I’d been eying some retro spacey boots for a couple months, and one night randomly found them on Ebay. In my size. For $10. You know what happened next. As it turns out, metallic gold puffy boots are a little too subtle for me, so I had to modify.
Right away I ripped off the Rubber Duck label on the velcro strap. Anyone who knows me from my college days knows that I’m quite fond of rubber ducks, but branding is simply not part of my aesthetic.
The next step was to cover the gold-colored suede and rubber. My first choice would have been to use liquid paint and serenely cover the fabric while sitting at the kitchen table–just this thought greatly relaxes my costume-sewing-induced panic. But I didn’t have silver paint, paint pens looked incredibly crappy, and there was some nice chrome spray paint just wasting away in the closet. So I carefully taped around all those curves and happily painted my alley silver.
Surprisingly, the now silver-and-gold boots still felt a little boring. At this point I also noticed that the silver paint was not sticking to the rubber band between the boot and the sole. The best way to decorate this area naturally seemed to be rainbow elastic and sequin trim, which I attached via hot glue gun.
There was no point in stopping here, so I also sewed some rhinestones where the tag used to be.
These boots are comfortable, very warm, and now totally bad ass. Definitely worthy for the playa, and they might even be the tipping point for getting me to venture to snowy climes this winter! I wore them to a Burning Man party this weekend and they were perfect. And I have to admit that now I want a pair in every juicy color.
