Painted Shoes

Take your shoes from bland to BLAM! with a few fabric markers and a bit of imagination.  Check out the hand-painted shoes my tweens and I made.

The girls and I were in Florida a couple of weeks ago when we came across these canvas shoes at Michael’s.

I’m a lover of “Chucks” (Converse) and my girls both love the look of Vans, and at $8 a pair it was too good to pass up.  We picked up a pair each and a couple of sets of fabric markers and started planning out our custom-painted shoes.

I don’t have the artistic skill of my girls, so I went with a simple rainbow – overlapping one colour into the next to give a more blended look.

(Note: this post contains affiliate links to the products we used.  Please see full affiliate disclosure in sidebar)

I used the set of Tulip Neon Fabric Markers for a bold and bright look.  The colours saturated beautifully and you can see how vibrant my painted shoes are with just one layer of colour.

I decided to switch the second painted shoe up and start with the purple at the toe and work in reverse order. I’m just wild and crazy that way. lol

These fabric markers are supposed to be colour-safe so that you can use them on clothes, shoes, hats etc and still put them through the wash.  I haven’t tested this out, but that’s what the packaging says.

Chloë is our resident artist and she decided her painted shoes were going to tell a story;

She hand-drew a mouse on one shoe and then painted the other to look like a giant piece of cheese.

She’s 11 folks – and clearly more brilliant and talented than her mother.  I LOVE these!  If you are going to have custom painted shoes, then you really should make them an original piece of art right?

Maddie (12) decided her shoes were going to carry a theme across both feet.  She drew out a big sunflower on the toes and then did this incredible shading technique to make them have depth and movement.

Hand-drawn again!

Gosh my kids are amazing (writes a proud Mama)

Notice how the toes go together to create the centre of the sunflower?

The girls coloured away at their shoes for a few hours – no complaints, no distractions, just concentration and excitement over their custom, one-of-a-kind painted shoes.

We wore them out for ice cream a day or so later and we were stopped with compliments on our sneakers.

Did I mention you can pick these canvas sneakers up for $8?

The markers were a bit more, but they finished all three pairs and still have plenty of ink left for more projects.

It was so much fun, and such a feeling of accomplishment that we almost went back for more shoes so we could keep creating…. if only airlines didn’t have those crazy weight limits on baggage. lol

I SO recommend this as a fun activity to do with your kids – particularly tweens – which is such a treat given that I’m already becoming too old and uncool for most things. lol

I’m not sure if my parents would wear them, but wouldn’t this make a great gift for grandparents?  Doodles from little hands captured forever in a fun format?

I’m SO making more of these hand-painted shoes!

Have a great one!

 

 

Linked to:  Between Naps on the Porch