Upcycled Shoes

As I was looking at a craft store this weekend, I realized that the amount of money I spend on craft supplies each month rivals the amount I spend on clothing.  I have a large amount of supplies already in my stash so I've decided I'm going to challenge myself to use only the supplies I already have in my apartment for the next month.  Hopefully I'll still have cute stuff to post!

So, I love ballet flats.  I wear them almost as often as I wear my heels and they are more comfortable and usually just as cute.  I have a lot of pairs of shoes, but, I still want more!  My favorite pair of shoes are ancient, disheveled, and my mother told me she would disown me if she ever saw me wearing them again (I think she was joking...) 

Yup, these shoes are in a sorry state

I love the pointy toe and these shoes are so comfy.  I decided to forgo buying new shoes and see if I could upcycle these instead.

Upcycled Shoes Materials:

Scissors

Acrylic Paint

Paint brushes

Mod Podge

Fabric Glue

These shoes are fabric covered  and had some spots that had holes.  I trimmed the fabric around the holes and covered the holes with a thin layer of fabric glue to keep the fabric from fraying more.  Then, I painted on my first layer of paint.  Because my shoes were a dark color and I was using white paint for a base color, I ended up painting two layers of my base color.

I was starting to worry these wouldn't turn out

I then took a stencil brush (a round, flat topped paint brush) and started stippling on my second color.  Basically, I wiped a lot of paint off my brush so it wasn't too runny and tapped the flat top of my brush against the shoe. 

I learned a lot from mom in her stenciling days

I kept tapping my brush all over the shoe in a crazy pattern.  I wasn't looking for perfection which made it a lot easier.  I decided halfway through that I didn't like the stark contrast between my top color and my base white color so I decided to smear the paint a little bit with a piece of cloth.  This made it look more like watercolor.

Way cuter than they were!

After I finished painting my top color and let them dry, I painted a thin layer of glossy Mod Podge (don't you love that stuff?) on top to make them shiny.  The acrylic paint made the shoes a little stiffer, but they look more like a faux leather now instead of fabric.  Yet, these are still a lot better than before, and I do believe mom would approve!