I've been drooling over the Gaga-esque spiked heels by designers like Christian Louboutin and Jeffrey Campbell, but they are very pricey and I can't wear heels, especially not stiletto heels, due to my very high arch feet. (Seriously, shoe designers, would it kill you to make heavily embellished *flats* with spikes, studs, and belts?) It is also winter.
So when I saw these awesome Ugg knockoffs at aeropostale.com during Christmas sales for only $25 (after I bought them, they went down to $22 at one point, and are now sold out online, though your local store might have some left), I thought they would be great to experiment with. They are very lightweight, not much more sturdy than slippers, but the fur is soft and luxurious for such a cheap boot. They will be fine for light walking duty on non-snowy/non-rainy days. Sorry I don't have a before picture, but here they are.
The finished product:
Supplies:
50 3/8" Black Brass Screwback Spikes
720 faux-Swarovski Black Diamond crystal rhinestones (I did not count, but I think I used about 400-500 total?)
Loctite GO2 Glue (which is crystal clear, though not totally invisible, and claims to be shock, water, and temperature resistant)
cheap metal slant-tip tweezers
I got the spikes and rhinestones off eBay. The rhinestones are not quite as nice as Swarovski, but are definitely glass and not plastic; and the Black Diamond color was not as dark as I was hoping, but they contrast nicely with the black spikes. They are a little darker than they look in the photos, they look more dark grey or more clear depending on the angle, and like a diamond, they reflect some colors. The supplies altogether cost almost as much as the boots.
I used my seam ripper to remove the name tags from the back, as I personally dislike obnoxious branding, and it makes the shoes look cheap. I chose blacked spikes instead of the more common and cheaper chrome spikes because I think they look more fashionable and less punk. I also chose pretty short ones, partially because I thought they would hold up to stress better, and partially so I am less likely to be kicked out of places by overzealous security guards.
I tried drilling a hole into the boot first so that I could screw
and glue the spikes into the boots, but the screws were much too short to punch through. These boots have quite thick faux fur both outside and inside the whole boot. So I did not use the screws and instead just glued them. I used 15 spikes per front and 10 per heel. I placed them just based on sight and a mental vision, I didn't measure anything, and then left them for 24 hours to dry.
As you can see, I placed a heavy saturation of rhinestones at the front of the boot, thinning out beyond the spikes. From the spikes down, I applied the Loctite glue directly onto the suede and then placed the rhinestones onto the river of glue with cheap dollar store tweezers. For the thinned out rhinestones and the ones at the heel, I made a small puddle of glue onto some throwaway cardboard and then used the tweezers to dip the rhinestones in, then placed them on the shoe.
If you look closely, the glue is visible between the stones and smeared a bit on the stones, but it's nearly invisible from a distance. I'm picky and I don't find it problematic, but you can take more time to neatly glue them individually if you are worried about people seeing the glue.
So far, it seems like the spikes and rhinestones are stuck on there quite tightly. I will update later with a "field report".
I am also thinking of adding a decorative belt around the leg if I find one that's suitable. I couldn't find anything I liked in my discard stash.
Suggested improvements for people with more money -
if you're not worried about getting kicked out of places, vary larger and smaller spike sizes
use real Swarovski, possibly with Crystal Cosmojet instead, or a mix of grey and black colors, and possibly with varying sizes
Got less money? -
use plastic jet black rhinestones
use chrome spikes
