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Hello! I'm Suzannah, a serious DIYer and mom of two little ones. Follow along with my DIY fixer upper house renovations, sewing and crafty projects, real food recipes, and de-stressing goals.
I believe you can love your home just the way it is, AND have the power to design and make big changes to make it better.
I'm also the author of DIY Wardrobe Makeovers!

Wedding Shoe Fail #2

I recounted the story of my partially successful shoe-dying project.  Then I bought another pair of even better shoes to dye or re-do or something.  My plan was to dye the bows, and if I liked the color, dye the whole shoe. Thank goodness I did this.

iDye Poly doesn't come in pink, apparently, so I had to try RIT.  Bleh.  The iDye Poly that I used in Yellow worked so well, but the RIT of course doesn't work well on polyester like my shoes, so the fuschia I bought ended up looking like pale bubblegum pink when I dyed the ivory bows.  They're cute, but not what I wanted and they don't go with the dress.
(Hm.  They look pretty there but trust me, in real life they're a cooler, candy-colored shade that is totally different than the warm shell pink on the dress.)

So, after a little soul-searching, I decided to go with the ivory shoes, and make some decorative shoe clips or flowers or something to go on them!  Something like these from BHLDN...

I'm inspired by both the beautiful shoes they have:
And here are the lovely BHLDN shoe clips, that you can clip onto any pair:

I made lots of silk flowers for my wedding dress, and made a few more recently with my shoes in mind.  Did I want silk flowers on my shoes, the same as the ones on my dress?
Even when I made smaller ones, they all seemed too big for shoes.  I wasn't loving the flower-on-shoe idea, but I did like those pompoms from BHLDN.

I did some searching and found this great tutorial for pompom shoe clips.  Yesssss!!  I did basically this exact thing except I used bias-cut strips of silk rather than torn on the grain.

I made two pompoms out of ivory silk chiffon bias strips, and sewed them to these awesome shoe clips.  I bought a set of 6 pairs of shoe clips on Etsy for only $3!!  I highly recommend buying some of these sometime if you ever want to dress up your shoes.

Anyway.  They are super fun and look great with the dress.  A little like 1950's bedroom slippers, but hopefully not too much when I'm all dolled up. ;)  They aren't a bright color, like I had hoped for, but are still fun and quirky.

Here they are at the wedding!
Photo by Studio 623 Photography

(If you did any DIYs for your wedding or the wedding of a friend or loved one, I'd love for you to share them in the Adventures in Dressmaking DIY Weddings Flickr group!!)

16 comments

  1. I am really glad you were able to find something that works. I think if you used the same flowers on as on the dress it would have been too matchy. Does your dress go to the floor or are you even going to be able to see the shoes?

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  2. LOVE your new shoe clips! I'm totally inspired now and might turn some of my nana's old clip-on earrings from the 60s into shoe clips (I'm already converting some into hair accessories...) I'm sorry the colors didn't work out...if it had I was going to use your technique to dye some shoes for my wedding, since robin's egg blue is apparently a hard color to track down! Oh well, the search continues. Glad you finally have your shoes, and can't wait to see your whole look!

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  3. Hi
    for my wedding I was inloved with the same pair of shoes from BHLDN, the first one here:-)
    I bought a nice pair at stradivarius and mae a flower with the same fabric of the dress:-)

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  4. Too bad the dye didn't work. :( BUT your pompoms are really cute! I think it'll look great with your dress!!

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  5. I think shoe clips are awesome -- you get to take them off and put them on other shoes afterward! I also made shoe clips for my wedding shoes, using buttons and feathers.

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  6. love the pom-pom shoes, they look fab!!
    shame the dye didn't work out but at least you gave it another go.

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  7. These clips are great! The shoes really look lovely. You have had some adventures with decorating shoes. thanks for the pom pom link!

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  8. Whoa! I have to get some shoes clips, very cool! Even though they didn't turn out how you wanted them too I still think these are some fun looking shoes!

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  9. Those look super cute--great job! Thanks for linking to my tutorial :-)

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  10. perhaps you could water down some acrylic paint in your preferred shade of pink and just see what happens?

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  11. Indeed, good idea. I love the pair with the feathers, so beautiful !!!

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  12. I love the idea of shoe clips, is that something readily available, or have you invented this? I have just never considered them before, but what a great idea!

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  13. Thanks! They are fun and easy.

    @banclothing, yes, my dress is tea-length, so my ankles and shoes will show. It would have been too matchy-matchy to have the same flowers even if I could get the right size, you're right.

    @TheYellowRose, it's worth a shot! If you can find some similar fabric to your shoes (get a 1" swatch from the fabric store, even) and test it out... you might get the right color even with liquid RIT!

    @dalia, shoe clips are around... a fun and easy way to transform shoes!

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  14. I had the same idea for my wedding - a tea length dress and a bright pop of color for the shoes. But for matching shoes with a white dress, it's surprisingly hard to get the right wedding shoes. It's not like you can wear the dress to shoe store after shoe store (you could, but you might get some weird looks). I ended up going with a pair of silver metallic wedges instead of the red or yellow pumps I had envisioned.

    Great work on the shoe clips. They'll look stunning with what I've seen of your dress.

    -Meg
    http://megshandmadelife.blogspot.com

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  15. Good point, @meggyme!! Very hard to tell how they look with the dress until you try it all on.

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  16. Anonymous7/23/2011

    Love the shoe clips! What a great idea to liven up your shoes.
    I had a bit more success dyeing my wedding shoes recently, I think perhaps my shoes had some natural fibre content? No idea, it certainly wasn't down to my skills! Anyway, I blogged mine the other day - http://lifeinlists.typepad.com/blog/2011/07/a-handmade-wedding-part-1-or-something-blue.html - in case anyone's looking for more info on dyeing their own! Can't wait to see your outfit all together on your big day, it will look perfect.

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