Madame Claude Meridian Strass

A while ago I got the beauties off ebay. I always admired this style on other ladies but was worried that my slightly wider foot wouldn't fit, but I took the risk. They are actually a half to full size bigger than my usual Louboutin size, so tiny bit longer than I need in order to fit widthwise, they are 38 1/2.
no flash:

with flash:

I bought these with the intention to strass them with Swarovski flat back crystals and Gem Tac glue. As they are not a full pump I thought it would be great starter pair as it hopefully shouldn't take so long and cost so much lol (Swarovski crystals don't come cheap).
I contemplated on ordering from couple of different UK online shops, but then decided that Dreamtime Creations will be the best as they have a great selection of colour and sizes and it's worth paying the extra bit on postage (I think it was 6.75 USD). I initially ordered 5 sizes of crystals: 5ss (10 gross), 9ss (10 gross), 12ss (2 gross), 16ss (2 gross) and 20ss (1 gross). When I got through about 2/3 of the first shoes, I ran out of 12ss, so ordered another 4 gross, hoping this will last the project. I think I will need to order more 5ss and maybe 9ss soon.
This is when I started:

Progress:

With all my other activities I only get a few evenings a week to get on with this project and this definitely is a time consuming project with lot of patience required! So far I have one shoe nearly finished, will update as soon as I manage to get more photos done!

Christmas is coming!

With Christmas only a few weeks away I have decided to get the house decorated a little and get myself into the christmasy mood.
I have made some yummy eggnog, bottle is now sitting in the fridge, probably won't last long:)
Every year I make a Christmas wreath for our door, usually it's very traditional. Every year I tell myself I must do something different but then I steer towards the usual holly with red berries, pine cones, cinnamon sticks and dried orange slices, reds, greens and golds with a big red ribbon.
This year I have decided to do 2 wreaths, one for our big mirror in the hallway and one to hang on the door.
I took some inspiration from googling and got really inspired by these wreaths made with baubles in different colours. So off I went, got a cheap fake fir wreath from the pound shop and about 4 boxes of baubles in different colours and sizes. Then I got some wide cream ribbon, 1/5 meter and dug out some rubber bands.
And this is what I created! (it's hard to get a good photo with all the bling!)

Ideally I guess you would glue the baubles onto the base, which could be polystyrene, but this worked just as well I think!

Next I went for a hunt outside and got some berries in red, orange and yellow, also some fir branches which I used as a base to cover another one of my bargain £1 wreaths, little bigger this time. Then I took a needle and string  and created a strings of red, orange and yellow and tied them around the wreath in a not very regular order:) Added some green ribbon and a big dark plum bow and voila!

I do hope it's cold enough so the berries hold up and last till end of December!

Just found a photo of my last year's Christmas wreath, which was pretty much traditional too, only I chose purple and green colours. Then I decided it looked too plain, so I remembered  I had these rosy red little jingle bells (thanks to the lovely pound shop again) that were a bit scratched and beat up so I covered them in raspberry coloured glitter...it also made for a nice christmasy effect jingling every time the door opened and closed:)