PhatGrrl: Jungle Grrl Betty Shoes - Folksy UpCycle

I've always been fascinated by the fifties: B Movies, curvaceous women, Hollywood, the image of the classic fifties housewife, Betty Page and more.

I mentioned the Folksy UpCycle competition to some of the staff team at work and that I wanted a pair of shoes for an idea I had, Gary (who initially took the micky) said he'd ask his girlfriend (Sara Sarah - my nickname for her) whether or not she had any she wanted to pass my way.

When he dropped them into me on his day off I was thrilled. They were size 6 and a half patent leather peep toe, the image of Betty Page in her leopard skin Jungle grrl costume popped into my head. I don't have a clue why, I can only suspect that the peep toe shoe to me are very reminiscent of fifties Hollywood glamour and I've always had a thing about Jungle Grrl, so why not use that as my inspiration.

I had already acquired some plastic flowers which had been chucked out by someone on my street. I was thrilled, it's like finding gold. Attached to long stalks, was a mass of flowers and buds, a little dusty but some of the colours looked ok even though many had been faded by the sun. No matter, I grabbed the orange bag and took it home, fighting against the stalks made from wire. They were pretty dusty, but apart from some being broken and faded, they were a treat for me to find! I stared, I nabbed, got poked in the face a few times by the stalks but I finally conquered!

The previous week I had found a teapot which was languishing on its lonesome with some old baby clothes by a rained out closed stall in Portobello Road Market - you can see how that turned out in another post as I haven't uploaded that one to Folksy as yet (look at me talking as though there's someone actually reading this, Ha! Well I know my sister pops by *waves*). The market is the ideal place to find second hand bits and bobs just strewn all over the place once the market has closed and if you get there before the cleaners arrive, it's a delight to see what people just don't want any more. I had a few plastic cupcake flowers, which were difficult to use because of the plastic, so I wasn't able to use those as I imagined. I do have ideas for other shoes donated by Hayley, Gary's sister, just not so sure I'll be able to make them in time.

The dolls had already been given to me by friends whose children didn't want them any more. Most of my friends know I collect doll pieces for sculptures and the like so I used a few cut up heads and arms for some select areas on the shoes. I actually wanted grown up dolls heads, but didn't find any down Portobello Road or at any of the charity shops in Kilburn. Never the less, the picture in my head was forming, so it was all good...

ripped the leaves off their stalks, removed some of the plastic vines from the leaves themselves, pulled the flowers apart just to stick them back together again (once the stalk is pulled out, the bud of the flower seems to come away and the petals fall apart).

Scored the patent leather with a craft knife and added each layer of leaves and waiting for the glue to dry on each part of the shoe. I felt a bit bad scoring into shoes which looked as though they had been worn only a few times, but hey ho... score them I did.

Once the leaves were in place, the flowers were positioned along with the doll pieces. I used Uhu glue and Evostick to attach the leaves, flowers and plastic dolls pieces. I'll leave it to the images to show you what I did. No need for loads of text at this point.

The doll pieces had to be backed with some of the poinsettia red leaves to create a good surface for them to stick to the leaves. I'm not sure what the leaves are made from, but if they're fabric, they have been covered in some kind of plastic seal. It's not the best surface to glue, that's where the bull dog clips came in handy.