One Step Up!!!

Is your daughter begging you for those converse style tennis shoes? Mine was and with no luck after hunting for the perfect style..we thought "hey..we can do this!" So with a little paint, crystals and imagination..her perfect funky fresh style was born! We went to payless shoes and bought the cheapest and plainest pair we could find...they turned out to be AIRWALK brand?

I wish I could say that we planned out the design and knew what we were doing before we started breaking out the craft supplies, but we didn't. I first, grabbed my bin full of Duncan products...I use them on EVERYTHING ...its a sickness I'm guessing ;)

I had one left over Tulip heart stencil (that was reincarnated over 10 times)... some crystals, fabric paint and spray paint. We started with the crystals first. I think its because i love using the heat setter tool...I don't know what it is about that little thing-a-ma-jigger..but its the coolest thing made so far that reminds me of my easy bake oven from childhood. How fabulous is something so cute that produces something so delicious ? xxoo

Tulip heat setting crystals (in a cute, pink, round disk..which is oddly fun just to hold and spin to the correct size of crystal you need....) makes me feel organized and in control, which is rare and fleeting, so I relish in the experience.

Then the paint colors where chosen....are you ready...??? Here it goes...in no particular order...

Tulip dimensional fabric paints- Deep turquoise, Dandelion Yellow, Real Red, Snow Cap White, Silver Glitter, and detailed with Tulip fashion bead paint in white and silver. I spray painted the laces with black spray paint and grease effects spray from Tulip. Just for fun, we added some texting lingo to the shoes and proclaimed her faith on the inside of the shoes....(JESUS ROX) ! So there you have it...

Have FUN and don't be afraid of getting messy and destroying a ugly plain boring pair of shoes...mine are next!

Sock A Palooza!

Have you ever heard your laundry speaking to you from the other room? Once my laundry reaches a certain height behind the laundry room door and the socks start to creep out from underneath....I begin to hear voices. My first thought is of a flash back from the movie THE BLOB. You know...the gigantic slimy green blob that had a life of its own and overtook everything and anything that crossed its path? My laundry piles start to channel all kinds of emotions and fears in me that quite frankly are from some kind of childhood laundry trauma. I could name a few now, but my blog entry is already leaning on odd....so I'll save those suppressed memories for another entry:)

I got the idea for sock -a-polooza puppets after posting my "dirty laundry" pics on facebook. (pun completely intended) Dozens and dozens of miss-matched socks harboring prime real estate space in my closet sized laundry room. I called all the kids inside (which is rare...because i remember being kicked out of the house..but another day another story I guess..) SO...I usually have more neighbor hood kids in my house than my own children (still trying to figure that one out) so I called them in and dumped the socks all over the kitchen table. I grabbed some Aleene's fabric fusion and googly eyes (how and why I had googly eyes on hand is remarkable and a pure blessing) and said I want to see the faces behind all the voices Ive been hearing from behind the laundry room door. I have never had that much fun with back talking laundry and children that didn't belong to me in my entire motherhood career! I have a different outlook on the spare lonely forgotten mismatched sock found behind the dryer...its now a face without a name with a story all of its own to tell!