The Real Mccoy = £235 vs. DIY = £12. Need I say more??

You might remember that I got a little bit obsessed over these mousey chums courtesy of Mr Marc Jacobs when I spotted them a little while back? As much as I would love to be able to treat myself to the real mccoy, I have to admit that as a student, and a general normal person, I’m not really in a position to spend £235 on one pair of shoes. So! With that in mind, and imagining that there are more like minded ladies out there, on a budget, craving these sparkly beauties, I got a bit creative and have done what I can to re-create this look without having to blow big bucks for the honour.

I’ve been wanting to do this tutorial for aaaages now, but due to 3rd year university work, stress related illness, and general wiped-out-ness from dissertation and final major project, I’ve been a bit lazy – but we got there in the end : ) Happy creating, my little Mouseketeers!

1. To start with, you will need a pair of shoes to transform! I really fell in love with the gold glitter versions of the MJ Mouse flats, which is why I chose this pair. You can find all kinds of brand new ballet flats cheaply on eBay, which is where I got these ones from.

2. You will need: Fabric (for the ears and nose), Rhinestones (for the eyes), Some plastic thread (for the whiskers), a form of adhesive (I’m using my trusty old glue gun!) and of course, scissors! I am using some fabric I cut off from a tote bag that I had lying around in my room, but you can use whatever you want as long as it’ll stick to the shoes etc with the adhesive method you’re going with : ) The idea with the tutorial is to be thrifty, so by all means use something you already have if you think it’d be suitable – or if not, you can always get some materials together cheaply elsewhere!

3. You can’t see the thread very well in the other photograph, so this will show you better what I mean (I hope!) if you can’t see it.

4. The first thing you need to do is to decide where you want the eyes to go. This is essentially down to you! I have spaced mine about fingers’ width apart, and have dotted them on with a dry wipe marker. This kind of marker is good because you can rub off the dot if you want to move it somewhere else, as I had to do once or twice!

5. You will now need to cut out some little semi-circles to make the ears with. You will need 4 of these, to make 2 ears for each mouse – unless your mouse is a little anatomically challenged of course, haha : ) The semi-circles I made are approximately 3cm high x 1.5cm wide, but it really is down to individual interpretation, as well as the size/style of your shoe!

6. In order to create the folded over ears, you will need to fold the semi-circle in half, glue/sew/bondaweb (or whatever it is you’re doing!) along the long, straight edge of the fabric, and glue them so they look less like shapes and more like little mousey ears!

7. Now’s the time to see the mice take shape, with the addition of the ears. Simply attach it to the shoe from the smaller edge so that the majority of the ear stands off of the shoe, like ears do!

8. Now is time for the finishing touch, the nose and whiskers! I opted not to put the whiskers on in the end, but if you want to use them you can simply cut them to size and stick them to the back of the noses before they are attached to the shoe. All you need to do is cut out a couple of pieces of material that look like this, and glue them on to the tip of the shoe. I’m not really how to describe them shape wise, but they will look perfect as a nose for your little friends : ) ta da!

I’m going to stitch around the noses and ears when I get some more time (and a thimble!) so as to give them a little bit more staying power. I am planning on wearing these shoes so I want to make sure I won’t potentially be walking the high street with an earless mouse – that’s no good for anyone is it? Least of all the mouse…

If you’d like to have a go at it yourself, here are a few affordable shoe suggestions, all found on eBay! 1, 2, 3, 4.

P.S If any of you give this a go, I would LOVE to see your creations : ) if you do, feel free to Tweet me with a nice picture of them!

This tutorial will show you an excellent way of jazzing up any plain garments you have, which doesn’t require any real technical ability! If you’re scared of sewing – don’t worry! This is very basic stuff, as long as you can sew the pieces so that they will be sufficiently secure, it doesn’t need to be neat or tidy at all : ) the needlework will be hidden behind the ruff itself, so if its a bit all over the place, no one will ever know!

Stupidly, I accidentally deleted the photographs I took at different stages of the sewing process, booo! What we have here will be enough for you to be able to copy it yourself though so hopefully these won’t be missed too much : )

You will need:
- The garment you want to customize. I’ll be using this plain jumper from a previous post!
- Organza.
- Scissors.
- Needle and thread.
- Ruler or tape measure. (Not essential though!)

Step 1: Cut out a square of organza. I did mine approximately 5 x 5 inches, but it really depends how big you want the ruff to be, so this is up to you! I didn’t use a tape measure either, and made some of my squares different sizes so as to create a fuller texture, which seems to have worked quite well.

I cut my squares out one by one along the way because I wasn’t sure how many I’d need. If you’d prefer to cut them all out in one go, that’s totally up to you!

Step 2: Get your needle threaded up before the next step!

Step 3: Pinch your square in the middle. I pictured a flower head when I was fiddling with the shape, to get the right sort of ‘ruffliness’! You want it to look something like mine is in the image.

Step 4: You need to take your pinched square and hold it against the garment where you want to sew it. Now all you have to do is try and keep the square pinched in the right shape whilst you attach it to the garment. There is always the option of pinning it first! This is where my deleted photos would’ve come in handy! But nonetheless, its very straightforward, and if I can do it, anyone can : )

Keep on repeating steps 3 and 4 until you’re happy with the ruff!

Tips: As you can see, I started sewing mine on about 1cm down from the shoulder seam on my jumper. I started from the right side and worked over to the left side, it isn’t a precise art so you can start, really, wherever you want – although bare in mind that the pieces you will have sewn on already may get in the way if you do it in a really unsystematic way!

Like I said at the beginning, you don’t need to be too tidy with your sewing – as long as the ruffles are secure, its all good! Make sure you sew each ruffly square on as close as possible to the one(s) next to it, so you will end up with a nice full looking ruff with no noticeable gaps!

I probably used about 15 squares of organza to create my ruff. It wont take many before you start to see the results and see your garment’s transformation! Every garment will be different, and you can experiment with using different sizes of ruffle to get different results. Of course, you aren’t limited to doing this on the collar – you could try the sleeves, shoulders, or anywhere really, to create something that’s fun and unique to you!

Again, apologies if any of this seems confusing at any point – leave me a comment if anything is unclear and I’ll add further instructions into the post : )

TA DA! What do you think?

Happy sewing people! x

Ever since House of Holland sent an array of rainbow bright PomPom earrings down their S/S 2011 runway, I’ve been craving some pompom action of my own! After stumbling upon Craft Gawker the other evening, I spotted a tutorial that could help make my pompom dreams come true! With cheap, basic materials required, I felt that this was a more cost-efficient and fun way of embracing clown-chic… and who doesn’t feel proud strutting about wearing something pretty you’ve made yourself?! I thought I would share it with you because if I can manage it, anyone can!

You will need:
- T-shirt (mine was £2 from Primark)
- Cardboard
- Fabric Scissors
- A Pen
- 2 round based objects to draw around. (One needs to be atleast 1/3 smaller than the other.)
- A necklace chain. (Mine is a pearly one I broke, you can get all sort of cheap necklaces also from Primark, and take the pendants off like I’ve done!)

Step 1: Draw around the circular based objects you have found. The size depends on the size you want the pompom to be! As you can see mine is quite small. I used the base of my glass candle pot and a nail varnish bottle for the smaller circle inside.

Step 2: Cut your circles out, into ‘C’ shapes like I’ve done. Both need to be the same size! : )

Step 3: Now you need to get your t-shirt fabric ready! I cut across the t-shirt under the armpits. Because we don’t need loads of fabric, I cut the front and back panels so they are separate (you’ll only need one) and cut any hems/seams off so it was just a plain piece of material, as you can see!

Step 4: You need to cut your fabric longways into strips which are roughly half an inch (about 12mm) thick. I didn’t use a ruler so my sizes weren’t exact, and certainly not all the same thickness, but this doesn’t matter too much!

Step 5: Take one of your strips and sandwhich it between your two templates, making sure you match them up again!

Step 6: Take another strip and start to wrap it around your ‘C’ shape. Make sure you do it quite closely and tightly, I kept pushing mine up to make sure I could wrap as much around as possible – you want a nice full pompom, not a little straggly looking one!

Once you get to the end of one strip, just overlap the next one and keep going, and so on, wrapping the strips over eachother until you’ve got 3 layers. Like me, you’ll probably be left with a fair few strips of fabric at the end – but don’t worry, you haven’t done anything wrong, its just excess material thats all! : ) It should end up looking a little something like the picture above, although if you use a different colour it probably won’t look as much like a prawn as mine does!

Step 7: IMPORTANT: It isn’t clear in the photograph, but you need to tie a knot in your ‘sandwhiched’ strip. Take both ends and tie them together at the break in the ‘C’, this is really important because its what will keep the pompom together! Tie one knot, you will need to tighten it again later so don’t be tempted to double knot it just yet.

Step 8: This is the fun bit, where you finally see your work pay off and see the pompom coming to life! It can get a bit messy too, although mine wasn’t too bad. You need to hold the pompom tightly in your hand to keep everything together! With your other hand, cut around the outside edge, in between the 2 pieces of cardboard. As you do this you will start to see the results! Don’t get too excited just yet though, you need to keep holding it together until after the next step!

Step 9: This is the important bit now! Pull the ends of what has been the ‘sandwhiched’ strip, which is now knotted (Step 7) very tightly so that it closes up around the centre of the pompom. Double knot it so your pompom won’t loosen up and fall apart! This may seem a bit fiddly, but you don’t need to worry about it being too neat because it’ll be hidden inside the pompom anyway.

Step 10: Take away the cardboard templates once you’re happy that the pompom is secured, and chop the long ends from the strip you’ve just tied up, and ta da! One perfect little pompom : )

Step 11: All you have to do now is find the strip which you’ve been working with, which is tied around the centre of the pompom (what I’ve been calling the ‘sandwhiched’ strip!) and loop this over the end of your necklace and slide it on down the chain, and you should end up with a nice new necklace ready to wear!

They look really cute worn with a collared shirt! Obviously, there are many ways you can wear a pompom, you don’t have to put it on a necklace… let your imagination run wild, and if you come up with anything fun, let me know!

For example, if you want to make an inexpensive little treat for a friend, you could do what I made for my housemate – make a little pompom nosed creature! Quite cute and a nice idea for recycling cardboard you might have left over : )

I hope my instructions haven’t been too confusing… if you have any issues, you can refer back to the original tutorial I’ve been working from courtesy of the lovely Linda of Craftaholics Anonymous, or leave me a comment and I’ll do my best to help!

As for me, I’m off to go and make some more to use up my excess fabric – you can expect to be seeing pompoms on every item of clothing I wear from now on! Haha. Good luck everyone, hope you’ll have fun if you decide to have a go : )