Cake Decorating And Sugar Art Tutorials: How To Make A Gumpaste High Heel Shoe

Begin with a small 1"- 1-1/2" ball of firm gumpaste. Using your hands, form heel to desired size and height. I usually form a 2 - 2 ½ inch heel. Use your ball tool to smooth the curves on your heel. Secure the heel in place upside down and allow to dry. Once dry, you will cut and attach your sole to the shoe. Once formed, secure with tape. Now that your heel is dry, turn it right side up on your styrofoam and secure while you prepare your sole. Roll gumpaste out to about 1/8"-1/4" thickness. Place sole pattern over and cut around using a pizza or pme cutter. Position form in front of heel. Moisten top of heel with gum glue and attach sole to heel.

This woman was the epitome of cool, she was confident and beautiful and I was terrified that we wouldn’t have anything in common. But the more we chatted, the more we listened and opened up to one another the closer we got. This turned out to be the best friend date I’ve had since moving down to London and she immediately became one of my closest friends in the city. When I asked her questions and she opened up to me, I found that she was nowhere near as intimidating as I’d first thought and that in fact, we had a hell of a lot in common.

Starting with the usual ‘what do you do, ’ and ‘where do you live, ’, the conversation really kicked off when we discovered a shared love of Thai food, Chance the Rapper and Orange is the new black. First, we stuck to safe, not-too-personal topics of conversation but this particular woman was Somalian and I was curious to know more about Somali culture. Weber explained how there is often an idea among people that you should already have your friends and this can be one of the things that makes meeting new people much harder. ‘This taps into the discomfort and shame we still have around loneliness.

If the idea of approaching people makes you feel anxious, ‘Exposure therapy - one thing that can help is going up to strangers on the street in London and asking for directions or asking them what time it is. That’s an almost guarantee for a little bit of failure. Some people might surprise you by being friendly, some people might look at you like you’re crazy, some people might just ignore you and that can be a really useful experiment for demonstrating that you can survive an uneasy encounter. Weber also explains that if you’re feeling lonely within your current friendship group that might be a sign you should take a risk too. ‘It feels safer and more secure to stick with what you already know even if it’s stultifying.

While I wasn’t running up to strangers in the street and asking them for directions, I did make a point of speaking to new people whenever I had the chance to. I saw a woman in the street wearing the most beautiful baby blue tea dress I’ve ever seen so I ran to catch her up and told her how gorgeous it was. A huge grin enveloped her face we had a quick natter about the weather - I went on my way feeling uplifted from the positive interaction. If I was packed into a sweaty rush hour tube on central line in the evening, I’d make a joke to the guy next to me about my arm pit hovering right in front of his nose. Weber was right - sometimes people look at you like you’re completely out of your mind but sometimes people were glad for the conversation.