Picture Catch Up #1

Over the past few weeks I've been frantically crafting and sewing ready for the start of term on Monday. This project is based on Mexico so I've been drawing inspiration from Mexican parties, plants, artists, food and crafts so I've been doing lots of colourful embroidery and applique as well as lots of illustration and pattern ideas.

Here's some pictures from my sketch book work, I'll be posting a pattern for my Pinata cross stitch later in the week.

Don't forget to enter my Kelsea Echo Giveaway for your chance to win a $40 gift card for her shop!

Nature Rebranded - The final shoe

Here are the pictures of my final shoe for my Nature Rebranded project. You can find the designs for this shoe here and more of my uni work here.

Nature Rebranded Designs

I thought it was about time I showed you this term's work. You can see more of my uni work here.

My shoe designs this term have been based around the idea of rebranding nature - taking a natural object and making it man made. This term has been really exciting. We got to make our first ever shoe!

As you can see my final shoe was heavily inspired by rock formations. The idea was to create a man made rock formation as the platform, but to cover it in one solid colour to contrast with the natural texture of the platform.

Here's the mood board and designs for my final shoe, I'll be posting pictures of the shoe next week.

CAT Competition entry

Earlier this year CAT footwear launched a footwear competition to redesign their Colorado boot. Being a bit of a boot enthusiast I got a little excited at the thought of designing for such an awesome brand. I love that CAT are now branching out from their famous work boots and collaborating with young designers and I feel so lucky that I had the opportunity to meet the designers and the creative minds behind CAT when they visited my uni.

There's just something about a chunky, work style boot that screams camo at me. So my main influence for these designs was camo with a twist. Don't worry though guys, I threw some kawaii pizzas and hot dogs in for good measure. I've seen a few fashion bloggers styling the Colorado boot perfectly with crazy, colourful fashion choices, so it seemed natural to pull some of that energy into the boot design too.

The design I actually submitted to the competition was the third one, as I think it's a good middle ground between my usual garish, busy, colourful style and CAT's more reserved designs.

I'm still awaiting the competition results and have all my fingers and toes crossed. I'd love to work with CAT some day in the not so distant future.

Remake & Remodel - The final design ideas part 2

You can find part 1 of my designs here. After discarding my heel designs I decided to focus on sneakers as I think eventually I'd like to go into sneaker design (Hello Nike? I promise I'll treat you good, I won't leave you for Adidas like Kanye did!).

I explored different ideas for the sole, the stitching, laces, materials etc before I settled upon my final design. My final design ended up being the bubble platform, I then had to create a 3D prototype of an element of that particular design which will be in the next post!

You can see more of this project here, more of my uni work here, and more of my illustrations here.

 

Remake & Remodel - The inspiration

Most design subjects at uni require you to show your ideas through colour boards and mood boards. Here are the inspiration boards for my Remake & Remodel project. As you can see, my main inspiration came from bacteria and the simplistic 3D shapes of DNA. I wanted to combine the bright, business of the bacteria with simple and futuristic shapes.

You can see more of my uni work here.

Remake & Remodel - The final design ideas part 1

I feel like I've been pretty absent from blogging recently, but my last deadline is tomorrow so normal blogging will commence shortly!

In the mean time here's a sneak peak of part of my design development for the Remake & Remodel project. I discarded this shoe design as I wanted to work on a sneaker style shoe in the end.

You can see more of my uni work here, and more of my illustrations here.

Remake & Remodel - Thumbnail Designs

For my Remake Remodel project I did two A3 sheets of tiny designs based on DNA & bacteria. The next stage after this is to take 6 designs and develop them, then choose the final design from those.

You can view more of my uni work here and more of this project here.

Here are my initial thumbnail designs:

Lizzie and Jaqueline - Two more designs for Yull Footwear

As I'd explained in my previous Yull Footwear post, I entered a British themed footwear competition at Yull. My first design was based around the hustle and bustle of Piccadilly, these two are more regal and feminine. I think these fit the feminine and classic Yull Footwear style really well. I wanted to name them very british names, so Lizzie is named after good old Queen Liz. And Jaqueline is a female version of the Union Jack.

You can see more of my shoe designs here.

High Top Bootception

Yo dawg, I heard you like boots, so I put boots on your boots so you can wear boots while you wear boots. Before you class me as insane from reading the last sentence, read this.

These designs are based on my High Top Boot pattern, because who wouldn't want shoes with shoes on?! They're inspired by Dr Martens, my fav kind of boot. I did these for my portfolio when I found out I had an interview for London College of Fashion, I also got the opportunity to show them to the lovely people at Dr Martens when I had an interview for their factory internship. I'm really happy with how these turned out. I love combining classic shoe designs with busy patterns. I think the lilac ones are my fav but I am a little bit biased towards anything lilac.

You can see more of my shoe designs here.

Piccadilly Boots - A design for Yull Footwear

A few months ago I entered a competition with Yull Footwear to design some British themed shoes. This was the first pair I designed, named Piccadilly, so I thought it was pretty apt to share these with you since I've only just moved to London. I wanted to capture the hustle and bustle of Piccadilly with the red buses. I also wanted to keep my bright and fun signature style, but to incorporate Yull's elegant, practical and classical style into the design too.

You can see more of my shoe designs here.

High Top Boots Pattern Design

A few months ago I had an interview at Dr Martens for an internship. I knew I wanted to put some docs friendly designs in my portfolio, so I designed some fabric with high top boots on it.

I'm really happy with how these turned out, my original intention was to put them on some boot designs (I'll post these at a later date). But I like the way these turned out as just a pattern.

I'm thinking of making them available on Spoonflower soon, what do you think?

More of my illustration work.

Laura Manfre Shoe Design Collaboration

A few months ago, when I was preparing for my uni interview at LCF I started setting myself more design tasks. Other than painting my own shoes I hadn't really designed since studying Fashion years ago.

I've been a fan of Laura Manfre's work for a long time. When Laura said I could use her illustrations on some of my designs I was delighted, I think her kitsch watercolours adapt wonderfully to fashion design.

Here's the outcome of our collaboration, all watercolour illustrations are by her, and the shoe designs are by me. I'm especially happy with the brown cowboy boots. I'd love to expand on that design and do some brogue and satchel designs in that style one day. I think they look like they'd be right at home on the irregular choice website ;)

Adventure Time Stilettos

I finally finished my Adventure Time Stilettos (work in progress pics here). They're based on characters from the Candy Kingdom. I can't wait to wear these cuties out.

If you'd like your own pair of customised shoes, check out my Etsy Shop or email me at ponychopsshop @ gmail.com

Check out my other Adventure Time themed shoes & crafts here.

All of the characters here are copyright of © Cartoon Network. This is just my own fan art & I am not associated with Adventure Time or Cartoon Network in any way.

Stilettos & a Giveaway Winner

I've been absent from the blog a few days and things have been crazy busy as usual. It feels like this summer is whizzing by. I'm moving to London in a month and have still got to find a flat, so I've been spending any spare time I have trying to find somewhere.

I've also been finishing off some pairs of my new stiletto and have finally made a custom listing for them in my Etsy Shop. I'm really pleased with these shoes, they take the paint perfectly, and I love the baby blue inner. Here's a sneak peak at what I've been working on:

It's also time to announce the lucky winner of the Vegan Police giveaway! Congratulations to Imani J! I also want to say a big thank you to Heather from Vegan Police for doing this giveaway with me.

Desk of the Day - 21/06/13 - Polka dots & Puss Cats

I've had these polka dot heels lying around now for a couple of months. I bought them intending to paint them for myself but never got around to it (this is the case with 50% of my shoes!). I've had some pretty awesome themed orders recently, one being a Maneki-neko theme which got me so inspired. I knew immediately these shoes needed to be covered in Maneki-nekos.

I'm adding some finishing touches to them today then getting on with some make up themed heels for a customer!

Meanwhile in the background I'm watching Made in Chelsea, does anyone have any good tv show suggestions? I'm going to have to rip my ears off if I hear someone saying "tbh" or "totes" one more time in a none ironic way!

My Dr Martens & Uni interviews - An update!

Earlier in the year I announced my plans to return to University and study shoe design at London College of Fashion. I also applied for a years internship in the Made in England factory at Dr Martens.

I originally didn't get the Dr Martens job, so I accepted my university offer at LCF which I am incredibly excited about! So for the past couple of months I've been pretty sure about where my life is headed, and been excitedly making plans to move to London in September.

Last week I got a phone call that is probably going to stick in my head and torment me for a long time! Dr Martens phoned me and offered me the internship. I think someone must have had to leave and I was their next in line for the job. I was stunned, I'd dreamt about having that job for months! Working for Dr Martens would be such an amazing opportunity.

My automatic reaction was to turn it down (literally 2 seconds after I said no I was like "WTF did I do that for??"). I had an encouraging phone call with the lady from Dr Martens, who assured me that I would be able to apply for a design internship there in my third year at LCF, which would be freakin ideal, and actually my dream job! I feel a little less uneasy about turning down the factory internship now. I still REAALLY hope I get to work with Dr Martens in the future, I'm such a big fan of their brand, and I'd love to get expanding their vegan range ;)

Phew, If you just read through all that you probably deserve some pictures. Here's the shoes I designed & painted for my Dr Martens and uni interviews.

A big fat shoe update

Pictured: Dr Martens Hincky Boot

Well, it feels like it's been a century since I last wrote a personal post. I've had a busy few weeks and because of that the blog has been a little neglected. I'm now getting back into the swing of things and have a few outfit posts/recipes/DIY ideas planned for the next few months!

At the beginning of the year I announced that I had big plans for my future with shoes and shoe design. One of my big goals this year is to learn how to make shoes (or at least begin to learn), It's been an ambition of mine for a long time. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE painting shoes, but it would be amazing to be able to design the whole product.

The first few weeks of 2013 were spent scouring the internet for short courses to learn how to make shoes. The ones I found were all based in London, and I couldn't learn nearly enough through one course to build a business on or base a career on. So there has been a little change of plan!

In February I found out about an apprenticeship scheme at Dr Martens! I love the Dr Martens brand, they make such fantastic shoes with a great attention to quality and functional design. Working for Dr Martens would be my dream job! So I went ahead and applied.

A couple of weeks ago I got to visit their English factory and see them making the "made in England" shoes, which was so interesting. England used to have a great trade of shoe making, so it's really refreshing to see a big, worldwide company keeping up the tradition.
Last week I was invited back for an interview and some tests, I should find out this week if I got the job. As I write this my stomach is churning with nerves!! I want this job so much.

Before I applied for the Dr Martens job, I'd also applied for the place on the shoe making course at London College of Fashion. Check out the shoes the students produce, they're freakin amazing. Last week I had an interview there and it went so well, and they accepted my application! I love the course leaders there, they're so enthusiastic about design, knowledgeable and very friendly. The course itself is like a dream come true. I'll get to learn everything I ever wanted to! I can't wait to get stuck in. It's a 2 year course with a view to doing a third year and getting a degree. They have so many competitions available to only LCF students and great contacts in the industry, it really is an amazing course.

Of course if I get the Dr Martens job I'll be taking that and putting uni on hold for a while. I don't think I'd be able to turn down the job of a lifetime!

The last couple of days I've finally been able to breathe again, I spent the last few weeks as an exhausted bag of nerves, constantly working on my portfolio and getting more and more worried about my interviews. It's great to finally get back to spending lots of cuddle time with the dogs & Tofu again (and Ash, of course).