Feathers can work as great decorative elements for many items, but these work especially well for shoes. If you have a pair of plain pumps that you’d like to dress up, you can attach a cluster of feathers to the back of the shoes and give them an entirely different look. Sound like an interesting DIY project? Follow these simple steps to decorating your pumps with feathers.
Before you start the project, you’ll need to gather the materials you need: feathers, a piece of felt, small costume jewels, and a hot glue gun. You can use feathers in any color; just make sure that the feathers’ color complements the color of the shoes. It’s also best to use a piece of felt that matches the feathers’ color.
The first thing to do is to sort the feathers you have at hand. You can use as many as 25 feathers for each shoe. Look through the package of feathers and choose the best-looking feathers. Also, make sure that your selection includes short, medium, and long feathers. Set your chosen feathers aside and cut out a triangle from the piece of felt; the triangle should have sides of unequal length, with the base being the longest side.
Start gluing the longer feather pieces to the triangle’s shortest side. Make sure that the feathers are bent at an outward angle before you attach them to the triangle. Follow the edges of the triangle to the left; by the time you reach a new side of the triangle, you should be using medium-length feathers. Use the shortest feathers as you approach the end of the triangle’s side. Repeat this gluing process and add a second layer of feathers to the first layer. This will give you a fuller-bodied cluster of feathers.
After you glue all the feathers onto the piece of felt, you’ll notice that a small piece of felt will be visible in the middle of the feather cluster. Here’s where the costume jewel come handy; glue a small costume jewel onto the cluster to conceal the piece of felt. Once the feather cluster is complete, you can glue it to the shoe, with the feathers pointing down towards the heel.
