This To That // Flower Patch Booties

Just when I try to downsize my shoe collection, I go and DIY a pair of shoes that makes it harder for me to downsize. Whoops.

But what really happened was that I came across this pair of boots which triggered a project in my head. I love these boots but I would never wear a heeled pair with such height.

As I was gathering ideas in my head, I knew I had like two black pairs of shoes in my closet which could use a makeover. Turns out the second pair, my Vans, were so warn out that there was nothing to save them. They needed to be tossed, so I kinda got what I originally wanted: a slightly condensed closet? The second pair were these Docs that I bought for pretty cheap, so I didn’t feel bad about DIY-ing them.

My plan was to buy black felt and embroider some flowers. I embroidered a whole lot of flowers, and repeated colors so all sides of the shoes could get the same color ways basically. I varied in sizes and shapes to not make it boring. To first sketch out my shapes, I tried white color pencil and crayon but it wasn’t working well. I then resorted to my white Sharpie which was decently opaque on this black felt. Enough to give me a guide line to work within.

I’ve read tutorials on how to make patches and I came across this one pack of peel and stick fabric fuse that got good reviews. I gave it a go since it was a good price too.

I of course did a test before committing to this project, and the patch held on nicely. So I continued on and made a bunch of flowers.

So I cut out the flowers as close to the embroidery without cutting my stitching, and cut a piece of the double sided patch paper. I peeled on side off, and stuck my embroidery flower to it. I pressed down enough to make sure it stuck. I then cut around the flower on the sticky paper to cut the excess. I turned it around, peeled the second layer off and stuck it to my shoe where I felt was best.

My original plan was to cover up the shoes completely, but I found that it’s a little more toned down if I made patches just for the sides of my shoes and not the toe cap areas. It looks better like this in my opinion.