Altered shoes: using paint and grommets to transform a pair of wedges

This pair of shoes didn’t start out silver. No, when I picked them up at a discount shoe store, they were the plainest of black wedges. But not finding the shoes of my dreams wasn’t going to stop me. If I couldn’t buy the shoes I wanted, I would make them.

I got the idea to paint a pair of shoes after looking at a pair of collaged shoes in Altered Couture, a magazine about altered clothing. I figured that if you could glue paper all over a pair of shoes and glaze it, you could do the same with paint.

And I was right! I used three or four coats of regular acrylic craft paint to turn these wedges from black to silver. I painted records on the toes, just for fun. I waited 24 hours for the paint to dry and then I sealed it all with a flexible acrylic glaze that comes in a high gloss.

My shoes were still missing something, though. I rummaged through my supplies and found some grommets and some silver ribbon. Setting grommets (or eyelets, as these small grommets are considered) is noisy work. First you have to use an awl to poke a small hole through the material of your shoe, and then you have to hammer the grommet together! It was worth the half hour of loud banging, though.

Once my grommets were set, I threaded lengths of silver ribbon through the grommets and laced my shoes up. They aren’t practical for everyday wear, because they are rather high-heeled, but they are just right for a party with my record-loving friends.

Comments

The comments to this entry are closed.