Here’s a mess of a project I’ve been working on for a while. Here’s the backstory:
I ain’t lying when I say I get inspired pretty easily. When I was younger I had these Generation Girl Dolls. Do you remember them? Well, I don’t think they made a memorable impact on the public, but the one thing that made an impact on me were the shoes of the doll named Mari. They were so fun and I wanted them real bad. They obviously didn’t exist.
Being misses diy, I remember when I came across a white pair of shoes (unfortunately sneakers were the only shoes I could find plain white), I had the urge to loosely imitate those shoes. It felt like a good idea at the time, and I was so excited to finally have crazy awesome shoes. I found some fabric paint and went to town. I created my own version of these shoes (don’t ask me why I added green. I don’t remember what I was going for).
The one specific memory I remember wearing them was at a MSI show back in 2005. I felt since they were a wild band, working those shoes into my outfit felt appropriate. After that, I think I wore them two more times tops. I never found good moments to sport them so they kinda got buried in my closet where I mentally labeled them as unwearable clown shoes. The paint eventually started peeling around the soles and it was painful to watch these fun sneakers turn to crap. So about a year ago I tried to revamp them and enhance the colors. A few days later I just forgot about them once again and they just sat there. These are perfectly great platforms and I didn’t have it in me to get rid of them, so I decided to ditch the colors and make them wearable again. I had my fun with the crazy clown colors but it was time to let it go.
I had the idea to paint them black and a seafoam-ish to follow my current aesthetic. So I mixed the color I wanted to create with my acrylic paint and started painting the heels. After I finished the seafoam, I moved on to paint the rest of the shoes black using my favorite fabric paint. It took quite a number of layers and a steady hand to get it finished. I decided against using tape to paint clean edges because last time I painted these shoes, the tape lifted up the paint when I unpeeled the tape. So, steady hands + a nice flat brush did the job.
After they were done and dry, I took my fabric paint bottle and just squiggled the designs right out of the tube. I didn’t think brushing them was necessary.
To lock in the heels (since I don’t trust acrylic paint to not peel or crack over time), I sprayed my favorite clear glaze. I don’t know how they will hold up, but I imagine the glaze will lock in the paint better than if I just let them be.
This is one of many projects that either just didn’t work or needed more work. I have grown accustomed to reworking old projects to fit my current likes, and this project was long overdue. It’s a relief to finally finish these bad boys.
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