How to Paint and Embellish Your Shoes
Painting
Doing Fabric Collage
Finding Great Embellishments
Attaching Embellishments & Trim
Painting
|
When it comes to painting shoes,
the key is to buy the right kind and buy the best. The right
kind of paint is one that is made for the surface you are
painting.
My favorite paint for leather (and the “manmade material”
that some inexpensive shoes are made from) is Lumiere, made by a
company called Jacquard. It covers in the fewest number of
coats, rarely shows brush marks, and has a wonderful gleam to
it.
You can buy a
starter kit
of Lumiere paints (and
individual bottles)
at my
Sassy Feet store.
You can also buy a bottle of what's called
Neopaque Black,
which is another Jaquard paint that will work on leather, to touch up the soles of your
shoes if you get any of the Lumiere on them.
|
|
Preparing the Surface
Before painting, clean your leather
shoes with rubbing alcohol and a cotton ball. If you are working on
manmade material, use acetone (from the hardware store) instead. No
preparation is needed for fabric shoes, except they should be clean.
Finishing Touches
After
painting, on leather or manmade material, use a brush or cotton
ball to daub on a coat of Future clear acrylic floor wax. This is what
the manufacturer recommends for sealing Lumiere and Neopaque paints on
leather or manmade materials. As for painted fabric, no sealing is
necessary unless you will someday want to toss them in the washer. In
that case, heal-seal the paint by using a hair drying or tossing them
in a commercial dryer.
 |
Reverse Stenciling
What
do you do if you want to paint designs on your shoes, but you're
not the least artistic? Try what I call "reverse
stenciling." I used this technique on the shoe called
Good Morning, Paris.
First
I painted the whole shoe with Lumiere Pearl White. When it was
completely dry, I pressed on little stickers, in this case they
were shaped like French fleur-de-lis. Then I painted the whole
shoe pink, on top of the stickers and all. Finally, when the paint
was completely dry, I carefully pulled off the stickers (I used
the tip of an Exacto knife to lift an edge) to reveal the white
paint fleur-de-lis shapes beneath. To complete the shoe, I
glued on the ribbon edging and stiched on the enamel disk (see
below for gluing and stitching tips).
You
can do “reverse stenciling” using any sticker that has a
simple, stong silhouette. In my collection, I have stickers shaped
like stars, martini glasses, dots, cats, geckos, sharks, and
alphabet letters. You can even make your own stickers using a
craft punch and an inexpensive little Xyron sticker maker
(available at craft stores).
|
Back to top
Doing Fabric Collage
|
Using the right glues, you can collage fabric pieces (I recommend using quiliting cottons)
onto shoes made of leather, manmade leather, or fabric (like canvas sneakers). I've
written a free tutorial to show you how to do it.
Click here for the pdf file.
Back to top
Finding Great Embellishments
You’ll
find wonderful chains, charms, beads, ribbon, fringe, appliqués, fur,
feathers, flowers, and other incredibly fun and inspirational
embellishments at all kinds of stores. But if you just want to get
your creative juice going and buy whatever pleases your eye, here are
places to look for just some of the hundreds of things you can put on
your shoes to make them sassy!
Attaching Embellishments and Trim
Back to top
Gluing Things On
If you want your embellishments to
stay on your shoes, you have to use the right glue. Choose a glue that will dry clear
and flexible AND that's formulated to work with both of the materials you are gluing:
the leather (or manmade materials) of the shoe and the fabric, metal, or whatever
of the embellishment. Whichever type or brand of glue you choose, test it first to be
sure your embellishments will stay put!
You'll find a detailed chart of all the glues I have tested and recommend
(plus when to use them) in my book
Sassy Feet! How to Paint, Bead, Bedeck, and Embellish Your Shoes.
Back to top
Stitching Things On
In general, it works better to stitch
on metal or bead embellishments rather than trying to glue them on.
Shoes get a lot of wear, and they bend, which means they give glues a
real workout. Also, many of the things I attach to shoes, like the
little enamel plaque on the ballet slipper above, aren't flat, so they
pose an even greater challenge to glue.
Instead, I stitch on embellishments
like this using FireLine fishing line (8 pound
test weight, in crystal -- white -- or smoke --(a color that is nearly
invisible against any color other than white). FireLine is much, much
stronger than nylon beading thread and, unlike other kinds of fishing
line, it can be tied in nice tight knots. I tie off the ends
using two surgeon's knots.
A surgeon's knot is just like tying a
simple square knot, except the first time you do left-over-right and
pull the left side down through the middle, made one more loop around
with it before pulling tight. The second step of making the knot (the
right-over-left bit) is the same as usual. The best visual on how to
do this is in the back of beading magazines, though you may also find
something useful on the web.
Often it's best to tie your knots on
the outside of the shoe, just under the edge of the embellishment.
That way, the knots barely show and they won't rub against your feet
as you walk.
I recommend using a leather or “glover’s”
needle to make it easy to penetrate the leather, plus a heavy-duty
leather thimble and sometimes a pair of needle-nose pliers for pulling
the needle through extra-thick leather..
|
|
|
|
