Hubby and me in front of my photographs at Artist's Reception

Since my Artist’s Reception was Independence Day Weekend, I wanted a star-spangled look. I already had the jacket, a gift from Wendy, and I had a serviceable blouse. But that blouse didn’t thrill my soul. When I went to thrift store to buy frames, I found the lovely blouse in the picture for $2. What a deal!

All I had to do was buy navy capris and design a domino necklace and frou-frou flip flops. Simple. Or so I thought.

star-spangled frou-frou flip-flops and domino necklace

The only red flip flops I could find had plastic straps. I attached the embroidered stars and star buttons with fabric glue. The appliques and buttons adhered to each other very well, but the appliques didn’t stick very well to the plastic straps. I probably should have tried super gluing them, but I sewed them on. What a process! Those flip flops had open season on my needles, even though I tried pre-punching holes with a carpet tack. And the metallic gold thread was downright wimpy. It disintegrated repeatedly. The project dragged on for much longer than I’d anticipated it would, but finally I had my star-spangled flip flops.

When I finished the flip flops, I started the domino necklace. When I screwed in the eye bolt, domino cracked. I flipped domino and started over. I used leftovers from the shoes for the domino.

The star-spangled design went together easily, much to my relief, but the sapphire rhinestones on the flip side had their own ideas. They wanted to stick to my fingers more than they wanted to stick to domino. E-6000 tamed the rhinestones, but I was grateful I hadn’t had time for a manicure. Glue was all over my fingers and I had to remove it with acetone, the active ingredient in fingernail polish remover.

Once the embellishments were glued on, I put wood glue into the crack and clamped necklace overnight. Voila! Custom-made accessories!

In spite of the frustrations, I love being an artist!

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Tags: apparel, applique, art deco, artist, button, clothing, craft, design, designer, domino, e-6000, embellishments, fabric glue, flip-flops, footwear, frou-frou, game, glue, independence day, jewelry, reception, Repurpose, rhinestone, ribbon, rosettes, sapphire, sapphires, sew, shoes, star-spangled, stars, super glue, tack, wendy