How to repair flaking pleather shoes with fabric

Today I'm waving my thrifty-gal flag loud and proud. This is the sort of project my husband would look at in disbelief when we first started dating. Why on earth, would he say, would you try and repair a pair of 5€ thrifted shoes? The answer is very simple. Because I can!

I was actually stoked when I found these gorgeous Oxford style heels for just 5€ in a reuse center. They looked in a good condition at that point. I walked out smiling thinking I'd just gotten a pretty good deal. You know the feeling, right? I even had the heeltaps changed. So, you can probably understand my disappointment when I noticed how the faux leather just peeled off after only a couple of wears. Well, at this point I was a little pissed that I'd just spend around 12€ on a pair I could only wear 2 times. So, I decided I would just have to fix it.

Fabric seemed like the perfect solution for these, as I'd seen others use fabric to cover shoes before. A layer of fabric would be just thin enough to cover the leather without adding bulk or being all that noticeable. And, it would also be flexible enough to bend with the shoe. It's a great way to repair this type of flaking problem on pleather shoes.

Here's what I used:

• Paper and pencil
• Scissors
• Fabric
• Embroidery thread
• Mod Podge + brush
• E6000 glue

1) I started by peeling off all the loose flakes of pleather.

2) Then, I used a piece of paper and pencil to trace a pattern of the middle pleather piece I was about to cover. It was a bit tricky to follow the curve of the shoe, but cutting a few slashes into the paper made it much easier.

3) Once I was pretty sure I had a good draft ready, I cut it out and placed it on on half of the pleather piece to check the fit and make necessary changes.

4) When the final pattern piece was ready, I could cut out the fabric pieces (on the fold). I cut the fabric about 0.5cm bigger than the pattern piece to account for possible mistakes that I could still have made during drafting.

5) Then, I cover the pleather with Mod Podge, applying it generously.

6) I applied the fabric to the shoe and used  the Mod Podge and brush to flatten it into place and make sure it was adhered to the pleather. Then, I cut the fabric edges to match the pleather piece underneath it, and let the glue dry.

7) To cover up the edge of the fabric for a neater overall look, I braided two long ribbons from black embroidery thread. One slightly thicker than the other. I just did double strands of thread for the thicker one. I used super glue (like E6000) to glue the braid to the shoe, covering the fabric edge. In case you're wondering, I always use a toothpick to apply glue with precision. I knotted both the start and the end of the braid ribbon. The end is easy to knot once you're about 4cm away from the finish-line.

I'm so proud to have rescued these shoes, and happy I can keep wearing them. I'll let you know how this treatment holds up, but so far so good. It's fun to think of how my own thriftiness has evolved. I used to apply it to only clothes, but by now it's taken over almost all aspects of my life. And of course, my husband has more than gotten used to it. Just yesterday he asked me if I'd like to keep the empty ice cream containers for a project. I love you, hun! And, yes, of course I would.

Have you ever tried to repair shoes at home? If not, do you think you would ever? Let me know in the comments!

xo. Hanna

Refashionista // 3 Ways to embellish a beret

January is usually the month where I start getting tired of winter. I mean, when the winter starts it's fun to get out my hats and scarves and gloves, because I haven't seen them in months. I'm always waiting for the first snow, or some cooler weather to wear my winter wardrobe. But then, after the first (and second, and third) snow and the holidays, it feels like I've been wearing that same hat for months. And I get the winter fashion fatigue. Anyone else feel like this during January? Just me?

Well, either way, I thought this was the perfect time to show you 3 ways to embellish your beret and get excited about your winter accessories again. These are really easy and quick. In fact, I bet you could pull any of these off in just 20 minutes.

First, the classic bow with lots of beads. I love my pink beret - it's fluffy, and soft and pretty. So I wanted the embellishment to be sweet, feminine, and simple. I mean that's basically the definition of the bow, right? I'm so happy with the way it looks now.

 What you need:

• ribbon
• small pearls
• thread and needle

 1. Make a bow out of the ribbon and sew it onto the side of the beret.

 2. Take your beads and sew them on the of the bow spacing them out as you wish.

For my second beret, I chose feathers for a more sophisticated look. I think I'd look so fashionable walking the streets of Paris wearing this beret.

 What you need:

• Feathers
• Big sew-on rhinestone
• needle and thread

 1. Sew the feathers to the edge of the beret one at a time creating a nice feather fan.

 2. Cover the roots of the feathers with a rhinestone and sew it onto the beret.

Last but not least, you knew I had to add lace at some point, right? You know me too well. Lace is a classic and it looks good on almost anything, so I knew this was one embellishment I just had to use. It was the perfect fit for my red beret.

 What you need:

• venice lace
• seed beads
• scissors
• needle and thread

 1. Cut out the lace motifs and lay them on the beret. Find the pattern you like. I found I just needed 2 motifs.

2. Sew your motifs onto the beret. With every stitch, add a couple of seed beads to embellish the lace edge.

Hope you like the ideas and get inspired to restyle some of your own hats this weekend. We're having some pretty mild weather here in Germany, so I'm actually missing wearing my winter gear a little. But not enough to wish for cooler temperatures. If it's still the dead of winter where you live, I hope this will rekindle your love for winter fashion and bring some excitement back to your everyday wear.

xo. Hanna

Couch makeover // Before+After

Behold, our new couch! Well, technically it's a single bed turned into a sofa, but who cares about these tiny insignificant details, right? The original was handed down to us by an incredibly kind lady who also gave us kitchenware and 2 cupboards. We are so grateful that someone helped us out like that. Otherwise, we'd still be sitting on the floor.

For some reason, I don't like the color red when it come to decor. It's just too loud for my taste. Which is why I decided to change up all the covers. Aside from the two grey Ikea pillows, all of the fabric I used was vintage from my stash. Funny thing is, there was just enough fabric to make the cover and pillow cases, all that's left are small scraps. I've had these fabrics in my stash for so long, and I loved them, but until now, I just couldn't figure out the project to use them. Well, I guess they were waiting to meet this bed.

We bought all of the filler pillows from Ikea. I had to make the big ones a little bit smaller to fit the bed frame (they only had 80x80cm pillows, but I needed 70x70). I'm contemplating adding some more colorful throw pillows into the mix once I get tired of this all neutral thing I'm so into at the moment. I'm sure it will happen once spring gets here. I always crave colors during spring.

I love our "new" couch. It makes our living room so much cozier and homier. I'll show you my sewing table next, but I have so many other plans for this space. Eventually, I'd love to have a gallery wall above the couch, and I'd love to make some sort of ottomans to put our feet up on. There's still a lot of furniture missing, but it's feeling more like home by the day.

If you have any questions about this project, let me know in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

xo. Hanna

Cardboard Magazine Folder Restyle

Hey, guys! You know the feeling of excitement when you first start decorating a new apartment or house? Man, all the possibilities! It's like staring at a blank canvas before starting to paint. Not that I've ever done that, I don't have a clue about painting. The point is, you can choose whatever you like. But, ay, there's the rub, ha? Every tiny decision suddenly becomes this big thing. Do we leave the colors white or repaint? If we paint, what color? Oh, that opens up another Bandora's box. Then there's furniture to pick out, curtains, throw pillows, wall art. Too. Many. Possibilities.

And what do I do? I choose black and white. Every. Single. Time. It's become my biggest obsession lately. Black and white pictures. Black and white (and gold) decor. Black and white outfits (wanna guess what colors I'm wearing at the moment?). So, there's no need to act all surprised when I tell you I restyled some white cardboard files with black watercolor. Apparently it's genetic, because my Mom just told me my Dad used to me obsessed with black and white when he was my age. Wanted to do our whole house in black and white (you go, Dad!).

 Despite my mild worry about this new obsession, I love how these magazine folders turned out. Way better than expected. At first I thought about doing gold polka dots on all of them, but then I channeled my inner Elsie Larson, and just went with black watercolor and a different simple pattern for each. And, I'm so glad I did. I like how there's variety in patterns, but how the color scheme binds them together. Plus, of course I had to add a touch of gold.

Here's my process in case you want to repeat:

 1. I started with the IKEA Flyt magazine files (my first IKEA hack!). They are super cheap, so right up our alley, and they are just the perfect white canvas I needed. Also, really easy to paint on. For the paint I just bought some black watercolor. I wanted to buy a cheap kids watercolor set, but then I found these colors that you can buy one by one, and I bought just the one, because I honestly don't know when I'll be using watercolors again, so buying a whole lot seemed unnecessary.

 2. Then, I played around with the patterns on a scrap piece of paper. I tried to find patterns that would be easy to draw (cause I suck at drawing), and easy to repeat. Something I could easily repeat during the whole process.
I settled on different formations of single brush-strokes. Shorter and longer ones, at different angles, and I had to do one with dots as well.

 3. When I had my patterns selected, the only thing to do was to paint. When I was done with one side, I let it dry, and painted the other ones in the mean time, then came back to the other side of the first one. Rinse. Repeat. Let dry. Fold. All done.

I also added some gold tags which I made by painting regular white sticker tags gold with a marker.

All of my Burdas almost fit in the 5 folders, but I think I need to make one more set. These would make great storage for our sheet music and documents as well.

My little sewing corner is coming together nicely. Now, all I need is a couple of shelves to put all my crafting tools on and pretty storage for those as well. I'm sure I can figure something out. It will probably involve some recycled packaging and a gold and a black marker. Really, gold and black AGAIN? Well, what can I say...

xo. Hanna

Vintage hamper makeover with electrical tape

I don't usually get to do a lot of furniture makeovers since we live in a fully furnished rental, but I always feel such excitement, when I get do restyle something in our home. Now, yes, it's a hamper, but we'll call in furniture anyway. I guess, technically it is :).

The story of this hamper is that it belonged to my parents, and it was the hamper in our home when I was growing up, up until we moved to our house. I have distinct memories of this hamper, which makes giving it a makeover the more enjoyable.

The makeover itself was super easy, though it was a little time-consuming. Or, rather, tedious would be a better word. I got the idea of using electrical tape for this restyle from A Beautiful Mess. I've been wanting to try this method ever since I saw this washer and dryer makeover on their blog. Finally, when my Dad pulled out the hamper from our attic, I knew it was the perfect project for it.

 I used: 

• a plastic weave hamper
• black electrical tape
• scissors
• a pen
• books

The process itself was easy. First I taped every other row on the lid, leaving about 2cm of extra on both ends to be able to push it between the surrounding strip. Then I taped every 2 rows on the rest of the hamper. Since I knew my hamper would be facing a wall, I didn't really bother taping in the back.

When the taping was done, I cut all the taped rows in all the places where it crossed the vertical weave. Once cut, I tucked all the edges under the vertical strip. It was pretty easy to move the strips, so the tucking was easy.

The last step was to makes sure the tape was secure and following the pattern of the original plastic strips. So I took a pen and started pushing the tape into the lines on the plastic with the tip. At first I used my nail (like in the picture above), but then I realized that left some marks here and there on the tape, so I switched to a pen, which was smoother. Since the plastic had been weaved to a wooden frame, which didn't support it at all places, I used large books and pushed them against the plastic from the inside, so I could then push the lines in with the pen from the outside.

Love how this turned out! Much more modern, and the tape covered all the bigger stains on the plastic, as well as the rusted nails on the last strip of plastic. Also, I'm so glad I did the tape every 2 rows on and not every other row like on the lid, since you can now get a  better feel for the weave as well. I ran out of tape, or otherwise I would've taped the top 2 rows as well to hide the nail heads.

What do you think about the makeover?

Thanks for letting me share!
xo // Hanna

DIY Gold-jeweled toes for Slip-ons

Being a not so sporty person (huge understatement), I also don't own a lot of comfy shoes. All those sneakers and slip-ons don't really go with my style most of the days. But, when we were on our honeymoon in Pärnu, we happened to see a sales booth selling these super comfy plimsolls for just 13€, so naturally we bought like 4 pairs (I'm not kidding). Friends, these are slippers, for realz. They should not be an acceptable shoe, but they are. And, they come in every color. I've been wearing them like they are for a few times, but I just had that nagging feeling that something was missing. And, if you know me, and I think you do by now, you know I had to give them my own little twist.

Introducing, golden toes! I had some embellishment stones in my stash and used them to jewel my shoe tips, so that everyone can spot my bling a mile away.

BEFORE 

 Want in on the sparkly toe trend? (which I just created, ha!) Here's how:

 You'll need:
1) Shoes to make over
2) round and square golden embellishment stones or rhinestones
3) Super glue (E6000 works best)
4) Toothpicks

The steps are super easy.
1) Just take a stone, add some glue to the back of it with a toothpick (makes the application so much easier), and place it in the center of the shoe tip. This does not have to be the exact center, I totally eye-balled mine.
2) Start glueing more round stones on both sides of the center stones. I added 4 on either side, but if you have more stones, you could cover a bigger portion of the shoe tip.
3) When your done with the first row, start at center again and do a second and third layer. Continue until you have the whole shoe tip covered in round stones.
4) At that point, switch to the rectangle stones and place them in between the round ones in a diamond placement.
5) Last, add a row of rectangles in between the diamonds (see picture below).
6) Repeat with the other shoe.

I simply love how these turned out. A comfy shoe disguised as a stylish shoe. That I can do!

Have fun crafting, my friends!
xo Hanna

FYI: if you'd like a pair of those slippers, I found this place online you can get them from (not an affiliate link).