I went for a “Learn to Solder” workshop (more on that later). Mitch taught us how to put together all sorts of blinking, beeping little devices. I sought help on my project which involves breaking down an existing circuit board and moving all the parts around so they fit inside a narrow tube (mysterious, I know, but eventually I’ll post about this.) Mitch informed me that this project was “challenging for a beginner” and then showed me how to use his expensive and powerful piece of machinery which made it way, waaaay easier. So, basically Mitch is the best.

Noisebridge is donation-based, you can park your bike inside (which is key, because it’s on a sketchball part of Mission street), open ALL NIGHT LONG, and basically completely rad. They have industrial sewing machines, soldering equipment, 3D printers, etc. If you’re in SF and need space to craft, or even if you’re visiting and into this kind of stuff, go there.

But they’re kind of not quite wearable, let’s be honest, unless you’re channeling a kinky Greek goddess or something. Which I only do on alternate Tuesdays. So here’s a much easier (read: lazier) way to cop Vivienne’s style.

Step 1. Find that crappy old pair of wedges you haven’t managed to get rid of since high school, which are only marginally still in fashion.

Step 2. Buy angel wings from the craft store (they sell these for those crazy.. ahem… dedicated Martha Stewart types who make elaborate nativity scenes for Christmas.) Sew them on the strap.

Step 3. There is no step 3. This is the easiest craft ever.

Take that, $190 Vivenne Westwood weird bondage jellies.

This puppy was made from a vintage princess phone (got on eBay). We gutted the handset and glued in a modded Bluetooth headset. You know, those things people are secretly wearing behind their hair when you think they’re just walking around talking to themselves in public like psychos. This way, you can walk around with this piece of retro gorgeousness stuck to your ear instead. Or, like me, you can just put it somewhere prominent in your apartment for people to coo over and only use it for Skype.

Anyways, it’s pretty straightforward:

Procure an old phone and remove the cord. Unscrew the mouthpiece and remove the microphone and wires. There are four wires in a gray plastic carrier piece: two go to the earpiece and two go to the cord. Keep the earpiece wires, you’ll need them. The cord ones can go.

Now to your bluetooth: pop off the ear loop and crack open the case to reveal its guts. You’ll be keeping the outside of the headset, where the buttons are, but you can toss the underside.

The microphone in the bluetooth is a teeny tiny black dot with coiled red and black wires leading to it. The bluetooth earpiece is the other set of red and black wires leading into the battery. You need to desolder the earpiece wires and replace them with the earpiece wires from your vintage phone. Eh? You with me? No? Learn to solder here or get your electronic-y friends to help.

Good, you figured it out! Now your old phone’s earpiece will work, which is sweet, since it’s a much better speaker than the tiny one in your bluetooth.

Last but not least, dig out that tiny dot microphone I mentioned earlier and hot glue it so it sticks out the end of the headset (on the same side as the charger. Yeah, that picture below? It was wrong.) Then cover all your solder joints in hot glue and electrical tape for security. Your finished bluetooth should look a little something like this:

Next we add the call button. I used a yellow LED as a button which worked fabulously. Use jewelry pliers to bend the two diodes into squigglies which get hot glued on top of the big on/off button of the bluetooth handset.

Drill a hole in the back of your handset above the mouthpiece where you want the button to come out. Drill two smaller holes in the sides, where you can use a paper clip to hit the volume up/down buttons if you need to. If you want, you can drill a fourth small hole above the main button which makes the LED notification light that comes with your bluetooth visible. This means you can see when it’s charging (it blinks.)

Now slide the bluetooth into the handle, with the microphone/charging end coming to rest below the mouthpiece and the buttons aligned. Make sure the buttons work and the charger port is reachable through the cord hole at the bottom of the handset (you may need to use a Dremel to make the hole bigger.) Once it’s all aligned, hot glue with reckless abandon. Insulate the microphone with cotton balls or foam (those makeup foam pads work really well.) The mike is SUPER FREAKING SENSITIVE when outside its case, so insulate well or everyone will wonder why you’re screaming at them.

You may find when you try to replace the mouthpiece cap that some little plastic bits get in the way. Use a Dremel tool to saw those off.

When you’re done, it should look like this:

Now to the base! Basically, open it up and tear everything out that looks unnecessary. Here are instructions for removing the rotary dial wheel, if you want to replace the phone number in the middle of the dial with a little picture, you know, for maximum cuteness.

If you want, you can thread the charger cord through the base so it looks like a corded phone when it’s charging, but that’s up to you.

Lots of credit goes to Matt for his help on this one.