Painting the Shoes Red

This time I'll show you a super-easy but a little time-consuming way to make perfect foot-wear for any costume without making permanent changes to your shoes.

All you need is:

- Shoes you won't be using for a while (you can return the shoes back to the way they were, but you'll have to breake the covers you made to do that)

-Cling film or something similar

-Old notebooks or newspapers

-Flours and water

-Paints, fabric, fake jewellery, anything you wish to decorate your shoes with

-Lacquer ment for craft use

-Leather

-Hot glue (if you want to attach decorations to your shoes)

Step one: protecting the shoes

Wrap about 2-3 layers of cling film on your shoes to protect their surface.

My shoe wrapped in cling film

Step two: making the covers

Glue slivers of paper (newspaper, old notebooks etc.) on the shoes, always putting the next sliver partly on top of the previous. Make atleast two layers. Let dry for four days. Try your shoes on when they have dried. You'll probably have to make slit on the cover to get your foot in. If the slit is too big, you can simply make an enlargement to that part of the cover. Just remember to check if there's still cling film protecting your shoe near the slit.

I used my own "glue" and slivers of old notebooks (bye bye eight grade math). I used a paper shredder to make perfectly same sized, very small slivers. Using bigger slivers saves time, but the result looks neater if you have the patience to spend hours on attaching small slivers. I spend 5,5 hours making one pair of shoes and watching Friends. 

My shoe:)

Recipe for my "glue"

Put some flour into a cup. Add water until you can spread the mixture with a brush.

Don't make too much of this, you will only need about 1 deciliter for a pair of shoes.

 

This is what the "glue" should look like

Paper slivers

Step three:decoration

Now you have the covers made, and the only limit for decorating your shoes is your imagination. If you paint them, remember to apply lacquer to make the colour last. Use lacquer ment for crafts.

I painted my shoes with red, gold and black because I thought they were the Red Queens colours. I have two layers of red paint and decorations of gold and black on my shoes. On top of that I put two layers of brilliant outdoor gloss sealer.

The paints and lacquer I used

Step four: finishing touches

After painting or otherwise decorating your shoes, it's time make finishing touches with shoelaces or glitter or whatever it is your shoes need. You should atleast put leather pieces to the shoe soles, or you will slip. If you have shoes with heels, put leather on the heel bottom too.

I wanted my shoes to really stand out, so I put some fake jewellery on the heels. I think the result looks amazing. I put red leather hearts on the shoe soles and red fabric hearts on the ends of the shoelaces. The inspiration for that came from a finnish shoe designer, Minna Parikka. I love her shoes, but I just can't afford them.  

A leather heart to prevent me from slipping

And this is how my shoes look:

So that's it about shoe-making, I hope you liked this post:) If you have any questions or opinions about creating shoes for a costume, please feel free to comment. I'll answer to every comment:)