DIY: Shamrock Shoe Clips

Today is the holiday of my people (shout out to all my Irish friends out there!!  Virtual Guinness cheers!!) so I wanted to repost this fave DIY from last year. Because my Valentine's Day shoe clips were such a hit (quick refresher HERE)...

...I figured that a St. Patty's Day version was just calling my name.

Here's how to make them!

Whenever I try to figure out how I'm going to adjust a vintage dress, I try it on and just focus on detail for a bit until I start to see things.  Sometimes I see exactly what I'm going to do, sometimes I see nothing, and sometimes I see stars. When trying to come up with a fun themed project for this holiday, I knew what I was going to do but was coming up with all kinds of methods to get to the end point.  I guess it's awesome that I'm pretty much swimming in rhinestones when I work, because as I was planning out the different options, I started to have one of those "seeing things" moments. I was staring off at the kit of stones that I have and started really looking at how the stones were sitting, I began to see little shamrocks in the formation of the heart stones and then my aha moment set in.

Four of those stones are going to make awesome shamrocks!!

I pulled out eight stones and began to paint them with a fabulous shade of green nail polish.

After the first coat, I let them dry and then painted another coat. I wanted to make sure all the open areas were coated in the glitter.

Once my hearts were dry, I turned on a hot glue gun and began to glue the backs to a sheet of green felt in the clover formation.

The felt is the perfect backing for these stones because it's a bit thicker than just a basic cotton. However, if you have leftover fabric in your stash, reuse it here - you can always layer multiple bits to make it a bit sturdier.

With my stones in place...

...I trimmed the excess felt all the way around my shoe clips. I affixed clips to the back and had some fabulous new bits of flair for my feet!

I added them to a pair of nude flats (Forever 21 has a fab/budge friendly option here) just to make them pop a bit more! But they would work with any other colored/patterned shoe.

I ended up adding a small green rhinestone to the center of the clips for an extra bit of shine!

I mean, Michael Flatley...move those dancin' feet over! You've got a new Irish gal ready to get tappin'.'

They're just the right amount of sparkle to rival those pots of gold at the end of the rainbow!!

I plan on wearing these straight through the weekend!!

DIY: Sequined Heart Shoe Clips

This is one of my favorite posts from a few years back! With Valentine's Day around the corner, I thought some sparkly heart action was in order. I still wear these all the time too. Happy almost <3 day! I've been a fan of ban.do's sequined pieces, so I thought that I'd make my own version of their red sequined hearts today!

I started off with my supplies - red felt, sequin trim, and loose sequins, as I'm going to make two versions of these hearts.

I cut hearts out of my felt by folding the rectangular piece in half and cutting an "ear" shape out.  For the shoe clips, because I wanted the same size, I put two layers of felt together before trimming.  The smaller hearts were cut from the excess pieces and two of those guys are going to become earrings!

I started with the mini hearts first - I put glue down and then dropped off sequins on top and pressed them in place to stick.  I repeated this step until the entire heart was covered.

The mini hearts are finished!

Now to really recreate the ban.do version, I used the sequin trim to match.  I started by gluing the trim right at the center of the heart and then continued to follow the edges of the heart.

I'm almost there!!

And we're done!!

The minis are going to become stud earrings, the middle sized ones will be shoe clips, and the large one will become a headband!

For the shoe clips and earrings, I used jewelry findings - a pair of flat backed earring posts and two alligator clips (or shoe clips if you have them!) - and affixed to the back.

I added some alligator claws with glue to the bottoms...

...and had my pretty pair...

...ready to be added to my leopard flats.  My version...

ban.do's version...

My earrings glistened in the sun and my headband was rocking.

Sparkly hearts overload??

Eh, not so much.  It's Valentine's Day, so it totally works.  And...it totally works post-V Day too!!  There is never a wrong time to rock hearts!  xoxo

DIY Gumball Costume

Halloween is over, but here's a rundown of what I actually wore on the big night! Can't wait to hear what you dressed up like this year! I worked with RIT Dye on this year's costume, so I started with a white cotton dress as the base and then played around with dye to really give off a gumball machine feel!

Start a dye bath for your garment next. I used a washing machine, but a stove top works as well. Fill your machine with hot water (run it on a whites wash) or boil the water on your stove top. Add your chosen dye (I went with Cherry Red) to your dye bath...

...wet your garment completely in water, and then add your piece to the bath.

After the wash is complete (or after you've let the garment marinate on the stove top) toss it into the dryer to dry completely before adding your pompoms!

Using a hot glue gun, begin affixing pompoms to the top of the dress.

You want to cover the whole front of the bodice.

With the pompoms affixed, start creating the rest of the gumball accoutrements with felt!

You can create the price sticker using white felt and a marker to write 25 cents on it. The dial can be created by cutting a circle and little rectangle out and gluing them together. The slot where the gumball comes out can be made by trimming a small trapezoid out of the black felt.

And, voila!

Insta-gumball costume!!

Time to celebrate Halloween!

What did you dress up as this year?? Did you DIY anything fun? Share your costumes in the comment area!!