A girl can never have too many!

I have been desperate to try and make one of these shoes after seeing so many beautiful examples on other blogs. Have to say though I didn't find this easy to do... think mainly because of the quality of the card/paper I used. My first attempt (which ended up in the bin) was done using quite heavy cardstock. This was real difficult to work with as I found it not pliable enough. Then I went to the other extreme and used ordinary scrapbook paper - too flimsy, no body at all and that too was consigned to the increasing large pile of paper accumulated from the attempts in the bin!

With increasing frustration, I resorted to basic white card and covered it with paper from the Papermania Regency range. As I started to assemble the shoe I remembered I had some slightly thicker pink card which had a lovely sheen and was covered in a rose design - I used this for the sole of the shoe which made it more substantial. I had a small round piece of foam about 1/2 inch high so I covered it with some stripey pink ribbon to make a heel!

The rose motif on the front was bought at the NEC - think it's one of those that you're supposed to iron on to something but it fitted well and I added a small pearl heart shaped button. The ribbons and lace were in my stash. I put together a small bundle of pretty lace, ribbon and fabric a pearl heart button and a pearl spray and tied it with an organza bow and slipped it inside the shoe as a small present. I finished the shoe off with an antigued and distressed tag with a French theme.

Close inspection shows that perhaps I could have been a bit tidier with some of the edges of the sole but overall I am happy with how this project turned out eventually.

If you want to see close ups of the front and the heel of the shoe they can be viewed on my Flickr account here.

Creative Inspirations is predominantly a card making blog but does allow other projects to be submitted, and their challenge this week is Lace, Pins and Pearls so have entered this. and over at Paper Sundaes the challenge is to use the colours Hollyhock, Crystal Blue and Sweet Leaf (or as near as you can!) - the rose decoration has 3 similar colours and there's also some ribbon in the pressie stash containing those colours so I'm hoping my entry will be accepted and finally Ooh La La's theme this week is open!

Distressed .....

no, not me! The challenge at Paper Sundaes is to use some form of distressing on your card so carrying on with making cards for the charity box I made this boy card.

The image was a freebie from Dustin Pike. I don't have a lot of experience with kids stuff, particularly for boys so hope this is a suitable card!

I coloured 'Sir Knight' with promarkers, sponged the white base card around him with 'Shabby Shutters' distress ink (doesn't show up too well on this pic, but trust me, it's on there!) and punched out 'half a daisy' with the newly acquired Martha Stewart punch and glued it onto the top right hand side.

The background papers are from a Christmas stack from HOTP and I used 3 small green mosaic tiles on the left hand side.

I have also submitted this for the challenge over at Cards for Men, which this week had set the theme of 'green'. I'm hoping that 'jolly green dragon' is green enough!