Salvage Heart

Because I'm a Hair Stylist and Cosmetology Instructor, we are required to wear closed-toe shoes. However, it is hard to find cute summer shoes without your toes showing. So I gave up on my search and decided to make a pair of my own! 

 I found a pair of peep-toe wedges at Marshall's for $20 and here is what I did... 

1. First I took some muslin (an inexpensive cotton fabric) and used it to make a pattern of where  I wanted the fabric to go.


2. Once I had the shape and size the way I wanted it, I laid it over the fabric I was going to use. (To make things more symmetrical fold your patter and fabric in half before you cut.)


3. Because the fabric was a velvet-like cotton, I used a product called Fray Check along the edges to keep them from fraying. (If I would have turned the edges under and sewed them it would have cause unwanted bulk.)

4. In-order to properly fit the fabric on the shoe, I used a few small beads of glue along the front edge first. 

*The product I used was called Liquid Stitch. It is very easy to work with, it dries clear, sets up fast and has a strong hold. It also doesn't seep through the fabric like a craft glue would and you have time to make adjustments unlike a glue-gun. Glue-guns also leave projects messy with lots of little string and alot of the time, only temporarily hold things in place. Point is, always use fabric glue when gluing fabrics!

5. To hold the fabric in place while it was drying, I stuck small little pins slightly into the shoe. (It was dry enough for me to continue within an few minutes.)

6. Then I glued the rest of the fabric back. (When your gluing the rest of the fabric, make sure to spread the glue out so that it sticks evenly all over.) To give the fabric a clean edge I tucked the extra under the front part of the shoe.

7. At this point my shoes were ready to wear to work, but I wanted to jazz them up a bit more! So  I took thin black ribbon and glued it in the spaces between the braided material on the wedge part of the shoes.


I used the same fabric glue and pins to hold each ribbon in place while drying. Whatever glue seeped out from under the ribbon I just wiped with my finger, the glue drys clear so you don't see it anyways.

8. I am one of the people that like the hardware on my shoes to match the jewelry I am wearing, and because I didn't want to limit myself to just wearing silver when I wore the shoes, I decided to cut the buckle off.


9. Because you need a little bit of stretch with sling backs I kept the elastic in tacked while I removed the buckle. Then I lined up where I would have buckled it and stitched it in place.


10. I decided to cover the entire strap with the same black fabric as the front so I used a piece of muslin again to measure out how much fabric I would need.

11. Then I glued the fabric around the back of the shoe, making sure to only glue the fabric around the strap, and not to it, so that the elastic underneath could still stretch.


12. And because I am that OCD, I decided to take the silver lining out of the shoes as well .

13. The fabric I used was very light weight and flimsy, so in order to stiffen it up, I used a fabric stabilizer. What I used was an iron-on fusible stabilizer (also know as fusible backing). This product is sold at fabric stores by the cutting table or sold in packages, just follow the manufacturers instructions for how to apply (and make sure you get an iron-on stabilizer, because they make ones that you sew-on too).


14. After I ironed the backing on, I folded the fabric in half and traced the shoe lining, cut it out and glued the new linings back into to shoes (with the fabric glue of course!)


15. Then I slipped on my "new" shoes and headed to work!

I hope this was helpful, and always remember...