Luckily (well, not so luckily from a procrastination standpoint) I recently discovered Pinterest, and am finding it to be a good source of shoe crack. Check out my ShoeLaLa pinboard if you need your fix

Over the past few months, I’ve been weeding through my shoe collection, and have actually *GASP* gotten rid of a bunch of my shoes.  There are still more shoes than storage space and I need to be way more ruthless, but it’s progress.

The challenge will be not re-filling the space I’ve freed up.  Yesterday I found a pair of fabulous brown vegan boots with the cutest little heel.  I didn’t mean to shop, honest, but I was doing a photography workshop at the conference centre attached to the mall, and well…lunch break.  I will have to post a photo of them soon.  Much excitement.

Anyway, here’s to inspiration.  Let’s hope it gets my brain to send words to my fingers more often.

Shoe mecca Solestruck is carrying some crazy patriotic “stars and stripes” shoes for my neighbours south of the border.  Pictured above, Irregular Choice + The Cobra Snake “Chica Chola Flag”.  You know The Cobra Snake is involved when the advertising features a pantsless underage girl wearing a polar bear jacket in the middle of summer, inexplicably lounging on the pavement in front of a car.

But before you throw down your $200 for that fine piece of work, the really awesome patriotic shoes on offer are from Jeffrey Campbell.  He’s put out stars and stripes in four different styles:

I think I like the pingpong best, probably because it is just so weird…and the platform sandals remind me too much of the 90s, a decade best forgotten for fashion.

Anyway neighbours, I hope you’re having an excellent party, celebrating your independence while the British monarchy tours just to the north of you.  Don’t get puke on your $200 shoes.

These totally wild shoes are made by Etsy shoe artisan everlastingfashion.

Perfect for a night out on the town with your prince, and with those fearsome spikes, you can bet your evil stepsisters won’t mess with you.

They’re made with shards of broken glass (hopefully not bad luck), a collage of crystals, pearls and glass embellishments, small Swarovski crystals on the back and heels, and a row of spikes up the back.

For $475 these whimsical pumpkin-kickers can be yours.  The shop has a bunch of other fabulous handmade shoes too, including a pair for the Royal Wedding that I’ll post soon!  So much fun…browsing the shop gives me the biggest urge to pull out the glue gun and jazz up some of my shoes.  It’s times like this that I miss my childhood Bedazzler

This shoe solidarity is all thanks to the Red Pump Project, an initiative that raises awareness about the impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls.  Their mission is to promote HIV prevention through education, and open dialogue about the issues that surround sexual and reproductive health.

“Red Pump believes that if HIV affects one, it affects us all. We use the red shoe as a symbol of empowerment to represent the strength and courage of women infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. The incorporation of fashion into the message of HIV prevention is our contribution as we hope to show that Awareness is Always in Style!™

This year the Red Pump Project’s goal was to have 500 bloggers put up Rock the Red Pump banners to help spread the word, and they were massively successful, with over 1200 blogs participating. Totally awesome!

You can find the Red Pump Project on Twitter: @RedPumpProj

[photo via DollsFactory]

When it comes to the Oscars and other awards shows, I’m just in it for the fashion. Living sans TV and subject to irritating US-only content restrictions for video, I usually just wait for my favourite blogs to put up photos of all the fabulous and fug gowns.  But tonight twitter was abuzz about Anne Hathaway’s amazing shoes, and I couldn’t contain my curiosity until tomorrow!

After much googling, I finally found a photo of the much fauned over shoes.  They are, apparently, Brian Atwood custom black satin “Fiona” pumps with 8,000 hand-applied Swarovski Crystals. [via coolspotters and @StyleWriterNYC]

All I can say is wow.  This is how you do sparkly shoes, people.  Not “smeared in paste and rolled in glitter.”  No, Brian Atwood does it right.  I cannot even imagine the painstaking effort required to glue 8,000 crystals to a pair of pumps.

These shoes look like the night sky in a part of the world where light pollution doesn’t obscure the stars.  I am 100% certain that Cher must have a pair of these.  She probably wears them when she’s just hanging around the house.  They’re like her Crocs.

Secretly, (okay, not secretly at all) I love fabulous tacky things.  So let me tell you, I love LOVE this huge stiletto shoe chair.  I would never entertain such a thing in my living room (it would clash with my giant wicker giraffe), but wouldn’t it be marvellous in – every woman’s stereotypical holy grail – a walk in closet as big as a room?  In my case, since our bedroom is essentially a closet, I covet this chair for my sewing room.  It would be so awesome.

I stumbled upon the stiletto chair on eBay, where else.  Made by UK company BWFurniture, they’re available in a bunch of different colour and fabric combinations.  The pictured teal & leaf fabric combo is my fav, but if you wanted to take the tacky to a whole new level you could combine leopard print and zebra print!*

They’re only available to parts of the UK, so that is unfortunate for those of us on the wrong side of the pond.  If they were made in Canada I don’t think I could restrain myself.

*I am not responsible for any fashion-related catastrophes resulting from the leopard/zebra fabric combination, including but not limited to: spray tan addiction; overwhelming attraction to long fake nails and piles of gold jewelry; sudden spike in polyester/spandex blend clothing acquisition.

This may be the only way that someone could get me into a pair of (F)UGGs. The bows are a nice touch, no?

via eBay

Tonight I went on Ebay to mark a package as shipped because I just sold my crazy pink stilettos.  There must have been a palpable dearth of pink shoes in the apartment with the stilettos gone, because in short order, I succumbed to these really neat pink and purple shoes by Isaac Mizrahi. I confess, I suspect I bought them in part because I so enjoyed reading his book “How to Have Style” last spring.  It’s a light, funny read and provided a welcome distraction while visiting family

I don’t buy leather shoes new, but I am okay with buying them second hand (high five for recycling!).  The listing said they were made in Italy and originally cost $265; that’s definitely a world apart from the many pairs of cheap made in China plastic crap shoes I have in my closet.   I am hoping it means they will be more comfortable, even with that heel.  (That heel!  Why am I still buying heels?!  I live in my hiking boots!)  I will just have to learn to run for the bus in these.

This old shoe has been stuffed in the back of a closet for a while.  Neglected, but not forgotten.  After a trip to the cobbler we should be up and running again all shiny and new.  Note: this cheesy shoe analogy is code for: I’m trying to move the blog from wordpress.com to wordpress.org.  Hopefully I won’t kill the entire thing!

Today is One Day Without Shoes, organized by TOMS:

We are asking people to go the day, part of the day or even just a few minutes, barefoot, to experience a life without shoes firsthand, and to help spread awareness of the impact a simple pair of shoes can bring to a child’s life.

Check out the website for more info…there may be events happening near you!