Okay, as I mentioned in the past, I love Jeffrey Campbell shoes. He makes the most inventive and quirky shoes I have ever seen with the exception of Irregular Choice. I love, love, love the styles and especially the back pain inducing height. My only problem with them is that I can't afford to buy every pair I love. So, today I decided that I would show you a pair I love and how easy it can be to make your own inspired pair using a shoe of your choice. You can use a pair of open toed booties you have at home or buy a cheap pair. You will need a pair of strong scissors, exacto knife, a piece of fabric and strong fabric glue or needle and thread.
The Goal Shoe!
Step 1: Find yourself a pair of shoes you care nothing for, preferably open toed booties with a slim ankle if you want this look. The shoes I am showing you below are a pair of leopard print, open toed Bumper booties from Urban Original. They sell for $33.50 a pair.
Step 2: Now what you want to do is is make a straight line across the shoe right above where the heel of the shoe meets the fabric ankle part. The picture below shoes you where to make your line. I would suggest using either fabric chalk or a pencil. Something that can be removed if you make a mistake. I would also like to make the suggestion of cutting a bit above the line just in case. You can always go back and cut lower once you get the ankle portion cut off. Keep in mind that shoes have plastic and other hard materials in them. Be careful if need the exacto knife. Keep fingers away from the blade and cut away from your body. I'm promoting safe shoe medicine!
This picture shoes what they will look like once cut. I don't actually have a pair like the leopard print booties, but I am using a pair of boots as an example below. These were a pair of Kenneth Cole knee-high boots that suffered a miserable death in this past Chicago Blizzard. They got wet and the whole lining came apart from the fabric leaving me unable to get my foot into the boot. As you can see in the picture, I didn't use good shoes as an example. The leg of the boot was made wide for the style rather than skinny like booties are made now to lean close to your leg. This is why using booties like the pair above is necessary.
A picture of what the leopard booties would look like without the top half is pictured below. Cute right?
You can also cut at an angle if you prefer so that the front of the shoe is higher than where you cut back at the heel. I suggested cutting higher than my line so you can try them on and decide what to do from there. The Jeffrey Campbell shoes have nothing covering your actual heel, but you can still have some. This is your project, make them how you like.
Step 3: As you can also see in the picture above, you can see the inside of the shoe layers. You will now need to cover up the fact that you essentially performed your own shoe surgery. Some shoes have a little rubber piece that goes around these openings. I am not a cobbler, so I am not sure what type of adhesive that is, but if you know, go for it, or ask a shoemaker. Otherwise, my suggestion would be to buy either white table cloth material or any other fabric of your choice and glue a thin line of fabric along the top of the shoe. You will want to cut it to be thin, but thick enough that it can be fold over the top of the shoe all of the way around the opening. You can then either sew it to make it look more professional or leave it glued. Use a nice glue also. You can purchase some nice fabric glue at Michaels or any other craft store. If you use the leopard shoes I showed above, this can be a red fabric, be creative! The picture below shoes an idea of what it would look like at the top. If you are feeling extra artsy, you can also do what I showed in the picture by adding the fabric to the toe to make it tie in the new color!
If you follow my instructions and come up with a neat pair, please send them to me at senseandfrugality@gmail.com
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