Jacquard had recently sent me some fabric paints to try out and I knew that transforming a pair of white canvas sneakers for my precocious little neighbor girl was the perfect project!
And I only needed a couple of supplies to transform these plain white tennis shoes into something fabulous and fun!
- White canvas shoes from Kmart (on sale for $8)
- Jacquard textile paints
- Paint brushes
- Pencil
- Ribbon
To start I removed the original laces and penciled in a quick sketch of what I wanted right onto the shoes with my pencil.
Next I mixed some white and red Jacquard paint to make a nice hot pink color. I painted the front and back of the shoes staying along the sewn seam.
Now it’s time to add some funky zebra stripes. I just free handed these. Yeah, luckily it’s not too hard to mess up zebra stripes!
Next I added some large white hearts on the front of the shoe right on top of the hot pink. I was quite impressed with how well the white covered over the pink. I also added the little girl’s name on just one of the shoes.
Once the white hearts dried, I added zebra stripes inside of them too.
For a finishing touch I added some zebra striped ribbon for new shoe laces. Now normally you need to set Jacquard paints on fabric with an iron, but since you can’t really iron tennis shoes, I just used a hair dryer set on high for about 30-40 minutes to set the paint.
I mean, seriously… pretty cool to change a plain pair of tennis shoes into something original, fun and funky?
Yep, I’m pretty happy with how these turned out! My daughter saw these so of course I had to paint a pair for her as well.
She wanted something bright and bold with polka dots and crazy colored zebra stripes. And then she asked me if I could make a pair for Valentine’s Day and St. Patty’s Day. Oh boy, I foresee a lot of painting in my future…
Katie says
January 21, 2013 at 7:51 amHow adorable are these shoes? You are so talented!!!
rdukes says
January 21, 2013 at 7:58 amThose are just adorable … love the zebra stripes! My girls would love a pair!
LMKM says
January 21, 2013 at 5:50 pmThis is a super-cute project and I love anything that allows kids to make a personal statement in our bigbox world. One word of over-protective caution (from a primary teacher): unless the shoes are strictly indoor shoes to be worn solely (ahem) at school or home, the child’s name should be inside the shoe, not outside for the world the world to see.
Safety aside, it’s like wearing a nametag in public – cuz who’s not gonna notice such snazzy shoes!
Totally love your blog – and your shoes. Keep up the good work!
howtonestforless says
January 21, 2013 at 6:49 pmThank you for the tip! A monogram might be a great trade off 😉
Crystal says
January 21, 2013 at 7:24 pmOMG!! So adorable!! Love it!!
[email protected] Sew Can Do says
January 22, 2013 at 10:30 amVery neat product – will have to check that out. Were the ones you did for your daughter already pink with colored grommets? The contrasting stitching is so perfect I can’t imagine how to be that good at avoiding painting them!
howtonestforless says
January 22, 2013 at 12:11 pmHers were already pink. They didn’t have white in her size! 🙂
Mandy Hank says
January 31, 2013 at 8:59 amSo cute! My daughter would LOVE these 🙂 Great job!
howtonestforless says
January 31, 2013 at 10:54 amThanks Mandy!
Brenda @ChattingOverChocolate.blogspot.com says
January 31, 2013 at 3:45 pmThere turned out SoOo C U T E !!! Pinning 😉 Thanks a bunch for sharing!! 🙂
howtonestforless says
January 31, 2013 at 7:24 pmThanks so much Brenda!
Evelyn Wallis says
June 26, 2014 at 3:06 pmInstead of a hair dryer do you think putting in a dryer on a shoe rack would set it ?
howtonestforless says
June 26, 2014 at 3:27 pmYep, that should do the trick!
Alina says
October 8, 2015 at 8:05 amHello! Nice work! I found your article searching for new ideas, as I already paint clothes and want To try something else. My only problem is that I obviously can’t iron the shoes, interesting the idea of the hair dyer, but…I realy hope you mean 30-40 seconds! Because 30-40 minutes is a quite long time…I barely have 5 minutes for ironing each t-shirt. 🙂 Thanks for your future answer!
howtonestforless says
October 8, 2015 at 7:35 pmHah, yes seconds!!! Good catch 😉