A perfect storm of NERD

I originally thought this would be a crafts blog. This plan was derailed early on when I realized that I am, in fact, AWFUL at crafting. I'm impatient, messy, uncoordinated, and clumsy.

I still almost made this a crafts blog. Names I considered include:

DIY Reject
To What Has Daisy Glued Her Hand This Week?
Crafting for the Incompetent
"It Only Took 30 Minutes!" My Ass

Because regardless of my incompetence, I really like crafting. I like taking junky, unused stuff and turning it into something pretty and at least nominally useful. I love watching a crazy idea become greater than the sum of its parts. It's a visceral sense of accomplishment that adulthood doesn't often provide.

I'd been looking for cool geek shoes since I found these boots while trawling tumblr for Avengers info (Hot guys, Joss, and shit blowing up. Can I get in line now?). I din't like the execution (Sneakers should not have heels.), but I liked the theory. Apparently the universe wanted me to have geek kicks, because The Hairpin promptly linked to some badass decoupaged heels.

They looked easy enough (famous last words!), but I didn't have any comics, so my friend Kristen and I negotiated a trade: she'd brave the comic book store and send comics for herself and me, and I'd make shoes for her too. I ended up tackling her shoes first because, well, it turns out that in the comics Captain America doesn't look like this; he looks like a sack of potatoes wrapped in a flag. So I need to rethink my concept.

Anyway. Kristen sent me four Mass Effect comics. I know absolutely nothing about ME, but Mr. Razor is a fanboy and pointed out the cool stuff for me.



Shoe one was a near-disaster. Non-pro tip: If you've never decoupaged anything in your life, don't start with a curving, uneven, moveable surface. There were glued fingers, torn papers, and copious cursing.



Shoe two went a whole lot faster. Here's what I learned between the left pump and the right: choose large images. You'll have fewer edges and fewer weird tiny gaps. (Weird tiny gaps, however, are easily covered by onomatopoeia text.) Plus, big images show up better when people look down at the shoes on your feet. Cut the images as close to the shape of the shoe as you can to avoid creasing. Then resign yourself to some creasing at the heel anyway. That curve is freaking impossible.



Materials: Sensible pumps ($6 slightly used at Boomerangs), 4 comic books, mod podge, small paint brush, and acrylic sealer

Method: Cut out your pictures, slap some mod podge on those suckers, wait for them to get a little bit damp so they'll bend better to the shoe, then slap 'em on, When you have the whole thing covered, do 3 or 4 coats of mod podge over the shoes (waiting about a half an hour or more between coats), then wait a day and spray the sealer over them in a well-ventilated area.

Time: About an hour if you know what you're doing. Probably closer to three if you read this and are going, "What's mod podge?" But, as I think I've proved, still totally doable for a newbie!

Or, you know, you could send me some shoes and comics and I could do them for you for a nominal fee. Just sayin'.