I’m a fairly practical person so I’ll keep trying to provide very practical, useful information in regards to shoes. I know we’re coming around to the end of winter but high-heeled shoes are hard to walk in all year long. I dug up a really cheap home remedy to give your slippery shoes some much needed traction. All you need are two bathtub appliques, a pencil, and scissors. Check it out and don’t ever slip up again. =)

A smooth leather outsole makes for a slippery stride.

• How-to Guide: How to Make Your Shoes Slip-Safe

We’ve hit 400 fans on our Shoe Metro Facebook page and, as promised, we’re giving away a pair of shoes!

We want to send our congratulations out to April, a loyal Shoe Metro customer and avid Facebook fan, who just won a free pair of Asics Gel-Strike running shoes from us! Hopefully, they’ll help her conquer her next marathon run. Good job!

Congrats to April!

Don’t forget to become a fan on Facebook. We definitely have more prizes in store for you if you do. =)

I can’t believe I’ve gone this long without mentioning how much the Winter Olympics have taken over my household. My family just cannot get enough double axels and triple toe flips and all that great figure skating stuff.

Photo: Vibram

At any rate, a quick search for “Olympics shoes” turned up these toe-loving running shoes from Vibram. Vibram actually develops a whole line of these shoes, called the FiveFingers shoes, that are made for sports such as ChiRunning, Pose Method Running, and Bouldering (yeah, I don’t know either). The FiveFingers Classic model features an extremely thin, lightweight, stretch polyamide fabric upper and a TC-1 rubber outsole. They’re supposed to take you back to the innocence of running around barefoot as a child, helping you feel more connected to spirit of the earth. Or something like that.

I don’t quite get it but I can see how it might make some sense. I hear that some Olympic runners from South Africa train barefoot and they’re consistent winners in running. At the very least, they’re better than Nike’s take on barefoot shoes.

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Shoeblog recently had the wonderful privilege of speaking with Pasquale Fabrizio (click here for the interview), who you’ll remember as the ambitious designer of the forthcoming all-glass heels featured some weeks ago. It’s a good interview (with more great photos of the beautiful shoes as well) in which Fabrizio reveals his thought process and the inspiration behind the glass concoctions. He also talks about the difficult process of designing the shoes and having to bring in industrialists because they were more familiar with glass than any fashion designers. Finally, he has some interesting comments about the social value of shoes between men and women.

Photo: Shoeblog

Unfortunately, it sounds like I guessed correctly that his line of glass shoes will only be available to Hollywood elite, being priced at $7,500. But he interestingly didn’t patent the process of developing the amazing sandals, leaving room for other designers to be able to build on his ideas in the future, possibly at an affordable price point for all of us to be able to enjoy. Here’s for looking to the future!

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I recently took a gander at my sister’s shoes and they were in terrible shape. The uppers only had minor scuffs but the heels were absolutely mangled and I wondered how she could ever walk in them around the linoleum floors of her classroom (she’s a middle school teacher, by the way) all day long.

So for my sister, I’ve researched how to replace those damaged heel tips to enable smooth comfort again. I hope this helps you as much as it’s helped her!

Photo: TLC

• How-to Guide: How To Fix Broken High Heels

Nicholas Kirkwood announced plans to design a special pair of Alice In Wonderland-themed shoes for window display to coincide with the upcoming release of Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland movie. But what he didn’t know is that Miss Bunny, an artist on Etsy, already beat him to the punch.

These two pairs of Alice In Wonderland wedges take after the Cheshire Cat and the Queen of Hearts. As you can see, they’re decorated all sorts of trinkets from the movie including clocks, mushrooms, cake, and a deck of cards. The Cheshire Cat shoes have a tail that wraps up your ankle; the Queen of Hearts shoes have dual twisty ankle wraps adorned with even more playing cards. I’d say the tail is definitely the creepiest part of this whole mess. It reminds me of the Boyfriend Body Pillow that’s supposed to hug you to sleep but ends up feeling kinda disturbing. *shivers*

More pics after the jump.

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Our Soles4Souls-Haiti relief promotion has officially come to a close and it has been a wild success! We’ve collected nearly 800 pairs of shoes in our tiny little store to send off to victims in Haiti. We want to send a big, big, BIG THANKS to all of our customers and also, all of our employees who contributed to the effort.

Hand-painted shoes from Torah High School of San Diego.

We’d like to send a very special “Thank You!” to the following organizations who made a huge impact on the campaign with their donations: the Kaiser Permanente offices in La Mesa, CA; Bernardo Heights Middle School, who donated 200+ shoes; and Torah High School of San Diego, who contributed more than 50 new pairs of shoes, beautifully hand-painted by the students themselves. Thank you!

If you have any shoes you would like to give to the cause, Shoe Metro is still accepting donations on behalf of Soles4Souls. Feel free to come by our retail store and drop them off!

Imagine taking a bath in a big, giant, fabulous shoe! How great would that be, right?

A designer in Italy had that exact idea and created a line of tubs that look like women’s platform heels. These tubs are built for you to recline into with your head at the heel and your feet at the toe. Water streams down from the jet at the heel and drains out at the toe. They come in a number of designs, all decorated in an elaborate glass mosaic style. There’s even one based on heels worn by a Barbie doll (the tubs were unveiled last year, which was Barbie’s 50th anniversary).

Photo: Telegraph.co.uk

Photo: Manolo's Shoe Blog

I just wish we could have shoe-shaped soap and shampoo bottles to go with the bathtubs. And shoe-shaped sponges. And shoe-shaped bubbles! At the very least, they should design a shower in the shape of a boot. THEN, my life would be complete.

Valentine’s Day is this weekend (and don’t forget the Lunar New Year, too). Time for a heart-shaped shoe extravaganza!!! Here is a plethora of such shoes in sandals, booties, pumps, or sneakers coming from brands like Marc Jacobs, Naughty Monkey, Tory Burch, Nike, and more. Check out all the rest after the jump.

Marc Jacobs heart platform sandals

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So I’ve had this pair of boat shoes sitting in my closet for the longest time. I bought them from Marshall’s years ago when I was still at college. I’d tried them on and knew they were a little bit small but I figured that they’d stretch naturally once I started wearing them. Ouch! I was wrong. Walking a few miles a day to campus and back and forth between classes was excruciating! I put them in the closet and have barely touched them since.

Photo: Howtostretchshoes.com

I was debating whether or not to add them to the collection of shoes that I’d donated to Soles4Souls. But I couldn’t quite part with them before I tried stretching them myself. Hence, this guide to teach you how to stretch your shoes:

• How-to Guide: How To Stretch Your Shoes

I tried the freezing-water method this week and it actually worked for me! I’m just thrilled! Hopefully, you experience equal or greater success than me.

And as a heads up, Shoe Metro is offering a special discount to all of our fans on Facebook and followers on Twitter. Check out our pages for the coupon code to get 15% off your entire order!