Did It Myself: Studded Shoes

I love to DIY - sometimes it's really the best way to get what you want for very little cost. I've shared a few photos of past projects, but this is my first DIY post.

The subject for this post is this quite average looking, $30 pair of shoes that I bought to wear to work for a few weeks last summer. I would've loved to have gotten something nicer but these were all I could get in my size at the time. Since then, I've hardly worn them and they've been sitting in the back of my closet, catching dust.




Usually if I have clothes that aren't being worn, I either sell them, give them away or reconstruct them. I got the idea to revamp these shoes with studs earlier on in the summer from these amazing Christian Louboutin Ariella boots (below), but it completely slipped my mind.




However, the idea resurfaced in my brain when I spotted these Colin Stuart Studded booties (below) that are becoming very popular with fashion bloggers everywhere, and the Newport News lace-up boots which are featured two posts below.




So yesterday I went to a craft store in town and bought some studs, 120 to be exact, which I estimated would be just about enough to cover both shoes. Once again, my crappy math skills failed me as I actually only ended up using 40 to cover only the back and side of both shoes.

I decided to go with less-flashy looking studs so I used these long-pronged, circular studs that have a kind of dull, brassy colour. I figured if I used studs that were too shiny, they would probably look out of place on the shoes.




I pressed a stud into the shoe to mark where I wanted it to go then I used a stencil knife to further punch a hole through the material. When the hole was punched, I stuck the stud through it and used a needle-nose pliers to bend the stud teeth as flat as possible to the inside of the shoe.

I just repeated that process for the other 39 studs until I was finally finished!





One word of advice if you do this though - do NOT attempt to put in all the studs without stopping to give your fingers a break. They will be very sore and swollen the next day...like mine are right now :(

I'm also wondering if I should cover the whole shoe in studs. There's a risk in messing up the whole thing because there isn't much space at the front of the shoe to manoeuvre my hands so I may not be able to get the studs to go in the way I want. Secondly, I'm not sure if the all-over studded look suits this style of shoe and lastly, my fingers are desperately pleading with me not to!

What do you think? Should I give it a shot and cover these shoes in studs or should I leave them as they are?