Frozen Shoes

Taking a quick break from the Lagertha project, I've finished the shoes for my Elsa ensemble.
These are the same shoes I wore for the Disneyland event a few months ago...for a little while at least. They were brand new and while pretty comfy, I hadn't had time to break them in. My feet were ok with them for about 3 hours but after a few blisters started to show up, I switched to some flats I'd painted a similar color.
Now that these are properly broken in, I decided to give them a facelift since the original paint job was rushed (over a navy color) and none of the "Frozen" modifications I wanted were done.

What follows is truly my own version of Elsa's shoes. I'm not attempting to be dead accurate with these, but I wanted them to at least reflect the general look and colors used on hers.

Using some softer scraps from the tooling leather I used for my Lagertha armor, I created extensions on the vamp of the shoe in a spiky icicle design. Before adding these, I sanded down both shoes thoroughly so that both the glue for the additions, and the new coat of paint would have a surface that they could adhere to.
(Please excuse all the thread, blue clippings and hole punch confetti on my carpet from the leather Lagertha tunic)

 Tools of the trade; sandpaper, glue, hairpins, super sharp scissors and Dutch licorice cats...which have zero to do with this project except that they are tasty. 

To glue these pieces on, I used Aleen's Foamtastic. This is the same brand that makes the Jewel It glue I use to decorate my burlesque costumes in all those Swarovski crystals. I needed something strong that would not only dry clear, but flexible. Normally I would have used some kind of shoe repair glue, but I didn't have any on hand. Alternately, Foamtastic works for this sort of thing because it's made for porous materials. Leather is porous, and this glue is super thick and tacky. It holds while it dries, and doesn't soak away into materials that tend to make more fluid glue vanish before it can stick.

As you can see from the top photo, I still used a few hairpins to clamp the pieces in place while it set. Once that was done, I broke out the paints.

The first coat.

I mixed two colors of Lumiere paints; a plain turquoise and a frosty white metallic to get the shade you see above. After that was dry, I added more of the metallic frost white to the tips of the spikes. Building and blending the layers of the frost for more intensity at the pointy tips, this definitely gave the shoes an icy look.

The finished product! Or do I add more sparkle?

I also shaded some of the frosty white onto the small heels and along the top edge at the back.
Eventually I'd like to find a diamond shaped hole punch, and do a cut-out design on the interior of the spiky pieces for a snowflake look.
I know some people have added glitter to theirs, but I want to keep the snagging effect to a minimum. Granted, spiky things similar to what I added can catch on hemlines, but that's why I used a soft leather that is unlikely to be a problem. Glitter, when glued to a surface, becomes like sandpaper. I really don't want the inside of my hem & the satin lining to catch, scuff or stick to my shoes. Swarovski crystals are an option though ;-)