LaundryChemistry: Flower Vases

For spring it looked like it was all about shoes, while keeping the rest simple. We saw a lot of statement shoes, to build your look around. For me as a shoe lover these are the good times, because there will be a lot of beautiful statement shoe variants for sale. I wanted to create something myself to make my shoes eye catchers. The transparent fashion is still present. There are a lot of flower patterns or themes in the new fashion for summer, so, time to get my Jenny Ellens out of the closet and mix them with some flowers!

I wanted to design something with flowers that you can use on different shoes. I´m not too fond of ankle cuffs, like the metal ones that were in fashion for some time, but I felt ancle cuffs were the best option for this idea.

I already figured how I want to wear them. I will make a post, of how I did that, when I have found the right outfit. The way of wearing it like this, on the Jenny Ellens, is my favorite. It lets me think of a transparent vase full of flowers. I just love it!

The most fun part of these flower ankle cuffs is that they are very easy to make.

Things you need:

– I used high quality imitation flowers that I bought in a garden centre.

– PVC

– A4 paper

– Scissors

– Square ruler

– Pins

– Push buttons

– A tool for fixing push buttons onto a fabric

– Green floral wire

– Needle and transparent jewelry wire

– Pieces of leather or something similar.

– A hobby plier

Follow the steps in my photo collage.

1-4. the PVC

Start with a piece of paper and wrap it around your ankle. Use the size of your ankles to determine the length. Add 6 cm of extra length to the piece of paper, so that the piece can overlap around the ankle. Cut the paper in the right length and broadness you want the ankle cuffs to be. I made the cuffs 7cm broad. Next, pin the paper on the plastic and cut the plastic in the right size. Of course, you can skip the step with the paper and start immediately with the plastic.

5-7. The push buttons

Wrap the cut plastic around the ankle. Find the place where you want the pushbuttons to be. It is important that you overlap the ends of the plastic on the outside of your ankles, because you will fix the flowers on the overlapping part later. The overlapping part should come from behind to the outside of the ankle. Also pay attention that you fix the pushbuttons on the right side of the plastic. I placed the + buttons on the inside of the overlapping part and the – buttons on the outside of the part that is underneath. The part that is underneath should have some extra length left, if you want to place some extra – buttons on it so you can adjust the size for different sized shoes or boots. As you can see in step 16, I did that myself.

8.Cutting the flowers with the hobby plier.

Cut the flowers from their stalks. Leave enough of the stalk on the flower for the flower wire to be wrapped around.

9-11. Putting the flowers together.

Decide how you want the small bouquets of flowers to look like before you start assembling them. You can divide the flowers on color and size beforehand. This will make it less time consuming to wrap the flowers together at later steps. Also it will be easier to make the bouquets almost identical, if that is what you want. Don't forget that the bouquets have to be in mirror image of each other. Wrap every stalk with flower wire and leave a surplus of wire for wrapping the flowers together.

12. Use some extra wire to wrap all the stalks together for more sturdiness.

13- 15. Fixing the small bouquets on to the plastic ankle cuffs.

Put on an ankle cuff to decide the exact place you want to fix on the bouquet. Place the bouquet on the appropriate place on the plastic. Cut small pieces of leather (or a different kind of sturdy, flexible material of your choice) in the size where it will fit on the plastic behind the bouquets. Then place a piece of leather behind the plastic. This measure will help the plastic be more sturdy, so it won't tear from the weight of the bouquet. Fix the bouquets on the plastic with a needle and (transparent) thread in two places. Remember that you have to do one of the ankle cuffs in mirror image.

16. The extra pushbuttons.

You can fix some extra - pushbuttons on the under part of the overlapping pieces. So you can wear the cuffs on, for example, wider ankle boots.