I love a beautiful pair of shoes, even more so when they're ridiculously done. So when I saw the newest arrangement of fake flowers at Michaels', I knew they belonged on a pair of shoes.

These are definitely shoes for a more dressy affair--I can't really vouch for their ability to withstand a long day of walking around. I gave them to a friend who wore them for a birthday party and she said that she didn't lose any of the flowers.

What You'll Need:

One Pair of Shoes (I used a pair of Target black suede lace up boots, but I did the project previously with a zipper pair and it worked as well.)
One container of Martha Stewart primer
One paintbrush
E-4000 glue
Seafoam green house paint
Six or Seven Fake flowers per shoe

For this project I also used, but it isn't necessary
1 small bottle of Martha Stewart Multi-Surface Pearl Paint in Aquarium
1 small bottle of Martha Stewart Multi-Surface Glitter Acrylic Paint in Blueberry Slush
Purple Ribbon
Hot Glue (not strong enough for the flowers to stay there for any real amount of time, but if you just want to get a good sense of what the shoes would look like covered in flowers, you can try them out with hot glue and then pop off the flowers afterwards without damaging the paint)

Step 1: Starting Out

These are the original shoes. They're not a bad pair of shoes--a little stiff, but I found them on sale. You could really do this Instructable with any type of shoe, but I liked the idea of a high wedge boot to affix the flowers on. Any higher than that and it can look a bit like a bush (but that is my personal opinion)

Step 2: Base Coat

With the suede base, I felt I should probably use a bit of primer/sealer under the paint to smooth it down a bit and to make it absorb less of the paint.

Step 3: Seafoam

I painted a chair in my house seafoam awhile back and figured what this needed was a seafoam base before the other paints. It was house paint, so the shoe is a bit stiff, and the wrinkles in the fabric are stiff as well. But the fabric is still moveable and you can put the shoe on.

I found it easiest to paint a shoe when you your hand inside of the shoe. It helps keep the shoe still and lets you reach all the tiny corners. There were some silver details along where the laces are, but I decided to paint over them. Now, this is house paint so it was very flat in color and tone--not terribly exciting for a shoe.

Because of the nature of the fabric/suede of the shoe--I had to do about three coats before you couldn't see the black anymore.

Step 4: Pearl and Glitter Coat

To keep the luster of the shoe, I decided to paint the shoe with a pearl coat. I painted about two layers of pearl paint. It gives the color a lot more depth--partially because the pearl paint is a slight different tone than the seafoam base.

The glitter coat is just to make the shoe a little more special. It doesn't photograph particularly well, but once you see it in person it really glints.

Step 5: Laces and Glue

The lady I made these for (instructables user abigailnicole actually) loves teal and purple--so I went with purple laces.

Gluing the flowers is remarkably straightforward. As I stated in the list of materials, you might want to use hot glue as a test placement of some sort. It can really help you get an idea of how the flowers are going to work.

I found the giant gerber daisies to be the best to work with, but with most flowers the key is to cut the flower right where the stem begins behind the flower.

If you do use the heavy duty E-6000, keep in mind that is carcinogenic and you should use it in an open area. It's probably the best glue I've ever worked with--pretty heavy duty stuff, but it does take awhile to dry--at least overnight. you will also need to keep the side of the shoe that you are working on completely level since the glue does not dry immediately.

Thanks for reading and good luck!