Shoe Refashion with Acrylic Paint

Shoe Refashion!

Lately, I've had this obsession with ballet flats.  I have this one pair that are navy blue and have a flowered print on them...they are my favorite! And I've gotten so many compliments on them.  I got them on sale at Gabes for $7.99! 

So, now I want to have a pair of ballet flats for every outfit. =)

 And I decided to make some purple flats!

I love how these turned out!

To refashion a pair of shoes like this you'll need:

Shoes (Mine cost $3 and I got them at goodwill...surprise, surprise ;) )

Rubbing Alcohol

Acrylic Paint

Mod Podge

Scissors

Paint Brush

Hot Glue

This is how the shoes looked before I did anything to them.

I grabbed my scissors and snipped off that stringy bow.

The next move was to pour rubbing alcohol on a cotton swab, tissue, etc...I used toilet paper.  I rubbed that alcohol soaked t.p. all over the outside of the shoes. This step strips off that shiny coating from the shoe and helps the acrylic paint "stick" to your shoe.

Next, I let the shoe dry.  This didn't take long. 



On to the painting....

The paint I used was acrylic craft paint in the color Plum.

I brushed on a thin coat of paint on the shoe. I used an actual paintbrush. However, if you don't want to deal with any stray bristles that might fall off, you could also use a sponge brush.

This is what one coat of paint looks like: 

I let each coat of paint dry completely before adding another coat. I ended up doing about 6 coats of paint.

After the last coat of paint dried, I painted one coat of mod podge (I used generic homemade mod podge on mine).

This is how they look after the coat of mod podge dried.

Now I had to decide what embellishment I wanted on this shoe. I originally wanted a white lace bow on each one.  However, when I sewed the little bow and held it up, it wasn't a great look.

Then it dawned on me that my boyfriend's grandmother had just given me a HUGE bag of buttons!

So I searched through the treasure trove of buttons and found these:

My 6 year old daughter suggested that we make these into earrings. But seeing as how I'm not a Golden Girl, I decided they would look better on a pair of shoes than on my ear lobes. ;)

 I started out by hand sewing the buttons on to keep them in place.

And to keep the buttons from moving around, I used hot glue to really secure them on the shoe. 



And this is the finished product!

Cute, right? 

And I have the most perfect sweater to go with my new shoes! YAY! =D



Thanks for reading!

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Thanks! =)