Skates Makeover – A Winter Decoration

Early in December I came across a new blog “Forever Decorating”, (well, new to ME anyway) and fell in love with one of her projects.  When I saw her pictures of some skates she had decorated, I knew that was a project I wanted work on right away.  Check out what Terry did with her skates… http://foreverdecorating.blogspot.com/2010/11/its-beginning-to-look-lot-like.html   I had JUST gotten some skates (my daughter found them for me at a thrift shop for $3), so my little brain started rolling.
The first thing I did was to stamp and emboss some snowflakes onto the skates.  (I have fallen in love with embossing lately.!!  It makes something plain into something really special.)  I then added a little bit of “bling” in the center of each snowflake.

I removed the shoestrings and replaced them with some pretty ribbon and added some shiny silver bells.


Of course I NEVER do anything nice and simple.  I decided to add some lights to the skates.  I purchased the real small mini lights, figured out how many little  lights I needed for each skate, as well as enough to go between the two skates, and then hot glued the lights into the skates (hope they don’t burn out any time soon!!).



I cut and added a soft feather boa to the top of each skate – hot gluing it in place.  The final touches included adding another beautiful ribbon to hold the skates together and hang the skates with, some greenery and beautiful red berries. 


I then took the skates outside, sprayed the bottom portion with spray adhesive, and sprinkled it with some shimmering glitter to make them look like they had just been brought in from ice skating.


The final touch was to add a pretty little white bird – landing on top of the skates.
 
Last thing I needed to do?  Hang them of course (and plug in the lights)!!!


 

Don’tcha just love ‘em??  I think they are so pretty that I’m just going to leave them up as a Winter decoration. 
I would love to hear what you think of this little project.  I found Terry (my inspiration) because she had come to my site and left a comment.  I returned the favor by visiting her blog… so the love just goes on and on!!!  Thanks Terry!!
NOTE:  I loved these skates so much that I decided to make a pair to bring as my "Exchange Gift" for our ladies Sunday School Christmas Party.  Let's just say that they were fought over quite a bit, but once my friend (who LOVES "bling") got hold of them she just "dared" someone to take them from her!!!  It was quite funny.  Anyway, I obviously did not want to give MY pair, so we (actually my hubby did it for me)  started looking on Craigs list and found a pair without any problem at all.  Sooooo, check your local ads to see if you can find a pair.  Good luck!!

I'm gonna go "party" now!!!!