 Maria Schnee poses for a photo with her winning shoe from a creative shoe decorating contest.--NEWS PHOTO IAN SORENSEN |
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Fancy footwork has landed Medicine Hat in the Red Hat Society's spotlight.
Local "Red Hatter," Maria Schnee was featured in one of the organization's magazines after winning a creative shoe decorating contest.
"It just makes me feel happy that Canada and Alberta are recognized," said Schnee about having "Medicine Hat" on the front page of "Miss Kitty's Journal" that's read by "Red Hatters" around the world.
Since joining the Red Hat society in 2006, Schnee said she's always wanted to put Medicine Hat on the "Red Hat map of the world."
"And I tell you, I'm doing it," she said with a chuckle. "I didn't know how I would do it."
The contest for the Colorado-published "Red Hatter" quarterly magazine asked readers to send in a photo of a shoe they decorated under the theme of "Decorate Cinderella's slipper." The winner's shoe and picture would be featured on the cover of the magazine.
Schnee discovered her shoe of choice — an old pair of red leather pumps — in an Idaho thrift shop while on her way Red Hat convention in Spokane, OH.
"So I brought them home and sanitized them," she recalled, and then decorated the heels with purple glitter nail polish, the upper part of the shoe with red glitter fabric, a tiara in the front and a "poofy thing" in the back with a bow, and called it "Elegant simplicity, a touch of class."
Since winning the competition, Schnee said she's been traveling with the shoe.
"We go to various Red Hat meetings around Medicine Hat. We've been to Edmonton with it, we've been to Lethbridge."
"So I take it, and I travel with my shoe," she said with a laugh. "It's quite interesting."
