Design Bags To Go With Your Ribbon Shoes

Gotta move on to other things this evening, but I leave you with this, another Chicago company, 1154 Lill Studio that custom makes handbags and totes from fabrics that you choose:

There's lots of different handbag, evening clutch and tote styles and tons of fabric choices. Here's one I designed real quick:

Same style, different design:

One more so we have an odd number of photos (sounded like good reason to me):

See? You could spend all day and night playing with patterns and colors. Have fun!

Crafty Soles

Ever need just-the-right-color sandal to go with summer clothes? I have a generous stock of black, brown and beige shoes of various styles and degrees of office-appropriateness, dressiness and grubby garden-ness. I tend to not want to invest in non-neutral colors unless they're inexpensive flip flops or other summer sandals. But these, you must have these, especially if you have a crafty DIY soul ...


You can change the ribbon color every day if you want!

Love love love. And as a hobby seamstress, I have a healthy stash of cool ribbons. Although I don't have any LFN Textiles ribbons yet, I've always loved the innovative designs ... tomatoes, pears, chocolate cakes, poppies and alliums, even knitting instructions:

There's even a ribbon commemorating my evil garden nemesis ... the dandelion:

On my shoes, I could see leopard or zebra grosgrain ribbon, ribbon with stitched accents, delicate sheer silk ribbon, embroidered and beaded ribbons ... I see a feverish search for unique vintage ribbons in my future. For new ribbons, buckles and other embellishments, MJ Trim is a great source.

So how do you get a $278 shoe purchase past a husband, especially when it's not even a complete shoe? Can you imagine explaining this one? Men just wouldn't get it. May be moot obsession anyway ... it's not available right now in 6.5, my size.

Oh, but ah, never give up! It's hard to remember life before Google, yeah? Here they are from Mohop the manufacturer, lots of low and high heel styles, wedges and flats. Oh so tempting. And handcrafted in Chicago, too. See a whole gallery of ribbon ideas! See how customers have used ribbons -- some used crochet ribbons, vintage ribbons, stones, buckles ... so creative and visually interesting. My new life goal is to get posted here!

But how to acquire, how to acquire ... there is the jar of spare change. It tends to add up fast ...

Stone Cold Crazy

On our recent trip to Tuscany, I fell for stone. Rustic stone walls everywhere. Loved it. I'd already had plans for stone for our home -- a bluestone walkway to the front door with a wide hefty stone step to the porch, a bluestone patio, and a raised garden surrounded by low fieldstone wall in the backyard. I'd like to add stone veneer ...

... below the lower half of our sunroom structure, below the windows.

Or, salmon/beige/gray old Chicago brick to match the brick accents on the front of our house. Hmmmmmm. Obsessing. More later ...