of the shorter wire around the base of the crown, just next to the loop and then weaved it up and down around the crown, like this:



Then just gently push the bottom wire of the crown out a little bit opposite each loop so you have even almond-shaped loops along the length of the crown. Now you can start attaching the flowers! I took each flower head off of the stalks they came on and inserted a small length of floral wire up the stem, making a small loop at the top of the wire to help secure it. Then I just wrapped them in brown floral wire and wrapped the flowers around the crown wherever I thought they looked good. This is the most time-consuming part but also the most rewarding as you really start to see everything coming together. 


When you are happy with the flowers, simply tie a length of ribbon through the loops at the back and pop it on your head! Instant festival chic for beauties on a budget, and perfect for summer weddings. You can use whichever flowers you like to fit your theme, in whichever colours you like. You could even thread pearls or beads around the crown too for a little added sparkle! 

Here's how it looks on:


Obviously you can make them as big or as small as you like, by adding bigger flowers or more wires. These would make great gifts for flower girls or younger bridesmaids too. Have fun crafting! :-)




Friday 14 June 2013

Cupcakes!

I haven't baked for a couple of months, but was recently asked by a friend to make some cupcakes for her husband's birthday, as they are coming to stay with us this weekend. I made their wedding cupcakes when they got married last year and they came back for more! The birthday boy is the Best Man at our wedding in September as well, so of course I gladly obliged.

Me getting my bake on:


I was given free reign over decoration, but the flavour had to be chocolate. Chocolate with more chocolate! So, I did my usual chocolate cupcakes (slightly modified from the Hummingbird Bakery's Devil Food Cake recipe, and for the chocolate buttercream I used a trusted old favourite recipe from The Primrose Bakery book. I like it because it produces a very rich buttercream (it uses nearly a whole pat of butter and just under 200g of melted 70% chocolate! But I try not to think about the calories..) and it pipes like a dream! It's light, almost mousse-like in consistency, which goes well with the soft, fudgey texture of the cakes.


Here they are, all finished. I used some fresh strawberries and white chocolate shavings as I have 2 full punnets of strawbs in the fridge that needed some love, and then the others were decorated with some of the sprinkles in my current arsenal - chocolate vermicelli, chocolate hearts and a few kitch cakes with some hundreds and thousands and wafer daisies for a bit of fun.

He won't see these until tomorrow so now I just have to focus on preventing the husband-to-be eating any of them before then! :-)



 
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