DIY Strassed Shoes

My Wedding Shoes

So this is the first of my DIY projects for my upcoming nuptials. With barely 6 months to go, I seem to be at a lost for what to do- I feel like I have a long list of things to do but on the other hand I feel like what I need to do FOR NOW, is done. Oh well I guess I shall realize much too late that there is indeed lots to do and have a mad rush towards the very last day. Having said this, I shall embrace the fact that I work well under pressure. 

Anyways, enough about me, I'm sure that everyone is curious to know more about the shoes. Few things that I'll clarify first:

1) I bought plain white shoes made with cloth. ( You can opt to use shoes with a suede base too)

2) I hand picked ALL the crystals and glue them on individually. Yes I DID!

3) I used ONLY Swarovski Crystals

Now, everyone who has seen the shoes, thinks I am insane and keep asking why I don't just go out and buy a pair that is already bling-ed out. Reason I didn't want to do so was because I wanted Crystals that were placed with as closely together as possible so as to have more of a WOW effect. In order to be able to minimize the gaps, I used many different sizes of Crystals. Being extremely meticulous, I used ss8 as my base. Other sizes used were ss6 (this is for the really annoying small gaps), ss10, ss12, ss16.

I used approximately:

ss8 (2pkts X 1440pcs) = 2880 (SGD137)

ss10 (1pk X 1440pcs) = 1440 (SGD 68.5)

ss12 (2pkts X 144pcs) = 288 (SGD24)

ss16 (2pkts X 144pcs) = 288 (SGD24)

ss6 (2pkts X 24) = 48 (SGD8) --> which as I mentioned isn't necessary but I am a little OCD. 

Total Crystals: +/- 4920pcs 

Cost of Crystals: +/- SGD261.50

My shoes were from Studio Tangs at Tangs Orchard. I had seen them at Great World City but as my luck would have it, Tangs Orchard was having a 50% sale!!! Yay! I paid about SGD49.90 for them and they are comfortable enough to dance the night away in! What I have done is ultimately taken a $50 pair of shoes and turn them into a $300 pair of shoes. I didn't take too long to complete the pair because once you get your momentum going the strassing becomes very easy to do.

It is definitely a sense of accomplishment and this will mean that I will have the one of a kind pair of shoes that I had originally dreamed of. This is better for me than any pair of Jimmy Choo's or Louboutins because I can say, "Oh yes, I did it myself" and I can be sure NO ONE will have the same pair of shoes! Extra points on that!

There is a guy in the United States who make a living of strassing shoes or specifically Louboutins. Customers send him their shoes, he picks a Crystal that will compliment the shoe and he charges USD1200-1500 for them! Is that insane? If anyone reading this is based in Singapore, and has a pair of Louboutins they want strassed, hit me up here. I'll do them for you and charge you the same in SGD! Hah! (Seriously, I would!)

Anyways, really proud of myself!

And I hope anyone who wishes to DIY strass their shoes will be able to get some ideas from here.