EDM 1 - shoe

There is a book, Everyday Matters, which has inspired a yahoogroup, and encourages people to stop thinking about learning to do art someday and to start doing it right now.  The yahoogroup gives out challenges weekly, and has a backlist of over 300.  I thought it would be good for me to write down the list in my doodle book, one to a page, and then whenever I felt like picking up a pen, I could just open the book and see what I am supposed to draw.  The first one is a shoe.

It's not special.  It's just my first challenge.  I included the spine of the book in the scan to make a point to a friend of mine in the EDM group - it is better to chop off part of the image than to deliberately distort the shape of the thing you are drawing to make it fit.

Anyway, there is a bit of a story behind this particular pair of sandals.  Four years ago, I noticed a frined of mine had these great sandals, and I told her how much I admired them every time I saw her wear them, which was every warm day that I saw her, because she wore them a LOT.  She took a hint and when she went back to the store where she bought them (a boutique near her favorite vacation spot) the next year, she bought me a pair.  These were the best sandals ever - the beads on the top were colors that went with all my outfits, and the molded sole was so comfortable!  I wore the things every warm day (I wear Skechers Shape-ups on cold days), but last Monday, one of the straps broke.  I knew my friend had already been on vacation this year and wouldn't be able to pick me up another pair, so I called the boutique myself to see if they would ship me a pair.

The nice young woman on the phone said that they didn't carry that style any more, but that the sandals they sold were not made by them, and I might do better to found out who makes them in order to get them.  I googled a bit and discovered that they were actually GrandCo sandals (I wanted the white ones on the top left of the page).  Unfortunately, the site only does wholesale - I needed to find a retailer.  more googling, and I found a shop that sold the black one, but not the white.   This should tell you how desperate I was: I called them to see if they could special order me a pair.    The nice lady on the phone said that they used to sell them, but no one was buying the white ones, so she took them off the website, but she had a few in the back room - what size did I wear?  It turns out she had exactly one pair, and sold it to me for half price - how cool is that?

Relieved that my sandals were on their way, I went out the next day with my family in the Skechers, because I need comfortable shoes, and we were at this mall in Rockville, MD, when my daughter comes up to me and says she saw sandals like mine at the Hallmark store.  Of course, I had to go look, and although they were not exactly the ones I bought online, they were GrandCo sandals, and I had to buy a pair, because I couldn't wait for the mail.  These are the ones that I drew.  Although theya re not as pretty as the others (which came in the mail Saturday), the three straps hold them very close to my feet, and they are even more comfortable, no flopping at all.  I wear them in the house all day - better than barefoot.  I love GrandCo sandals!