Thursday 15 March 2012

D.I.Y Shiny red ballet style shoes

When I was younger I used to have tap dancing lessons, and by no means was it my forte. I really disliked it, but stuck it out for a year or two until I finally convinced my mum I was not built to be a dancer!  I have a bit of a 'thing' for red shoes, and maybe the tap dancing could have been where it started, I had patent red shoes with the underneath made of metal, which made such a beautiful sound.
I saw these red pointe shoes on the internet, and fell in love ! I wanted to try to create my own more practical version (also a lot cheaper) that I could wear for everyday use. The above images are from Google and show the ballet pointe shoes both in red, and the iconic pale pink ones.
Here is my take on them -
What you need:
1 Pair of white ballet shoes (Mine were from Primark £4)
2 Meters red ribbon
1 Can high gloss red spray paint
Scissors, cotton
Tissue paper or newspaper
  

 You need to stuff your shows with tissue paper or newspaper to stop the spray from getting inside your shoe. Then take them outside, somewhere that you don't mind being sprayed.

Now Spray your shoes. It is better to have several thin coats, than one thick one, so be patient and spray, dry spray etc until your shoes is evenly covered.

Now leave your shoes to dry overnight, as they can sometimes be
 sticky for a few hours after.
 You now need to have 1 meter of ribbon for each shoe. Cut each meter in half (50cm) so altogether you have four pieces of equally sized ribbon (4x25cm).
Roughly mark in the middle of the shoe where you want the ribbon to be. Sew either by hand or on the sewing machine each piece of ribbon to the shoes (four times altogether).
 Then they are finished! I watched a video of how to tie them on Youtube - Ive posted the video so you can see for yourself how it's done.
My version's are obviously not meant for proper dancing, so only use them as day shoes!

1 comment:

  1. what a GREAT job u did. they look amazing and I love that color!

    ReplyDelete