Flapping Tongues

I'm not sure if this is considered a refashion or not but I've definitely altered these:  I have a lovely pair of Doc Martens Airware boots which I got while on holidays in Idaho a few years ago.  They are the cracklin half boot:

Doc Martens are my absolutely favourite shoe. They are a must-take when travelling - they are so comfy.  I didn't notice at the time I bought this pair, but the right boot had an overly flapping tongue.  

A Wagging Tongue

The leather was a tiny bit softer and it wasn't as stiff as normal.  This caused the tongue to flop over when I wore the boots untied (which is how I usually wear them).  Not so bad under a pair of jeans, but I didn't like how it looked with a skirt or shorts.

So, my favourite notions store to the rescue.  They have piles of leather pieces which though not quite as cheap as a few years ago, are still reasonable.  I was looking for a pink piece, but all the pink ones were huge and cost big bucks ($8.99 or more).  I finally found this purple piece for $1.99:

First thing I did was "measure" the tongue by tracing its outline onto the leather:

Then I cut it out

Then, using the same glue as from the Swag Bag refashion, I glued both the leather flap and the tongue:

Then it was just a matter of slapping the two pieces together, and pressing it down a bit.

Check out those chocolates in the background!

I liked it so much, I did the other boot too:

Too bad I didn't do this sooner before the flowers rubbed off the floppy tongue!

If The Shoe Fits

One Hallowe'en, I was dressed as a "prior era" person - which means I didn't really have a costume, but just made something up to wear to work.  I tied my hair up in a low pony tail, wore a gold-trimmed jacket and lace ascot, rolled my pants up to my knees, wore knee socks and some plain black shoes.  This is how I imagine people dressed in the 1700's.

The refashion item for this post are the shoes.  The ascot doesn't count because it was just a length of lace folded around the neck.

The shoes were just some plain square toed ones to which I added a belt buckle.  It looked great!  People even asked where I bought them!  I wore them as regular shoes later on.

Here's what I did:

First, I sewed the belt buckle to a piece of elastic. You could actually use any piece of fabric, I just used elastic because that's what was on hand.

Front View

Back View

Then, I just taped it in place! This next picture is a bit fuzzy, but it;s just to show the masking tape:

Fold the elastic and tape to the front of the shoe on the inside only.

Et voila! your 1700's shoe is done:

 

What do you think?  The great thing is that if the buckles aren't right for your outfit, you can just untape them!

Swag Bag

This is an almost no-sew project.  You quite often get swag bags from conventions or courses etc like this one:

I've used this one once and loved the size, but didn't really like "advertising".   I wanted to use it again on December 5th to lug some stuff, so decided to spruce it up a little.

My original idea was to make a giant pocket over the flap to cover the writing, using the multi-colour floral fabric in the bottom right of the pic:

But, it was a bit thin, and I would've had to reinforce it with denim or something underneath.

So I just cut up some denim "flowers".  They are also shown in the pic on the left.  But I didn't really want denim, so trashed that idea.

Finally I decided to use some pink cord fabric I had to make a giant flower and another greenish fabric to make some leaves.

The flap is not really sewable - it's lined with plastic or something and has secret pocket underneath.  So I glued it.

I'm using a non-toxic glue which I've used before to fix a pair of sandals, so I think it's quite strong.  Here is the flower and leaves glued in place:

It still seemed to lack something so I added button (that's the only sewing I did), et voila:

I'm hoping the glue will stick, but if not I'll either break down and try to tack it in key places or use that bumpy coloured fabric stuff to hold it down.