Post # 1

Member
2236 posts
Buzzing bee
Good golly what a process this is!
But, about 20 hours of work and 2000 3 mm stones (or 10ss), 200 4 mm stones (or 16ss), and around 75 5 mm stones (or 20ss) and I finished my first shoe! The shoes I got from DSW last fall on Clearance; they had a bow on the front that I cut off (but I don’t have pictures of them with the bow on – sorry). I got all my crystals on ebay for super cheap compared to buying them from a craft store. Ok, enough talk, more shoes…
Before:

And After:

I lovelovelovelovelove it! The first half I did at home, but for the second half I actually brought them to work and would work on them during my lunch. In order to keep myself sane I would take pictures of my progress every day:

Now just to make the other one…
Oh, and I’m planning on making a tulle flower (a la Martha Stewart) that will have little baby blue crystals in the middle (for my something blue) and will coordinate with my hair accessory!
What do you think? And how are all the other crazy ladies who are strassing their own shoes coming along?
Post # 3

Member
3295 posts
Sugar bee
LOVE them!!! you did an amazing job!!!
Post # 4

Member
491 posts
Helper bee
Those ARE FABULOUS! I love them! What color sparkles did you?
Post # 6

Member
3000 posts
Sugar bee
OMG those are so pretty! I’ve considered trying this… I’ll have to enlist my sister and mom to help if I do!
Post # 7

Member
1529 posts
Bumble bee
AWWW they look soo good!!! i give you girls that take on this task major props for spending the time to do them.
Post # 8

Member
5385 posts
Bee Keeper
You did a great job! They are so cute!
Post # 11

Member
921 posts
Busy bee
You did a great job! It looks awesome!
Post # 12

Member
7298 posts
Busy Beekeeper
Wow! Those really came along! They are fantastic! Give us a cost breakdown.
How much were the shoes and the supplies?
Post # 13

Member
5103 posts
Bee Keeper
Those look amazing! I love them. Great job lady!
And really you did one shoe very quickly, I’m impressed.
Post # 14

Member
297 posts
Helper bee
Beautiful shoes! I love them, cutest flats ever.
I am seriously considering doing this. Can you please tell me approx. how much it cost you for crystals? and if you used glue or hot fix?
Post # 15

Member
2492 posts
Buzzing bee
Those are amazing! I totally wish I had the patience to do something like this.. I love the new trend.
Post # 16

Member
2236 posts
Buzzing bee
Okay, here’s a cost breakdown:
Shoes ~ $15 (I got them on clearance – they were “summer” shoes I got last fall)
Big Crystals – $6.88 for 288 of them (they came in packs of 144)
Medium Crystals – $21.28 for 2880 (aka I bought WAY TOO MANY – you could either get 144, or 1440 – I way over estimated, and got 2 packs of the 1440)
Small Crystals – $10.88 for 2880 just ordered 1440 more for $5.44
And I’m using “Jewel-It” glue (don’t know how much that cost off the top of my head but I’m not even half done with it yet and it’s coming up with an MSRP of $4.75 on amazon {here} so we’ll go with that price) and tweezers, lol – don’t know how much I spent on those either but you can get tweezers for less than $1.
And I might do a coat of Outdoor Mod Podge over the whole thing (dries shiny and clear but will water-proof the whole shoe) which you can get on Amazon (here) for $10.95,
I got all of my crystals on ebay from “Sweetpeas Beads and Treasures” there may be some out there for a better price but she has really nice gems and I think everything is shipped for free!
So for everything I bought (estimating tweezers at $1 lol) I spent $65.23, and it’ll be another 10 bucks for the “outdoor” Mod Podge. If I hadn’t bought WAY TOO MANY medium crystals, I probably could have pulled it off for $50. Not bad if I do say so myself!