Twinkle Toes?!

If there's one thing that I remember from being in college, and there's a lot I try to block out as well, it is my collection of shoes - around 130 pairs, if I'm remembering correctly. I was living for myself, I had no boyfriend, I was going to school debt-free and bill-free, and I had a job. I don't know how many times I overdrafted my bank account, but I do know that I lived for that paycheck. As soon as I got it, I would haul you-know-what to the mall and spend it. I felt like it was LITERALLY burning a hole in my pocket.

Fast forward to meeting my husband, confessing about my shoe collection before we got married, and then during marriage, sorting through my keep and giveaway piles. I was sad to have to get rid of so many shoes, but I knew it was time to let them go. We needed the closet space and frankly, because I could only afford to buy a lot of cheap shoes at a time - it was quantity over quality back then- a lot of them really just needed to go from wear and tear.

I learned to love shoes because, well, that was the one thing I could drool over and where my size never changed that I could actually purchase. I loved that not only could I actually afford a pair (or a dozen at a time), but my size in them was in the SINGLE digits and never fluctuated- win-win! A size 8 in one brand, was also a size 8 in another. It was my total go-to for self-comforting when I was needing something to fill a void.

Fast even more forward to having a family and not having very much money (because, hey, we have a mortgage and bills), my shoe collection is much, much smaller and I am looking more into quality than I am quantity. I want to fall head over heels (not literally, but pun intended) in love with several pairs of shoes that i can wear with a lot of different things. I have tried my best, because of, ya know, my shoe compulsion, to narrow this list down to a workable amount of shoes that do inspire me. This is the cream of the crop in my search for shoe inspiration. I hope you enjoy and please, don't drool on your keyboard.

I'm still figuring out how to tag these with links - stay tuned.

So, from this list - what appears to inspire me is BRIGHT colors, especially blue, lots of bows, some shiny bling, and camel/nude/cream/off-white colors. There seems to be a pretty good mix of heels (wedges included) and flats. I'm apparently still sticking with a vintage feel though. I really really like all of these shoes...