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Writer's pictureLauren Goodman

How to DIY Your Wedding Shoes

Welcome to my first DIY wedding blog, I'm hoping to give you one DIY wedding craft a month so keep an eye out for some exciting little projects for you to try at home!


My first DIY is all about shoes! I'm so here for a personalised wedding shoe and find that traditional wedding shoes can be a little plain and boring (but that's just my opinion!).


It's also a great way to add a little bit of fun to your outfit for the day and you're more likely to reuse and rewear them after your wedding day too!


So I'm going to show you how to create 70's inspired wedding shoes!







What You'll Need


I've decided to use a black sandal with a thick block heel and ankle strap from Asos as I thought this design was very in keeping with my 70's theme. The strap gives your ankle support and the thick heel is great to stop you sinking into grass. The black also makes them a little bit more of a statement piece!








Other items you'll need to make these shoes are:


Pom Poms - now I haven't bought pre-made ones as I wanted to use specific colours for the colour scheme of a shoot I'm doing. But you can either buy pre-made pom poms or buy wool in the colours to match your colour scheme.


Pom Pom Maker - now I would usually do this out of cardboard but omg I wish I had bought a pom pom maker earlier because they were so much easier and quicker to use! They were also only £7 for a pack of 4 so click here to buy yours. For this project I used the smallest maker out of the set.


Scissors - make sure they're sharp enough to get through a few layers of wool.


Hot Glue Gun & Glue Gun Sticks - I picked up a mini hot glue gun as they're super quick and easy to use and some extra glue sticks as you go through them quite quickly.


Mini Disco Balls - the ones I've used are actually baubles and are a little bit too big but I'm only using one per shoe and actually they really worked! I just took the top hanging clasp off the bauble before putting onto the shoe, click here to buy yours.







Step 1


Make your pom poms!


Take your pom pom maker and make sure the two pieces fit snuggly together, they won't clip into place you just have them side by side.


Take the end of your wool and start wrapping it around one half of the pom pom maker, the first loop is a little tricky as you need to make sure the end is secured in place with the first loop so that it doesn't unwrap.


Keep then wrapping your wool, making sure to get right down to the edges of the semi circle. Try to make sure the wool is evenly distributed, I like to wrap left to right and then right to left until you get the thickness of the pom pom you desire.


Once you're happy with the thickness you take the wool over to the other side of the pom pom maker and repeat the wrapping process until it's the same thickness as the first side.


To finish the pom pom, clip the two sides of the maker together and cut with your scissors the strand of wool that connects your pom pom to the bale. You'll then see an obvious slit where you need to place your scissors into the pom pom maker to cut the wool. You'll be cutting vertically along the horizontal wool on the maker.


The final step is to take a short piece of wool the same colour as the pom pom and follow the same insertion line you have just used your scissors in to tie the cut wool tightly together with a double knot. Cut the remaining wool to the length of the pom pom wool.


Unclip the maker and there you'll have your finish Pom Pom! Repeat the process to get the number of pom poms you want in the colours you want. I did two in each colour (4 colours) per shoe.







Step 2


Cut your pom poms down to size.


Now even though I used the smallest pom pom makers I found they were still too large for the shoe toe strap, so all you need to do is cut the pom poms down to your desired size by cutting and twisting you pom pom in a circular motion until it's an even sphere again.


Trimming them down actually makes the pom pom also look much neater and tighter.




Step 3


Prep your disco balls.


Now as I have used disco ball baubles I just needed to take off the top bit that allows you to hang it on the tree. It was easy to remove by gently peeling it off. It did leave a small hole but that's fine because that's where I'll then glue it onto the shoe so it won't be seen!







Step 4


Time to glue!


It's now time to stick your pom poms and disco balls onto the toe strap. I started by sticking the disco ball into position first and then working around it with the pom poms.


Before you stick you can always lay out your design next to the shoe to make sure you're happy with where all the colours and ball/s sit.


Remember to be careful with the glue gun as the glue is HOT! Apply a small amount onto the item and then hold in position on the shoe for a few seconds so that the glue can stick and hold the item in place.


Finally repeat this step on the other shoe! I matched the design just in the opposite direction so the shoes looked the same.







So there we have it! DIY 70's inspired wedding shoes! They're super fun and add that little bit of a statement to your wedding day. I hope this has inspired you to get creative and DIY your own wedding shoes for the big day!


Shop the items!



Happy DIY-ing!



Lauren xx

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Photos by: Lauren Goodman






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