Burjus

Well hello there!  It's been a while hasn't it?

A New Year's Day sale on Etsy reminded me of my poor neglected shop and I realised that there's barely anything in there at the moment.  I keep buying fabric, but I never get round to pulling the sewing machine out of its nest in the bottom of the wardrobe unless someone's commissioned me to make something. So if you want something, do get in touch...

I'm intending to make more things this year. I was going to start this weekend, but I got a 5 season boxset of Dexter for Christmas, which means I've spent the weekend getting to know a loveable serial killer instead.  But soon.  I promise!

The good thing about not having blogged since September is that I've got a lot of things saved up to tell you about.  But don't worry, I'm intending to break it down into a series of several shorter posts.

I'll start with my not-so-new shoes.  While I was at the Berlin Salsa Congress taking a few awesome classes with Victor and Burju (amongst others), I got a marketing email telling me where there were some Burju shoes on sale, so I bit the bullet and ordered my first pair (Black Pearl), which happen to be the ones on the business card:

Apart from being the most comfy things I've had on my dancing feet, since my jazz shoes, they also draw a fair few compliments from strangers, my favourite of which was "Cracking shoes luv."  I was so wowed by my first pair, that I got straight back online and ordered a second, this time the Anyas:

Being a more luxury range than I usually buy, they come with a higher quality, branded shoe bag:

As you can see - it's windowed! 

The obvious advantage of this is that you can see which pair of shoes you're picking up as you leave the house so there's less chance of turning up to that party with shoes that clash with your outfit.  Also,  it makes it easier for you to stare at your pretty, pretty shoes.

However, once you've finished dancing the night away in a warm venue, and you carefully put your shoes in their bag, the window does tend to steam up, which suggests it's not quite as breathable as your sweaty shoes probably need.  

The solution? Ask me to make a shoe bag to match your shoes - then you won't need a window to see what's inside!

Brillante

When I was at Mambo City this year, I entered a prize draw - and then I won it!  Which is why I get to go to the Berlin Salsa congress in October.

I'm sharing a room with SalsaFeet who, as you'd expect with a name like that, has been buying new shoes like there's no tomorrow in preparation for our Berlin adventure.  I've pretty much accepted that I'll never be able to keep up on the shoe buying front now - but it doesn't stop that competitive edge from rearing it's ugly head from time to time and sending me straight across to ebay to see what sparkling beauties I can pick up on a budget.

This morning the Postman kindly dropped off a packet containing these:

"Oooooh", "Ahhhh" etc...

This is my first pair of Brillantes, and since they only seem to stock them up to a size 6 or 6.5 at the moment, it looks like poor SalsaFeet isn't going to get to review them with her marginally too large feet.

Brillante are another of those Hong Kong based companies - and unlike TPS, they don't seem to have a distribution hub in the UK -so your shoes come directly from Hong Kong. This can mean that it takes a a bit longer for them to get there.  Though saying that - it still took less than a week for mine to arrive.

In spite of the fact that they're currently cutting off the circulation to my big toes while I attempt to stretch them out a bit, I'm really pleased with them.  The pretty photos on their ebay listings aren't any exaggeration of what you get in real life and they come with a few little extras:

A pair of spare suede heel tips - not that the original ones on my shoes ever come off because I would never even dream of using my heels as breaks (ahem) - and this nicely branded shoe bag, which is a bit of a bummer because I'm in the business of making nice shoe bags.

On closer inspection the shoe bag isn't brilliantly made - the fabric is a bit plasticky - reminiscent of a cheap school satchel and I guess it would nicely trap that lovely after-dance shoe aroma inside.  It's not finished terribly well either - check out the zip placement:

So all in all you'd be better off with a nice breathable cotton Mambo Delight number!  

The design of the bag itself is a little more complex than the traditional drawstring bag - but I can really see the benefit of the zip pocket at the front so I'm tempted to experiment with some zips to see if I can come up with something similar.  Of course I've had a few ideas stacked up, just waiting to be sewn onto shoe bags for quite some time now, so I can't guarantee how fast that will happen. But I'm very open to my next project being to experiment with a different style of bag.  Any takers..?

I haven't taken my new shoes out for a spin yet, but if they hold up to a hardcore weekend at the Berlin Salsa Congress then I'll definitely buy from Brillante again.

As for those ladies with size 7s and larger - why not email Brillante and ask them about getting a larger size?  They seem to market themselves as a custom made shoe company and if you don't ask, you don't get!

Cutting the Ribbon

I keep meaning to write lots of posts about what I've been up to while I haven't been posting here.  It involves drawing round my hand a lot, large amounts of sewing for a wedding present, quite a lot of dancing, and winning a pass for the Berlin Salsa Congress.

Instead I'm going to let you know that I finally coaxed my pet photographer to take some nice shoe bag photos for me, meaning that I have finally opened my Etsy shop.

My First Shoe Bag

The first shoe bag I ever made, and the second thing I ever made using a sewing machine looked like this:

At the time I never dreamed that one day I would be making shoe bags that people would actually want to buy - in the same way that I never dreamed I'd ever wear short tight dresses, tiny shorts or animal print. - I guess dancing changes your life in many ways.

How has dancing changed your life?

The Art of Craft Photography

At the moment I'm working on ideas for how to sell these:

This mainly consists of leaving them on the kitchen table, hoping my boyfriend will get the hint to take some nice photos of them. Leaving them out on the bed in the spare room for three months didn't work.

I did spend an hour the other week taking photos within the limitations of my point and shoot camera (which is how the shoe bag line-up photo came into existence) but they weren't quite as good as I wanted them to be.

This is my boyfriend*:

As you can see, he's got quite a good camera, with an expensive lens so his photos are bound to be better.  

*(the crocheted version I made him for Christmas.)

New Year Delight

Last year I accidentally sold 9 handmade shoe bags to friends from my local salsa community.  Before then, I'd only ever made them for myself, or to give as birthday presents.  At the moment, a Facebook page with 26 followers, and a little used Twitter account (@MamboDelight ) is as far as I've gone in my efforts to establish my slowly emerging business.

This year I'm adding a blog to the family, on which you will find posts about:

• Creating pretty new homes for beautiful sparkly shoes 
• Creating manly new homes for manly dance shoes 
• Sparkly new dance shoes that can be found on the end of my feet
• Dancing
• Sewing
• Crocheting
• Things what I have learned /I am learning about making a craft-based business.

I'm also starting the year off by reading this:

I'll let you know how I get on.