Hand-painted Toms

El had a pair of Toms shoes that she really liked.  In fact, she wore them so much (and consequently washed them so much) that the design faded completely away.

When they were new, they had small neon symbols stamped all over them.  Wear and washing over a couple of years rendered them basically white.  She had heard of people painting new designs on their shoes and decided to investigate.

I'm not sure what website she eventually discovered her design of choice on, but she showed it to me and asked if I could do something like it.

Well, if my children are willing to risk their property to my creative attempts, I'm willing to try it.

And here's the final product:

She didn't want them uniformly colored and she didn't want the colors mixed, so we taped off sections along seam lines with masking tape. We also stuffed them with newspaper so as not to paint the insides.  To keep the background color from being too thick and uniform, I put acrylic paint in a spray bottle with a bit of water and sprayed it on.  The tree was started with a small brush and finished with a toothpick dipped in paint.  The flowers were dabbed on with a stiffer brush and the white spots were added by dipping the wooden end of the brush with paint and dotting it on.

Right before we painted them, the shoes were freshly washed.  That's why they seem rather oddly shaped and wrinkled.  Once she got them on her feet, they resumed their customary fit.

All in all, I think they turned out nicely.  Now I'm trying to decide if I want to paint something on my pair.  I'll have to come up with something special for the hole in the left toe.