Shabby Chic Shoe Tutorial

Friday’s $5 find is a challenge I give myself to spend $5 or less on an old item and make it over new. I plan to hit thrift stores, yard sales, flea markets and all sorts of places that carry not new stuff. So hang around and see what we can do to make old stuff new!

So this week I have a cute little tin shoe that I bought from Rhonda at Got Junk in our Trunk in Southaven, MS. Actually, its not that little, if it were real, it would probably be a size 8 or so.

I kinda dig the rustic style of it, but the shoe kept telling me, “I want to be pink!” And who am I, a lover of all things pink, to deny such a request?

So I decided on a shabby chic style.

To start the transformation, I used:

Craft Paints:

• off white
• ivory
• baby pink
• dark pink
• dark brown

Other Stuff

• floating medium (optional)
• polishing wax (optional)
• Medium size brush

The White Stage

So first I blended the off-white and ivory craft acrylic paints together and put two coats on the shoe. Disregard the paints and stuff in this pic, it’s the only photo I have of the shoe painted white-oops!

 

The Pink Stage

After the white paint dried, I mixed the light pink, ivory and a drop of the dark pink together and applied two coats. While the paint was still wet, I used a damp paper towel and rubbed a bit of the pink from the high places like the tops of the buttons and sides where something might age naturally over the years.

I mixed up a darker pink and painted the inside of the shoe and in the crevices, thinking about where the least amount of wear and aging would be and to give it a bit more dimension. I then wiped off the excess paint with yet another damp paper towel.

Of course, one of my cats, Smudgy had to supervise the whole thing.

 

Aging and Polishing

I could have left the shoe at this point and it would have been fine, but it just looked a bit too clean and I wasn’t really digging the matte finish, so I gave the old girl some patina. I mixed a small amount of dark brown paint with the floating medium and rubbed it into the crevices, basically in the same places I put the darker pink, then I rubbed a little across some of the other surfaces, wiping off most of it as I went.

Once that was dry, I used a nail file and scuffed up the edges just a tad. Then, to finish it all off, I gently buffed some wax into the surface and it was done!

 

This reminds me of a shoe I would wear to a summer tea party. Not really, I bet it would pinch toes like nobody’s business. It makes a much better rose vase.

What do y’all think?