Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Shoe Makeover: Paint your shoes DIY

Hei guys, I haven't been writing in a long time now. My really good friend had 2 Italians over and I went with them the whole last week to visit Helsinki, party in Helsinki etc :)
So the fact is that I didn't work so hard on any project during that last week! So now that they left, I started right away again on something!
I saw these asymmetric Zara court shoes a long time ago:

Picture: Polyvore.com

And somehow I thought that I will think about it before buying them, and this was stupid because of course, when I came back to get them they were gone!

But I wanted them so bad that I didn't give up! I went back to Zara and try really hard no find them. No better luck of course, but I saw the same with shorter heel in yellow/mustard color. I thought that this color was very very very ugly, but I was pretty sure I could do something about the color, so I bought them. (PS: 25,95 euros on sale = me like it). 


I think those are really classy and I didn't want to get crazy on the colors. I actually wanted them in black, just like the one I wanted to buy at first! But I thought, if you do something yourself, make a littler customization too! And I did. So for painting and customizing your shoe, you will need:
- Acrylic Leather Paint (of your choice, here black mostly, magenta and turquoise + white)
- Acetone
- Cotton
- Gloves (cleaning gloves suit perfectly)
- Paintbrush (big and small one for details)
- Matte Acrylic Finisher
- A lot of old newspaper (so that you don't damage your table)


Step1. Clean your pair of shoes with the Acetone. Take a little cotton and wash the whole shoe. (PS: If you just bought them they are obviously not that dirty but here, the fabric of the shoe is Suede, and cleaning them with Acetone will allow your shoe to become more smooth and by consequence, easier to paint them). You should then let the shoes dry for 10-15min.


PS: These are my boyfriend's hands on the picture. I really did those shoes myself but I borrowed the material (paint and brush from him as he also customizes his sneakers) and he really wanted to explain and show me how everything works so that I don't damage his material ;)

You will notice on the shoe now that the Suede fabric is much more smoother than before (which will makes your life easier when painting!)


Step2. Then you can start painting the shoes with the color of your choice. Here I started to paint in black. I left the edges because I was using a big brush. (The edges will be done with smaller brush in next steps).



(Boyfriend: "You need to paint like this, on long pieces, you don't want to have too much paint on one place. You would rather paint another layer later on ....")

Step3. I painted in black the top of the shoe (toes) and the part that holds the heel but not the heel. For a little while, I wanted to put two different colors on these shoes so I didn't paint the heel, neither the line between the toe part and the holding heel part (as you will notice).


I now painted pretty much the whole shoe but some work still needs to be done with the smaller brush!


Step4. Take the smaller brush and finish the work on the part you painted. 


The shoe starts to become what I wanted here (when I finished to paint the edges with the smaller brush).




Step5. Then came the part where I had to figure out which would be the second color. I couldn't decide between two colors, so I decided to put them both! And I also decided to paint the heel in black so that it wouldn't look too cheap or 'clown' shoe :)


Step6. But before painting the other color on the shoe, you need to paint the part that is left yellow/mustard in white. When you paint something in black, the color is so strong that it always takes over. But for the other color, put one or two layer of white paint before the color (depending on the fabric you paint on).



Step7. And then you can finish the painting part with the color of your choice. Here magenta on the exterior edge of the shoe, and turquoise mixed with a little bit of white on the interior edge.





Step8. Last step, use your big brush and put the matte acrylic finisher on your shoe. It will allow to keep your shoe in better shape. It will also avoid the 'cracks' in the paint. And then you can just let them dry for a little while. There we go, you are done!


Step9. Optional. You might want to continue the customization with pearls, or hotfix strass, studs and spikes! Let your imagination run! But watch out that your shoes don't become too tacky! 


What do you think about them? Do you think the magenta and turquoise work together with the black? Do you think they still look elegant? I try to publish some picture soon of an outfit with these shoes!!!

Fr: Bonjour bonjour, j'ai été un peu absente ces derniers temps et je m'en excuse! J'ai passé la semaine a visiter Helsinki et faire un peu la fête avec des amis Italiens. J'ai un peu délaissé mon blog pour le coup mais maintenant je me reprends et voici un petit DIY de plus! Je voulais ces chaussures (première image) depuis un moment et j'ai mis un peu trop de temps a me décider, ce qui fait que les chaussures n'étaient plus disponibles quand je me suis décidée a aller les acheter! Eh oui évidemment ... Mais je n'ai pas abandonné! Je les ai vues en jaune moutarde (très moche selon moi) et je me suis dit qu'il semblait possible de les rendre noires comme celles que je voulais au départ!
Donc si vous aussi vous voulez changer la couleur de vos chaussures, il vous faut:
- Peinture acrylique pour cuir (couleur de votre choix, ici noir est la couleur la plus utilisée, magenta, turquoise et blanc)
- Acetone
- Coton
- Gants (gants de nettoyage)
- Pinceaux (un gros et un très petit pour les finitions)
- Vernis acrylique (Finition)
- Beaucoup de vieux papier journaux (pour ne pas abimer votre support)

Etape1. Nettoyer votre paire de chaussures avec l'acetone. Prenez un bout de coton et passez le sur toute la chaussure. Si vous venez d'acheter vos chaussures, elles ne seront évidemment pas très sales, mais ici, les chaussures que j'ai acheté sont en matière 'suede' et le fait de passer l'acétone les a rendues plus 'soft' et par conséquent, elles étaient beaucoup plus faciles a peindre! Une fois que vous avez fini, laissez sécher pendant 10-15min.

Etape2. Ensuite, vous pouvez commencer a peindre la chaussure avec la couleur de votre choix. Ici, j'ai commencé avec le noir. J'ai laissé les bords de la chaussure sans peinture. Il est en effet nécessaire de changer de pinceau pour les bords, pour qu'il n'y ait pas de bavures!


Etape3. J'ai peint le bout de la chaussure et la partie qui soutient le talon. Au depart, je voulais peindre mes chaussures en deux couleurs donc j'ai décidé de laisser le talon et la ligne entre le talon et l'autre bout sans peinture. 

Etape4. Prendre le petit pinceau et finir la peinture en noir (les bords).

Etape5. Ensuite j'ai du décider de la deuxième couleur... ce qui n'était pas chose facile! Deux couleurs me plaisaient beaucoup (magenta et turquoise), donc j'ai décidé de les utiliser toutes les deux! Et j'ai aussi décidé de peindre le talon de la chaussure en noir. Le talon en couleur me semblait un peu trop 'cheap'.

Etape6. Mais avant de peindre les couleurs que vous désirez, il vous faut peindre une couche de blanc (voire deux). Le noir est toujours supérieur a toute autre couleur, mais pour le reste, n'oubliez pas la sous couche de blanc!

Etape7. J'ai peint la ligne intérieure de la chaussure en turquoise et la ligne exterieure en magenta.

Etape8. Finalement, pensez a passer un coup de vernis sur la surface de vos chaussures. Cela permettra de les garder en meilleure condition et aussi d'éviter les 'cracks' de la matière.

Qu'est ce que vous en pensez? Et les couleurs? J'essaye de prendre une photo rapidement des chaussures avec un ensemble!

3 comments:

  1. Hei!Thanks a lot! It's getting so cold now that I can't wear them that much but .... I like them too!
    Cheers Shanna ++

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  2. These are awesome! Love creative people :)

    ReplyDelete