Pack your bags Ghouls, because Scaris is always a good idea!

The hardest part of any sacrecation has to be deciding what to bring.  Add to that a trip to the most fashionable city in the monster world...No pressure right ghoulfriends?  How about making a splash in these fiercely fashionable shoes?!  They'll soak up your style woes, so you can enjoy the sea, sun, and haunt couture.

Difficulty: Medium

Materials:

Quilted platform wedges

Scissors

Fabric glue

Shoe goo

Ice cubes

Pink acrylic paint

White acrylic paint

Paintbrushes

Original (tan) Worbla
Blue tape

Heat gun

Gesso

Sandpaper (a variety of grits)

Tracing paper

Sharpie

Bend n bake clay, blue, green & white

Sugar dot scrapbook embellishments
Rhinestones (I'd say optional, but are they ever?)

Pink pearl beads 18mm

Petersham ribbon 3/8"

Needle

Thread
Heavy duty thread

Sew on Velcro

Sewing machine

E-6000

Toothpicks
Rite dye
Disposable plastic container (for your dye)

Begin with a scary cute pair of quilted wedges. It can be a monstrous quest across all the seas to find the perfect pair, but the journey is part of the fun.

Now, sketch the design on half of one shoe with a marker.  (My shoes are made from faux Kraken leather, if your shoes are a different creature you might have to adjust a few steps.)  If your pen lines are too freaky flawed they can always be erased with a bit of alcohol on a cotton pad. Don't use too much it can damage the material.
Once you are happy with the lines, transfer them onto tracing paper.
Trace the bubble top and the heel design on to separate sheets.  Set the heel design aside for now. Cut out the bubble edge and lay this piece back along the edge of the shoe and trace the lines with your marker.  To do the opposite side just flip the paper over.  You may have to adjust the lines a bit to accommodate the shape of the shoe.

Once the lines are in place remove the finishing tape from the top edge of the shoe with a stitch ripper.  Only remove it along the cut lines.  Then cut the shoe along the bubble lines made in the first step. 

The layers of the shoe will begin to separate once the edge of the shoe is cut away.  Since the shoes are quilted there is an extra layer of foam which will expand without the edging of the shoe holding it together. To fix this, add some quick drying fabric glue into the opening and pinch the edges closed until the glue dries.  This will give you a much thinner and more even edge.

Now, It's time to fix the esthetics of the very edge of the shoe.  It's not very pretty with all the insides showing.  Mix a very small amount of shoe goo with a tiny amount of the paint you plan to use on the rest of the shoe. Use a tooth pick to apply the goo to the open edge of the shoe.  Next smooth this down with an ice cube, its weird but it works.  Make sure to have a roll of paper towels on hand to soak up the mess. I had to do about 3 coats of this until I was happy with the edges.  Try not to get too much on the outside of the shoe.

It's time to revisit the second piece of tracing paper with the heel design. Cut out the heel shapes and trace them onto the rough side of Worbla.  Flip the shapes over, and trace the pattern for the other side of the shoe.  Make sure to create two sets of shapes (one for each shoe).  If you have trouble keeping the bubbles in order, number them before you cut.
Once you have all the lines traced, cut the Worbla using scissors.  Apply these shapes to your heel by heating the shapes with the heat gun.  (Remember sea creatures dry out quickly, so use extreme caution around the heat gun, we aren't throwing any shrimps on the barbie. )
It helps to heat the shapes slightly before placing them on the shoe because the pleather can melt if it gets too hot. Usually Worbla turns a light caramel colour when it is hot enough to mold nicely.  If it gets too warm bubbles will form, too cool and it won't stick.  The smoother side of the Worbla has more glue, so you want to make sure that is the side facing down.  Allow the shapes to cool a little bit before gently pressing onto the shoe.  Press the shapes too hard while they are too hot and they can become deformed.  Let the pattern cool completely before moving onto the other side of the shoe.

Once all four sides of your shoes are cool, its time to make the Warbloa smooth.  Mask the shoe with blue tape leaving only the octopus and bubbles exposed.  I choose to use spray gesso for this project, so it is important to cover the whole shoe.  If you use paint on gesso you can skip this step just be scareful with your paint.
Coat the shoes with gesso.  For the spray gesso I suggest doing a lot of coats and sanding once there is some build up.  For the paint on type I usually sand every two or three coats depending on how thick it is. When sanding you want to start with a slightly rougher grit and work your way down to a fine paper.  This will allow you to get out any large imperfections and then work out any fine scratches left by the harsher paper.  If you have no large imperfections start with a finer paper.

After the Worbla is smooth, clean off any dust left by sanding and any gesso that ended up on the pleather parts of the shoe.  Usually a bit of water and some gentle scraping will get it off.  Be scareful not to get water on the smoothed out parts it can ruin all your hard work.

Now it's time to paint the shoe.  As with painting any shoe, do this in very thin coats.  I opted to paint the octopuses and bubbles a slightly darker shade of pink with some pearlescent paint mixed in.  I also shaded the quilting lines with this colour to give the shoes some depth, and make all those details pop.  The shoe on the right is flat pink, for comparison.

After the paint has dried, add the suction cups to the octopus.  I made my cups out of some sugar dots from my local craft store.  They are plastic stickers that come on a card usually in the scrapbook section.  I wasn't thrilled with the shade of pink, so I painted them the lighter shade of the shoe.  Don't trust the sticky stuff on the back; glue them to the shoe using E-6000.

Next, start on the 3-D octopus (though they only have 6 legs...) that cling to the toe of the shoe.  Cover the shoe in plastic wrap because you don't want all your work getting messed up.  If you choose to do this step before you paint the shoe, still cover it in plastic. Bendable clay has chemicals that will get on the shoe surface and make it hard to get a nice even paint job.  Add a top layer of aluminum foil, to make it easy to remove your shapes and place right into the oven.  Mix the clay colours until you have the perfect shade of teal. Then sculpt out the little octopus on the front of the shoe.  Make sure they are nice and smooth, it is hard to sand bake n bend clay.  Remove from the shoes, and bake the clay following the manufacturer's directions.  If you don't want to use clay, try making the shapes from Worbla. Gesso and sand like the rest of the shoe. (I had clay left over and hate things going to waste)

Once they have cooled adhere the dried octopus to the front of the shoe at one point.  I choose the center.  If you glue the whole thing down it runs the risk of not bending enough with the shoe as it flexes.  This can cause cracks in the clay.  Since it is such a large shape with many thin parts it is helpful to give it a bit more room to move.  I decided to add a bit of sparkle to the octopus eyes and suction cups by gluing on some crystals. A ghoul's gotta stand out in the Scarisian seas.

 The last step is the ankle straps.  If your shoes come with ankle straps I would suggest sewing the beads directly to them.  Ankle straps offer support, and generally its not a good idea to remove them if you don't have to.  My shoes didn't come with ankle straps, so I made anklets to go with them.  Simply cut four lengths of petersham ribbon long enough to go around your ankle with a bit of overlap to connect them.  Lay two pieces of ribbon on top of each other and sew them together along the edges for extra support.  Next stitch Velcro to the ribbon.  Always have the rough side of the Velcro facing away from your skin.  Add a small snap to lend additional support.  I choose to dye my ankle straps to match the beads.  Rit dye works well if you are using ribbon that it is 100% cotton, like this is.  They also have a handy dye chart that will help you match colours if you aren't used to dying fabric.  Wait to dye until after you add the Velcro so that it matches. Try to match your thread to your desired colour or use 100% cotton thread and dye to match. Polyester thread will not dye using Rit.

Next, hand stitch the beads to the top of the ribbon.  Start with some heavy duty thread and knot the end, then take a sew stitches into the ribbon to anchor your thread.  Then string the first bead. 

Push the bead tight to the base of the thread then push the needle through the fabric.

Come up at the other side of the bead

and re thread the needle through it.

 Add your next bead and repeat.

Doing this one bead at a time will give you more control over the placement of the beads and also add to the strength.  Continue until you have covered the whole strip excluding your rough Velcro attachment.
With that you are ready to walk any runway or swim in the most fashionable of seas.  Life's a beach, enjoy your adventure!