Wednesday, September 4, 2013

DIY {Shoe} Makeover: The Busy Momma's Guide

The moment you've all been waiting for....


Or maybe not. But whatever. I made it to 105 likes on Facebook. And as I promised, now I bequeath to you my DIY shoe makeover.

I came up with this idea one night after drooling over these...


But my mammoth feet are much too large for these beauties. So I did as I do. I created my own version. Because what else are you going to do when your husband is away pretending he has football teams in fantasy land (or whatever they do in fantasy football) and the kiddos are sleeping. 

Step 1: 
Gather your supplies. 
You will need -
A plain shoe (ballet flats are great!)
Thick fabric (not super thick, you just don't want a really lightweight cotton that you can see through)
Mod Podge (or Spray adhesive)
Hot glue 
Trim/Ribbon/DooDads

 

 Cut any embellishments off of the shoe.


Step 2:
Cut a piece of fabric wide enough that it will fold up and cover your shoe - you want enough to work with here.  


 Step 3:
Cover the shoe with glue. I used Mod Podge. You could use spray adhesive for this step as well. 
Slather it on starting at the front of the shoe.
Press the fabric down nice and smooth and work your way around the shoe.


 This is what you will be left with. I also ran a small bead of hot glue just at the edge of the sole of the shoe to make sure my fabric stayed down while the Mod Podge was still wet.



Step 4:
Trim straight up the back of the fabric all the way to within about 1 inch of the top of the shoe. Make sure you leave enough fabric so it can be turned in later to cover the top edge of the shoe. Make sure everything is still nice and smooth and glued down.


 Trim the inside of your slit like this - into tabs. Glue one side of the back of the shoe down. Again, I ran a small bead of hot glue to stick that down.


Fold in and glue the other side of the fabric on the back of the shoe like this. 


 Glue it down over the unfinished side to cover the unfinished edge.
I don't have a picture, but because I trimmed the back edge of my shoe a little short, I cut a rectangle of fabric and glued it over the back top edge of the shoe to cover the unfinished ege.


Step 5:
 Now press all of the fabric tabs down and glue them over the side of the shoe. Note: Be careful depending on what glue you use to do this, you don't want anything rough rubbing against your foot.I used a very small bead of hot glue (see a trend here?) along the top edge of the shoe to hold the tabs down, them pulled out the insole and glued the fabric under it, reattaching when I was finished.


Trim the bottom of the shoe with an exacto knife or very sharp blade just where the fabric meets the sole of the shoe. Lesson Learned: I used scissors and it didn't cut quite close enough. I don't expect anyone to come up and ask me to see the bottom of my shoes though.

This is what you should have. You can cover the bottom unfinished seam with ribbon or trim if you'd like.


The next steps are optional.

I covered the entire outer fabric of my shoe with Mod Podge to make my shoes a little more durable to dirt/wet/yuck. You don't have to do this, and you can wear them as is. You obviously won't be stomping through mud puddles and snow covered mountains in fabric ballet flats.

Here is my shoe covered in Mod Podge. I learned a lesson from my first shoe...don't get the Mod Podge on the inside fabric of the shoe because it made the fabric rough. 

Wait a few hours for the shoe to dry before adding embellishments. Or wait 24 hours if you are finished.

I opted to make a pretty rosette like my inspiration shoe.

 I cut different sized squares from a guazy ribbon.
 

I held each little square into the flame of a lighter just so the heat would curl the edges. I would have taken a picture but fire, burning ribbon and taking a picture are too much even for me.

Stack your little squares with biggest on the bottom into a little pile gluing them onto eachother in the middle as you go. (There are tons of tutorials on burned edge rosettes if you need more pictures)
 

It should look something like this. 
 

I glued my rosette onto a scrap of my shoe fabric.
 




I added some beads glued down into the center of the flower.


Then I glued the rosette down onto the toe of the shoe along with a couple of scrap fabric leaves.



Now how is that for fabulous! Boring old "blah" shoes into new fall favorites!
  




And now, go make some new shoes in your favorite fall colors!

I'd love to hear what you think!

xo-Chris

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1 comment:

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