One of my favorite things about art and crafting is the freedom. The freedom of making decisions (which is something I’m usually not good at, lol), choosing colors, design, flowers, everything, really allows me to decompress and just relax. This is why, in all honesty, I’m usually a little apprehensive to do commission work.
Don’t get me wrong, my other favorite thing about creating is sharing it with others. I am truly so honored and humbled when people reach out to me to create something with. But at times I find it stressful and it gives me a little bit of anxiety.
However, this was not at all the case when I got an Instagram message from one of my first ever college roommates! She saw my post from last summer when I shared the shoes I had embroidered for my wedding.
She is getting married this June and was looking for a pair of embroidered shoes to wear on her big day. She also lives in her pair of vans and was very interested in something similar to what I had created for my wedding.
Of course, immediately I screamed yes and she sent over some inspiration pictures and a photo of what her bouquet will look like and we got to work.
My favorite thing about working with Alexis was the creative freedom she gave to me. I asked her about specific designs, and while she sent over some that she liked, she told me that she trusted what I had in mind and allowed me the freedom to create what I thought looked good. The only thing she specifically requested was that her last name be on one shoe and her wedding be on the other – good direction to work with. 🙂
I got to work on Pinterest with some inspiration pictures that I liked and found a couple that I thought would be great starting points for my design. Ultimately, I found one that had an element that I thought really brought some life-like features to the project that I hadn’t tried before.
This design had small flower buds that worked it’s way out of the center of the design and I really thought that added such a nice element to the project, as well as nicely symbolizes the blossoming of the next chapter for Alexis and her fiance.
When I created my shoes for my wedding, I noticed I had some issues with the thread color bleeding onto the rubber part of the shoes as I was going. To avoid this, I added masking tape to the rubber soles of the shoes to protect it from any dye. I decided to stay on the safe side, I would copy this technique and get going on the designs for both shoes.
Both of the shoes have a mirrored floral design on the outside of the shoe.
This was the sketch I started out with for this design. I know that I didn’t end up loving the really large flower in the design in my shoes and knew I didn’t want to go that route to allow for some better details with smaller flowers. I drew the two small roses in the center, and later decided to add in a third in some of the white space of the design.
On the other sides of the shoes I added in her future last name on one shoe and their wedding date on the other.
After sketching everything out I got to work! I was too excited about this floral design and got started on those sides first. I used a very pale pink, two different shades of green, and a cream white color.
My favorite part of this as I finished the floral design was of course the flower buds. I loved the 3-D design of the buds along with the roses and thought they complimented each other perfectly! After finishing up the floral design, I wanted to add in some more flowers in the remaining whitespace of the design. I sketched out the small flowers with a pen and extended the design to the back and tied in the lettering on the inside of the shoes to the other side.
I wanted these small flowers to sort of resemble babies breath in bouquets, so I wanted to keep them small and subtle.
After finishing up the outsides of the shoes, I went on to work on the lettering.
I have embroidered lettering and embroidery quite a few times before and knew it could be a little bit tricky. Originally my plan was just to do a straight stitch with two threads, following the design of the cursive. This didn’t give me the result I was hoping for, so I started over and went for a chain stitch to give bit of a thicker look. I wanted to ensure the letters looked cohesive in size throughout all elements of each letter, so I wrapped each stitch with the thread. This made the letters easily legible, and gave it a really three-dimensional look.
After making the finishing touches to the lettering and finishing up the flowers going around the back of the shoe, they were finished!
I genuinely LOVED how these turned out. Despite this, I was having a little bit of a hard time with my mental health and was really second-guessing the design. I put the shoes away in the box and needed to put them away to let my brain catch up with everything that was going on for those few weeks. After setting them to the side I worked up the courage to open the box and reach out to Alexis.
This is something I do struggle with when it comes to my art. Although I love most of the art pieces that I work on, the reality of having anxiety and working on art is that I do often feel like the work isn’t up to a level that I have set in my mind. Luckily, I have a lot of amazing friends and family in my life that encourage me and help me to feel confident in my work!
So, anyway, I finally opened the box and took photos to send to Alexis. After sending them, Alexis responded right away and told me that she loved them! Knowing that Alexis gave me full creative freedom for the shoes and, even after second-guessing myself, she loved them!
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