DYED MY SHOES!

The other night I was cleaning out my wardrobe and was in pure shock when I noticed the state of all my shoes ('pure shock' is a slight overstatement, but i'm usually a clean person)! They were smothered in mud, unpolished and just a general mess. After a quick reorganisation, I decided to clean all of my dirty shoes, this included a few pairs of converse, suede loafers, brogues and my white Doctor Martin canvas covered shoes. After a few hours of scrubbing and polishing my dad suggests it'd be a great idea to to put my Doctor Martins in the washing machine (as the stains were DEEP). Lets just say that my dad was wrong! The tanned leather insoles of the shoes had ran and stained all of the outside shoes, making them look even worse than when they went in. I was gutted! But thanks to fabric dye I managed to save them, and bag myself a "new" pair of shoes. 

The process included:

Dylon Velvet Black Fabric Dye (not washing machine version!),

some Rubber Gloves,

Spray Bottle, 

a Bucket,

a Sponge,

Destroyed Shoes,

Masking Tape, 

Plastic Bags

and some Patients (lots of it)

The transformation took about a day, but the majority of the time was waiting for them to dry (using a hairdryer helped). I simply mixed up the Dylon following the instructions on the back of the packaging and filled a spray bottle with the mix. I then masking taped the soles (to keep them clean) and stuffed the insides with plastic bags (to protect the leather inside). I took the spray bottle, and misted the shoes with the dye, for a good half hour, rubbing in the dye with my fingers, and making sure I was happy with the coverage. I then returned around an hour later and did the same, again leaving it for an hour or so. When I came back I used a wet sponge to try and remove any excess dye and again left them to dry (this is when the hairdryer came out because I was becoming impatient). 

Once they were dry, I re-laced them and they look like a new pair of shoes! I'm really happy I decided to upcycle these "trash destined" shoes (even though they've turned denim blue and not velvet black?)

So if you're reading this and you have an old pair of shoes you're going to throw away, think twice and get creative!