How to make glitter shoes

And who am I to cross Cinderella?

My little Cinderella Princess was getting her outfit ready for the Snowflake Ball at school (aka the Daddy Daughter dance). She would wear her pretty purple party dress, which thankfully still fit as the Princess has been growing like a royal weed lately. What didn’t fit, in a most un-Cinderella like manner, were her shoes. Shamefully, we didn’t have any suitable glass slippers for this very special date with Prince Daddy.

Being the resourceful queen mom that I am, I did a little research online and thought these would be perfect accent for her dress:

Reasonably priced, neutral, could wear again, made me happy. Glittery would make her happy. So I picked her up from school and our mission began to purchase these shoes.

And here’s where things take a turn towards the dungeon.

The Princess took one look at these –

and tossed any idea of wearing ballet flats straight out the carriage window.

She was so adamant about it, she offered up to wear a different ball gown.

Which is the same “gown” she wore on Christmas eve. And the dance last year.

Now any Mamarazzi knows that you cannot have that many special occasion photos with the SAME dress on. It’s a crime that would make every scrapbooker worth her salt, just puke. I mean seriously, I need to update the wallpaper on my phone, and as pretty as that dress is, I don’t want to see it AGAIN.

No, we were not changing dresses.

And the Princess was nearly in tears over leaving the store without what she now believes with the entirety of her beating heart, are the ONLY shoes suitable to wear to the ball.

I was having a painful premonition. The mini stalemate we had on the floor of the shoe store was only the warm-up act for the full drama when the Princess got ready the next night IF we got the shoes Mommy wanted her to wear.

In normal situations, I would stand firm, deferring to my mom judgment and repeat her favorite phrase back to her, “You get what you get and you don’t pitch a fit.” But that seemed a little too stepmotherish in this context. (No offense to the stepmoms, I am still writing in the Cinderella reference.) We all know how special a new pair of shoes makes us feel. Sheeesh. I couldn’t do that to her.

But I also didn’t want her to wear black shoes.  Even if they did have a cute little kitten heel.

I walked her around the store to try and distract her. No luck because she tried on THESE glittery monsters.

And an idea struck.

I offered a compromise. “We get both shoes. Mommy will try to glitter the black shoes so they are the right color. If they don’t work, we go back to the ballet flats. Deal?”

She’s thrilled. She has full confidence in Mommy’s crafting capabilities.

Now she really will have Cinderella shoes.

And what I had was a glitter emergency. Off to replenish my supply of Martha Stewart glitter (I love this stuff so much, I would bathe in it) and pick up some spray adhesive.

I even found some silk flowers that would match her dress. I thought I’d hot glue them to the shoes as an accent to really pull the outfit together.

“NO MOMMY. NO FLOWERS. PLEASE DO NOT PUT FLOWERS ON MY SPARKLE SHOES WHILE I AM SLEEPING!!!!! PLEASE DON’T DO THAT. MOMMY, PLEASE!!!!!!!!”

Geez, you’d think she knew me or something?! She literally sat in bed with tears streaming down her face at the thought of me embellishing 3 itty-bitty flowers onto her perfect Cinderella shoes.

It took everything in my power not to “finish” the shoes. But I didn’t. I just took each one, stuffed them with newspaper

(to keep the adhesive on the outside of the shoe), sprayed them with Krylon adhesive, generously sprinkled Martha’s magic dust all over them and let them dry overnight.

I have to say, they turned out spectacular.

And my little Cinderella was beaming, she was so proud of her glitter shoes that she wanted to bring them to school on Monday to show her teacher. Which, you know showing the teacher is the ultimate preschooler seal of approval.

Saturday came the scene was straight out of Toddlers and Tiaras. There were hot rollers, and shimmer powder, fancy fingernails and brand new purple lip gloss. Big Texas hair, and teeny tiny wrist corsages, smooches and hugs and oodles and oodles of photos.

The Princess was glowing with her grown up glass slippers.

I do believe that all these precious girls:

with their handsome prince daddies:

were the best-looking bunch at the Snowflake Ball!

For inquiring minds, Princess Cupcake is wearing:

• a purple party dress from H&M
• what should have been shimmer tights but ended up being white tights because I couldn’t find what I wanted in our last minute dash through the mall where I lost my cell phone and spent a frantic hour searching for it only to find it wedged in-between the seats of my car.
• her purse is the Vera Bradley princess bag (this style only sold at Eastertime) from The Vintage House
• shoes are from Payless, embellished with Martha Stewart glitter
• pouty model face

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