Ah, its winter again.
So I'm looking futilely, for shoes and as usual comping up with empty, looking at the holes in my existing shoes, the slow disintegration of the cheap shoes I was forced to buy last year and wondering if I need to resort to mens shoes again this year.
So I google waiting for the wonders that google will bring.
For some unknown reason I never look back to all the things I have discovered previously instead looking always for something new. Perhaps men do the same with "acquiring" women and also wonder why they do it then continue...relentlessly.
Anyway, I was looking on the internet, checked all the usual places, Evans, Long Tall Sally, Barratts, Big Shoe boutique. Not coming up with anything suitable and the suitable things are just too overpriced. One day I will be comfortable buying a pair of boots for 160 but I am not there yet. How much will I need to earn to do be able to fork out that type of money with the effortless ease that retailers expect us to...one day.
So, I head along to ebay, my old trusty friend where people intentionally mislabel or misspell their listings so, I hapless victim that I am, am forced to spend hours and frustrated hours looking for a pair of brown slouchy boots,some black formal ones and a gray pair. I occasionally come across a pair that ticks all the boxes only to re read the listing to find that an american size 10 and they only do extra wide up to a size 8, in the colours that I don't like. The shoes that do work are ugly, so ugly.
I dream of my perfect pair of shoes, something fluffy, pretty, with ribbon, but no bows.
To my surprise I find these, beautiful things called Mohops. You can make your own shoes with ribbon, they give you the base to tie it to. I can't believe such dainty pretty things actually exist, and they are made of ribbon too. And you can change the ribbon to suit your outfit. They cleverly tried to overcome the fact that you would not be able to wear their shoes in the winter by teaming them up with socks. I read promotion that declared the long term fashion scorning of socks and slippers to be over.
What could be more perfect? Of course the price tag halted me in my steps. $150 plus for bigger sizes with a different shoe shape, they kept adding on the costs.
Edit: More sandals like this from SwapTopShoes egs Slinks, Bare Sole, SwitchFlops by Lindsay Phillips and Zipz
Nearly£120 for what was essentially the base of a shoe. Ridiculous, there must be a cheaper way, after all didn't Giannyl make slippers from an old tyre and some ribbon? Didn't she also make some leather extensions, using a leather skirt, to her shoes so she could wear them as knee high boots?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QSNxz9DvLk
Yes, she did and actually that solved the problem of wearing slippers in the winter. Because, I still scorn socks and slippers, I have no intention of wearing them.
So, I started simultaneously looking for shoe extensions and some tutorials for making or re-using the soles of shoes as there were no handy bits of car tyres for me to use.
I found an amazingly, clever woman who made slippers using an old pair of flip flops and a tshirt
http://annekata.com/2010/07/make-your-own-summer-sandals/
I found some other clever people who show you how to make rope shoes
http://tipnut.com/shoe-makeovers
and how to reupholster shoes.
Then I found the lovemaegan website(http://www.lovemaegan.com/search/label/myDIY) she has a brilliant tutorial on how to make boot extensions for slippers but she also has so much good stuff on there too. She has so much on that blog so many pictures of her and her cute little dogs that I sure she can't possibly have a job and makes stuff purely to pass the time and lessen the dent on the credit card. Still, she is very talented and I want her little dogs.
I kept looking for boot extensions which she calls shoe accessories.
http://www.lovemaegan.com/2009/05/diy-christian-louboutin-petal-sandal.html
Absolutely gorgeous and very clever.
I also found a wonderful keyword called spats which I put into Etsy for a wonderful array of delightful boot covers. Some of which I could make quite easily, thereby ending my futile and frustrating search for comfy winter boots. I mean did tall women know about this? How easy it was to stretch one pair of ugly functional shoes into boots?
I'm off to try them out, see how they work.
