How to - Custom Furry Canvas Shoes

So! This is the second tutorial style post I am doing, in face its the third post this week. It's unlikely that i will always be so prolific in my blogging, so I will try to make the most of it while it lasts.

Although winter is approaching canvas shoes, which are often associated with the summer, can be appropriate for all weather. In this 'How to' guide I will explain the basics on making a plain pair of canvas shoes not only more winter-appropriate but also a little cuter and more interesting.

Here is the final product of my work:

Look appealing? Well, its really fairly easy, and you can do pretty much anything you like when customising your furry canvas shoes. In fact, if you like, you may even skip the bit with the fluff and just paint them, it's all up to you.

1. Buy shoes. Now, this needn't be an expensive proceedure. For example, I got this pair for £2 at Primark in London, if you can't find ones like this then pretty much any canvas shoe in your size should do. However, if you plan on adding fur then its best to have one with a low top otherwise my instructions might not be as useful.

2. Fur! So, I gave an idea of where to get synthetic type fur last time, but you could always improvise with mohair or any type of fluffy material from old clothes etc. Perhaps even visitng a charity shop to find some old clothes to snip up might work. Try to get something fairly sturdy which won't fall appart in the rain.

3. Wrap the synthetic fur (furry side down) around and inside the heel of the shoe and mark with a pen where you are going to cut around. Make sure there is an adquate amount of fur inside and outside the shoe so that there is a large gluing surface area. Then cut out your bits of fur, which should look a little like boomerangs. Remember, you can always use the template method I talked about in the last post.

4. Stick the fur in place (with Uhu preferable) and hold down for a minute. If you leave it for about 10 minutes it should be firmly in place. Feel free at this stage to make any final trimmings to the shape and size of the fur and apply extra glue in places for safety.

5. Fur lining. Now, fur by itself can look a little unfinished so I chose to use some plain black elastic to create a border effect to the heel. You can do this by simply cutting a length of elastic and using Uhu to glue it in place.

6. Painting! I used acrylic for this. I think its a good idea to pencil in the design first in a soft pencil so you can get the placing right. But no need to be too precious as sometimes its nice to have a slightly home-made look to things. Acrylic is water-proof so the only danger is it chipping, which can be solved by painting using not too much paint. You can always touch them up later.

7. Laces. For extra effect you might enjoy swapping the laces, or editing the ones which acompanied the orignial shoes with fabric pens etc.

P.S feel free to go wild, sequins, buttons, patches and badges can all be used to make your shoes your own.

Enjoy!

E-Rax

How to - Snuggly Ear Hat

Hi,




So, first proper entry. Slightly nervous... here goes.




I was searching the net the other day for cute hats with ears, which would be appropriate for the Autumn and Winter, which is approaching fast with September an arm's length away. I found lots of lovely designed but nothing which was exactly what I was looking for. So, I decided that it might be easier to make one myself from a hat which I already own.









This is the final result:

So, the hat is basically your average flap-eared winter hat. I spent a while with some nail scissors removing all the labels to get the effect I wanted. You can choose pretty much any type of hat you want for whatever look you want, this tutorial is more about the ears and attatching them.

1. Get a bra (yes I know that sounds weird but trust me on this one!). Okay, so A-cup was what I used here, but I recon anything up to C would work... depends what size ears you want but I'm not sure it matters. So, any underwired preferable un-padded plain bra. This one is a black under-wired slightly padded bra... and you can see how the shape and size worked here for reference. You can get really cheap ones in super-markets for instance M&S.

2. Cut off the straps and seperate the cups so you are left with two cups and their under-wires and no bits which are going to fray.

3. Get some fur. By this I do not mean real fur... I am so not into that stuff, but synthetic fur. In this shot from behind the hat you can see what sort of stuff I mean.

I recon a few good online sites to get this stuff http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/Synthetic_Fur.html and uhm... actually yeh... no idea. I got mine from the crafts and fabric dep. of a department store... I think that would work pretty much anywhere. John Lewis or something like that maybe?

4. Put the fur on the bra and pin it down and then snip round the edge. This way you don't end up totally guessing how much of the stuff you need. Also, once you have un-pinned it you can draw around it on some paper to make a nice template for making the second ear. Clever, no? Of course remember to flip the template before you pin it to the second bit of fur to get the mirror image.

5. Glue the fur down to the bra-cups. I used Uhu glue for this, as its pretty easy to apply, not too toxic, drys fairly quickly and isn't likely to unstick any time soon. It should take about 10 minutes to dry... maybe hold it together for the first minute or two to be safe.

6. Attatch the ears! Right, my sewing is apauling but I managed somehow to attatch them without many serious incidents, so don't be intimidated by a bit of sewing : ) Use an appropriate thread colour, I used white for obvious reasons. You should mark where you want the ears to be before you start sewing so they arn't lop-sided. When you do this mark 3 sewing points. The underwire bit of the bra should be forming the arch you can see from the front and the top of the cup should be acting as the base which touches the hat forming a kind of U-shape.

7.Sewing - Sew in three places as anchor points first, I suggest either end of the U and one place at the back. If afterwards it looks a little messy still feel free to go back and do some more sewing. Remember to tie off any ends so it doesn't come undone and use a medium-sized but VERY sharp needle to get through all the fluff.

8. Extras? After you have the basic ear shapes on the hat feel free to add anything you like! I personally added a little bit of extra-fluffy fur to the tips of the ears at the front made from two little snippets of mini-feather bower. I used Uhu to add that... Some other ideas are sequins, which you could sew or glue on. You could add different fabric of fur spots or stripes. You could even buy some cheap earring studs and accesorise your ears : ) Go mental.

So! There you have it! Any questions and feel free to email me at eva_sheep@hotmail.com or just comment on the blog. If you email me please use the title 'Re: Ear Hat' So I don't accidentaly delete it as spam, but hopefully no questions will need answering.

From E-Rax.

WARNING: May not be waterproof if you add certain acessories, for example, the fluffy ear-tips on my hat are not weather-resistant.

Hello ^_^

Hello
Welcome to what will be a DIY blog on how to make all sorts of weird and, hopefully, wonderful things and general messing about. It should be a tutorial style blog... but I'm not sure it always will be, so we shall see how that goes.

I will probably be starting off with a selection of ideas for customising clothing : ) I am quite into cute stuff I warn you, so what I like might not be for everyone... but we shall see.

I hope you enjoy.

E-Rax