Pixie Dust Heels

I love these shoes, so I thought I'd share them with you. What do you think of them? The photography is stunning! I must learn how to photograph my shoes like that. :)
Photography by Tamiz Photography.

Beautiful Bride wearing Love, Miranda Marie Shoes

I recently got back from a trip to Virginia, visiting my folks and helping my best friend out with her wedding. This lovely bride is Elyse. She is my best friend of 16 years and the most beautiful person (inside and out) that you could ever meet! As a wedding present I designed and painted her wedding shoes.

She is a huge fan of the 6 hour Pride and Prejudice, which is one of the reasons we became such good friends. So when she told me she was getting married on her fiance's farm and the theme was Enchanted Fall wedding, my mind went wild with ideas! Here's a list of things she wanted me to include in the design:

• a picture of the farm with the two trees she was going to get married under.
• the words, "To my best friend, with all my love."
• a bare tree with no leaves.
• a bouquet of flowers, like the one she was going to have.
• the wedding date.

I included it all, plus a few other things I knew she would like...

... like Pride and Prejudice style silhouettes of her and her fiance, Baron.

I LOVE working on wedge shoes! There is so much space to design. Elyse's shoes were especially fun to design because they had cork heels. It worked perfectly with the design, giving the impression that the silhouettes were on Victorian parchment paper. 

Here's how I incorporated the words, "To my best friend, with all my love."

The inner sides of the wedge heels I made bright and colorful, but used colors that still blended well with the shoes. Elyse sent me a picture of the trees she was getting married beneath. The beautiful scene reminded me of the cover of the new Pride and Prejudice. So, with that inspiration, I created this...

A silhouette of Elyse in her beautiful wedding gown, walking on the grassy fields towards the two trees where Baron eagerly waits. The whole time I was working on this side of the shoe I had the song "Dawn" (from the Pride & Prejudice soundtrack) stuck in my head. I'm not complaining. 

The final side, I decided, needed to have the bouquet of flowers, but to make it even more special I added one of Elyse's favorite quotes from P&P. When Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth the first time, he ends a long rant about how his better judgement advises against the match, with the words:

"You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you."

Needless to say, Elyse loved the shoes. Honestly, I've never seen someone get so excited about my work. She is a dear friend and the most beautiful bride. Congratulations, Elyse! I love you!

Love,

Miranda Marie

I've been published in Altered Couture!

I am so excited to announce that the article I wrote about my hand painted shoes has been published in Altered Couture Magazine! I would LOVE for you to read it!

The magazine can be found in nearly any bookstore or newsstand around the country. Check it out!

Love,
Miranda Marie

Love, Miranda Marie Shoes are back!

   Hi Everyone! I realize it's been a while since I have updated my blog. Too long! So, back by popular demand, I bring you some new hand painted shoes!
  
It's been a crazy, but absolutely amazing summer! My husband and I worked and lived full time at a Christian summer camp for the past 3 months. I loved every moment being with the kids, but now things have slowed down and I have time to focus on my art. The shoes I have featured here are my latest creation.
         Awesome side note: They were recently worn by Miss Arkansas on the runway in a fashion show!

I designed these shoes after a beautiful wedding bouquet I saw. They are very whimsical and dreamy, as if Cinderella got tired of her plain glass slippers and had the Prince upgrade them. Perfect for a whimsical wedding!

It's the start of a line of designs I want to create for the colorful bride. Each bride has different wedding colors and with this line of Bouquet Wedding Shoes, I can paint each bouquet unique to the specific colors and flower choices of the bride! If you are interested in having your own unique bouquet wedding shoes, you can contact me at: LoveMirandaMarie@gmail.com

I also have a limited supply of these white Cinderella shoes in sizes ranging from Women's size 6-10. I don't have any half sizes. Contact me if you are interested.

Love,
Miranda Marie

Quick Update!

Hey everyone! I just wanted to let you all know that the article about my hand painted shoes that I told you all would be published in May in the Altered Couture Magazine has been changed to August for the Fall issue. Honestly, I think that will work better since these fall leaf shoes will be featured!

I'm going to be featured in Zankyou Wedding Magazine!!

I'm going to be featured in another magazine!!! This time my hand painted shoes will be featured in a wedding e-magazine called Zankyou.com! It's the #1 wedding magazine in Europe and the article will be seen worldwide! God just keeps surprising me with blessings!

Vintage Cinderella Dress...coming soon!

Check my store in the next couple days to see this vintage aqua-green dress. It's one of the most gorgeous dresses you'll ever see! It was handmade in the 1950's and is in fantastic condition!

You can see some more pictures of this dress on my facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Love-Miranda-Marie/317384838291519

How to paint on cotton!

 

I came across this green cotton, cap sleeve jacket at the thrift store the other day and instantly thought of painting an Ireland landscape on it. Ireland is very dear to my heart because almost 2 years ago, my husband and I went there on our honeymoon. It was the most breath-taking, beautiful place I had ever seen! Since then, I have wanted to live there, but since that is not possible at the moment, I have to settle for surrounding myself with things that remind me of it. Thus, I embarked on my painting adventure.

1.

From 12 years of art classes, I learned to always begin by blocking in basic shapes of color. Don’t jump into detail or you will probably regret it later. My art teacher always told me to work the WHOLE picture and not just one little spot.

For the grass, it helps that the fabric is already green, but unless you add other colors to it, the grass isn’t going to look real at all. Here I use some yellow for the highlighted parts and brown for the shadows. My lamb is just a couple splotches of light blue paint. You can see that for the fields beyond the hill, I mixed a little yellow and white together and painted in the basic shape. In some patches, I didn’t put the paint on very heavy because I wanted the green to show through. I let that dry over night.

Note: I had never painted on cotton before, so I was surprised to find out that paint does not spread very well over cotton. It takes several coats and lots of patience before it gets easier to work with. I recommend putting cardboard underneath the article of clothing you are working on, because the acrylic paint, if layered on too thickly, will bleed through to the other side.

2.

 

In the picture I am working from, there lies a quaint little village at the bottom of the hill, along the roadside. I used a light blue paint to figure out where the road was going to be and I used the same color to get some slight detail in the water. I went over the road with a light pink and added some purple in the fields, to map out the shapes of the houses.

The hill where the lamb is standing, I added some dark blue to the shadows; the same blue I used for the water.

3.

 

Next, I blocked in the sky with the same light blue that I used to highlight the water and winding road. I let the edges fade, because I didn't want a definite edge where the picture stops.

4.

Note: You can tell from this picture, that I don't use any fancy paint. Just basic acrylic paint that you can find anywhere. I have been very satisfied with the results!

I went through and added detail to the road, farm houses, and bushes with the warm brown shown in the picture. For details, I use a fine point brush.

5.

Here, I added some white to the light blue (that I had used for the sky) to create clouds. I also added a little bit of light pink to the water. 

6.

I finished filling in the clouds with the light blue and added a light pink for the highlights. Blending was necessary to achieve the fluffly cloud look...it just took a while because the cotton doesn't allow the paint to spread very easily.

7.

Almost Done! Finally, I painted the word, "Ireland" over the clouds. You can go to dafont.com to see different styles of free fonts. I picked a celtic style font, painted the letters in yellow, and outlined them with an aqua fabric marker. 

There you have it! My first painting project on cotton and I LOVE it! 

If you'd like to see more pictures of this Ireland bolero, visit the listing here:  

http://www.etsy.com/listing/93089429/ireland-emerald-green-bolero-shrug-hand

Good luck painting!

Love,

Miranda Marie

I added peacock feathers! What do you think?

 

 See the listing for these hand painted wedding shoes here:  http://www.etsy.com/listing/90301579/wedding-shoes-bridal-heels-orchid or you can just click on one of the pictures. 

Love,

Miranda Marie

Somewhere over the Rainbow Wedding Heels!

Go to listing

Want eye-catching wedding heels for your special day? These fun, Somewhere Over the Rainbow wedding heels have so much personality! Something old (the vintage green bows), something new (handmade rosettes with rhinestones), something borrowed (better than new, upcycled shoes), and something blue(blue flowers and hand painted aqua soles)... these shoes have everything a bride is looking for!

I absolutely love these shoes! When I first bought them, they were funky to begin with. Covered in rainbow floral fabric, they really caught my eye! I sewed on the white rosettes myself, but I wanted to add some more color to accent the bright design on the fabric. That's when I got the brilliant idea of adding some vintage green plastic earrings as bows!

Next, I made some pink ribbon rosettes by following the instructions from this blog: http://flourishes.org/2010/04/flourishes-focus-floral-frenzy/

Afterwards, I sewed on a few other items like rhinestones to the flowers and pink ribbons to the sides of the shoes. The ribbons can wrap around the ankle and tie in bow in the back like a pair of ballerina shoes! It looks so elegant!

If you'd like to see the listing for these shoes, follow this link: http://www.etsy.com/listing/90237290/personalized-wedding-heels-somewhere

Love,
Miranda Marie

I'm going to be featured in Altered Couture Magazine!!

God is so good! I have just been informed that Altered Couture Magazine wants me to write an article about my hand painted shoes (my inspiration, materials, and step by step instructions on how I create my shoes)! I have to admit, I am super EXCITED! The minute I found out I was to be featured, I started jumping up and down and running circles around my husband while screaming. It was quite interesting.

This couldn't have come at a better time for me. I have been working on several new projects, from hand painted shoes to painted jackets and wedding dresses, and I have been trying to figure out how to advertise to get my name out in the world. Since I am newly married and fresh out of college, I don't have a large budget to work with. Obviously!

I prayed that God would somehow open a door and lo-and-behold, an idea popped into my head to submit a pair of my shoes to Altered Couture. It's the only magazine I've been able to find that allows anyone to submit ideas and it's all pretty much free. There's no telling if you'll get chosen, but it's totally worth trying for it. So, I did! A month passed and I was beginning to lose hope, when I got an email just this afternoon from Altered Couture saying that my hand painted shoes had been chosen to be featured! So, now were back to where I left off with me jumping up and down from excitement.

I will be writing the article within the next week and the article will be out in news stands and bookstores all over the US on May 1st! Thank you, everyone, for being such an encouragement and support for me as I've been trying to start my new business! I am so excited to see what God has in store for me!

Love,
Miranda Marie

New Silhouette Illustration!

Perfect for wedding invitations or decorations! I have always been fascinated with silhouettes! They are simple, but elegant and sometimes very intricate. I illustrated the picture above with Pride and Prejudice in mind.

I designed some silhouette illustrations a couple years ago in college, but took a break from it once I graduated. Recently, I was inspired to take up silhouette drawing again by my sister-in-law who is trying her hand at it herself and doing a fabulous job! Before, my characters were styled as if they were from the 1950's and I cut them out and layered the paper to give it a 3D effect. Here are a few of my other attempts at silhouettes...

"Dancing in the Moonlight"

"Star Gazing"

"Couch Cuddling"

"Cupcakes You'll LOVE!"

If you have any ideas for more silhouette pictures, I would love to hear them! Just post a comment below and maybe I'll use it for a future illustration! :)

Love,
Miranda Marie