Okay, this was the first time I hacked a shoe (wrapped half the shoe in corduroy and spray painted a motif on it)

Loads of mistakes were made but the end result was raw and gritty the way I like it (pic above)

Just to share my fun, here’s how you can screw up a pair of shoes, too.

You will need…

• Plain canvas slip-on. Preferably your own. I used a faded-green Everlast pair, RM39 from Sg.Wang.
• Fabric glue
• Sharp scissors
• Spray can (the color I chose… dove grey)
• Miscellaneous fabric (I keep a lot of junk fabric, leftover from the end of my pants etc)
• A crafty, careful partner (I used Swen. She once made an Optimus Prime outfit for me and that rocked, so here she is again ;P)

STEP 1

Choose a pattern you like, and cut out a stencil thing.

This pattern was inspired by a poster I once designed for a band in Newcastle, Sydney.

Transferred to paper by the very crafty Swen (thanks hun!)

STEP 2

Prepare cloth cut-outs.

I initially glued them to the shoe before spraying the print on. But in hindsight I should have sprayed the print on the cloth before pasting the cloth on the shoe.

STEP 3

Spray very slightly!

Spray paint seeps into cloth, bleeds n blurs out (we learnt the hard way).

Depending on how prominent you want the motif to be, I guess you can apply layer by layer, waiting for paint to dry in between. I settled for a very subtle impression.

STEP 4

Blog about it and share your experience with others!

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Overall it took only about an hour and it was loads of fun… and I’ll be wearing my crazy invention tomorrow ;)

I might do this again another week.

Any ideas, experiences, comments related to canvas shoe hacking? Let me know.