Sparkle Boot Redo - DIY

These are my 6 year old's new boots. No they're not. They're her old, horribly scuffed boots that I won't let her wear anymore because she totally ruined them after a month of wear. What's a mom to do? Well, I did search high and low for a new pair of boots for her. Did I mention that I have the pickiest 6 year old in Chicago? I was so proud of her when she was younger that she knew what she wanted and wouldn't let people sway her. We want our girls to be strong minded, right? Yeah, that's only with other people. With us, they should bend to our wills, right? Anyway, back on subject. Since I couldn't find anything that was up to her standards I went back to the beginning. I decided to have a go with refashioning her old boots so they would be wearable again. After all, they are a perfectly good pair of boots, except for that ugly toe.

Horribly scuffed boot, ugh...

I went to my craft room and pulled out my trusty Mod Podge. If I could tell you how many things I've used Mod Podge for, I love this stuff. Don't get me started (not a sponsored post, blah, blah, blah). My first thought was black glitter, however I only had a small container of it so I mixed it with silver. I think I used a total of 2 small vials of glitter and maybe 1/4c Mod Podge, probably less.

First I took a permanent marker and covered the ugly. I'm not sure if this step was necessary but I didn't want to risk it. If I were doing it again, I'd probably scuff up the whole area that I was glittering a little just because it seems to adhere better where it's scuffed.

My initial though was to just glitter the toe. As you can see below, it goes on pretty white. Don't worry, it dries clear.

See? Clear. Sparkly! Hmm... Enough sparkle? I don't think so! Not for this 6 year old!

There we go, that should do it! I really had to stop myself before I covered the whole shoe. I actually asked my 6 year old at this point for her opinion. Big mistake. We almost ended up with hot pink and purple glitter on them too. Could have been cute, but I guess I'm not that daring. Oh, and I'm not 6.

Ta Da! Needless to say she's thrilled. She wouldn't take them off for like, 6 hours. My husband took the kids out to dinner that night and the second she walked in the door the hostess came up to her and said, "Wow! Great boots!" To which she replied, "Thanks, my mom made them."

Family Vacation Shirts

I've always seen those people at Disney Land and other various vacation spots with their whole extended family and was secretly a little jealous. My parents took us on plenty of family vacations. Amazing vacations. I have nothing to complain about. However, it was always just the four of us, Mom, Dad, me, and my brother. Don't get me wrong, lots of fun. You just see those people, all together, and it looks like such a great bonding experience. You always know who they are because inevitably, they're wearing matching shirts.  

Well, for my father-in-law's 60th birthday they decided to take all of us to a resort in Mexico. Amazing, right? My father in law is remarried so between the two of them there's 8 kids/spouses, and, at the time, 6 grandkids. I decided that this would be the perfect time to pull out the matching shirts. If, for nothing else, a good picture. We were in Mexico, after all. It's not like we needed the shirts to keep track of each other as you would in a place like Disney World. So, here you have the matching shirts. A very easy and quick project.

First I decided on a picture of my FIL that would work well. Considering I had about 6 pictures of him, I was lucky I found a good one. I used Photoshop but there are tons of free picture editing sites online now, so you can use whichever. First I changed the photo to black and white and played around with the brightness and contrast.

Then I used the artistic adjustments, both posterize and poster edges until I liked what I saw.

I then just copied and pasted the image and used the color fill tool to get a Warhol inspired design.

 I simply uploaded the image to Zazzle (there are tons of sites now that will print your design onto anything pretty inexpensively) and selected everyone's sizes and styles. The nice thing about it was everyone was able to pick their own style. My husband's cousin got a tank top, my sister-in-law got a babydoll t-shirt, everyone got what they wanted. 

The shirts turned out great. We made pink and blue ones for the kids and the fronts said, "I survived my Poppi's 60th." On the front of the adults there was a simple 60 where the shirt pocket would be. It's really a great idea to personalize the trip a bit. They made for great memorable pictures and I think my daughter wore her 'Poppi Shirt' for the following two years. 

Next time you have a family vacation or group outing you should try it. It's really very easy and takes very little time and trust me, everyone will be very impressed!