R is for Refashion

     If you have a daughter under the age of 10, you know these two things. One, the toe of their dress shoes are going to get torn up after just a few wears. And two, glittery shoes like the ones above are popular and sometimes the source of her meltdown in the department store. So, what parent wouldn't jump at the opportunity to get their daughter glittery shoes for just a fraction of the retail price?

     Yesterday, I saw a tutorial to refashion children's worn out dress shoes into glittery shoes. Thing 1 has several pairs of dress shoes that are less than perfect and upon seeing it, I immediately thought, "I could do that." And I did!

     Instead of bookmarking the page and promising that I would try it later (like I usually do), I left the page open and decided to try it as soon as the kids took a nap.

   
     These are the shoes that I started with. As you can see, the toes are very scuffed and no longer shiny like the rest of the shoe. I wasn't sure how it was going to work on black shoes, but I was pleasantly surprised.

     First, I wet a wash cloth and washed the shoes off. After I dried them, I got out the painter's tape and taped off the areas that I didn't want to be glittered. I taped off the soles, the velcro and the bows. I also put packing paper in the toe of the shoes so that they would keep their shape.

     Then, I picked a glitter color. Thing 1's school colors are going to be orange and black, so I picked orange glitter, thinking that she can wear them on spirit days. I didn't measure anything. I poured a little glitter in the bottom of a cup, then I poured in some mod podge. I alternated adding glitter and mod podge until it was sufficiently glittery.

     Next, I was ready to coat the shoes. I used a regular paint brush and slathered the glitter glue mixture over the entire shoe.

     It took two coats of glitter glue before I was satisfied with the coverage. Make sure that you let one coat dry completely before trying to apply an additional coat. When the second coat was dry, I removed the painter's tape. When doing this, remember "slow and steady wins the race". The glue was stuck to the tape, so I had to slowly pull the tape while making sure that I didn't rip the glue off.

     When all of the tape was off, I touched up any spots that I had messed up. While that dried, I took a minute to glitter the bows. I held a piece of paper under the bow and slathered them with mod podge. I then dumped black glitter on the bow. The paper prevented the black glitter from getting onto the shoe and it also made clean up easier. I was able to blow off the small amount of black glitter that did get on the main part of the shoe.

     Lastly, I gave the entire shoe a nice coat of mod modge, just to be safe. Thing 1 loves them and Thing 2 already asked if I can "fix" her shoes. 

     Here are the before and after pictures. What do you think?