Saddle Shoes - tutorial.

R20 - day 34

The girls are in a drama performance this weekend set in a 50's style diner. It is going to be so fun! The girls each get to wear fun costumes. Little Cute is in the choir and will be wearing a poodle skirt, yay! Big Sis is one of the drama kids and is a waitress. She is wearing an adorable apron made with some vintage fabric. With these fun costumes and backdrop, they have to have the perfect shoes! I looked online and on average a pair of saddle shoes cost around $25. Double that and we are at $50, that doesn't even include taxes or shipping...eeek! I have no desire to spend that kind of money on two pairs of shoes for one drama performance. I looked online for any type of tutorials on how to make them. Nada. My creative brain went to work and I made some myself. This is how I did it...

step 1. find a picture of the saddle shoe 'look' you like - I just Googled and several images came up. This is the one we really liked, here. The girls didn't want the tongue of the shoe black, so we left it white. I personally liked the black tongue. ☺

step 2. gather up your supplies - inexpensive white tennis shoes (my friend picked them up for me at Wal-mart), black fabric paint, a sturdy paintbrush, a pencil, a black Sharpie and white puffy paint.

step 3. mark your lines - Take your pencil and make lines on your shoes of where you want the 'saddle shoe' outline. I marked and erased and marked again until I had it exactly where it looked best. I also put the shoes together to make sure my lines matched up on each shoe.

step 4. trace and outline - Use the black Sharpie to trace over your pencil lines and around the shoe lace grommets and the 'yoke' of the shoe.

step 5. paint! - Fill in all of the outlined space using your fabric paint. I didn't paint over the grommets. I liked the look of the metal. You might need to put on a second coat, I ended up needing to, in a couple of areas.

step 6. add the dots - Use the puffy paint to make the dots along the edge of your painted area.

step 7. let them dry - The shoes were dry in a couple of hours, but I let them dry completely overnight.

step 8. wear! - Lace them back up and your shoes are ready for a drama performance, dress-up, 50's style birthday party or just to wear for fun!

These shoes were sooo easy and fun to make. ☺  I can't wait to see the girls dance around in these during their performance!