Pretty Canvas Shoes

Have you seen those commercials for Lelli Kelly shoes?  My daughter became fascinated with them when a certain kids channel started playing that awful commercial every 10 minutes.  So, out of curiosity, I looked them up online and nearly had a heart attack - those cute, sparkly, bedazzled shoes cost $70 or more!

I love my daughter, and those shoes do look really cute, but there is NO WAY I'm going to spend $70 on a pair of shoes for my 4 year old.  I don't buy myself $70 shoes.  So, I set off to craft some up myself!

I purchased a pair of plain canvas tennis shoes from Target.  I'm pretty sure I got them on sale for less than $10.

Then, I picked up some pretty sequins and small flowers to pretty up the shoes, creating our own, much less expensive version of Lelli Kellys. 

I tried a variety of adhesives to attach the sequins to the shoes, including a glue gun, Super Glue and household cement.  The glue gun didn't have a prayer - the sequins easily popped off, especially when bending the shoe to put it on.  The Super Glue worked well for adhering small sequins to the rubber toe of the shoe, but the sequins did the same popping off thing when adhered to the canvas part of the shoe with the Super Glue.  The household cement seemed to be working well.  Nothing popped off when putting the shoe on, but bumping into things (like climbing into the car seat) did cause us to lose a few sequins. 

My last attempt for today is E6000.  It's an industrial strength adhesive that is supposed to work great for just this type of application.  I'm letting things set up and we'll give the shoes a try outside later today, but I'm hoping this adhesive works a bit better.  I'll be sure to stop back with an update.

Although this project isn't officially finished, since I need to keep the sequins adhered, I still wanted to share the finished product.  I think they turned out really well and look so darn cute!  And, I'm happy to say, I spent a whopping $15 for these cuties!  The shoes were $8, large sequins $2.99, small sequins $1.99, and flowers $1.99.

These are such a big hit, I'm sharing them on the following blogs!

The DIY Show Off     Life as Lori

It's a Blog Party   The Train to Crazy

The Pumpkin Patch   The Virginia House

Silver Lining   Black Kat's Design

Pony Tails and Fish Scales   Tatertots and Jello

Funky Junk Interiors   A Little Lovely