Skarlett in Transit

8:22 pm - Fri, Aug 20, 2010

2 notes

Altering non-leather shoes, or Alice in Wonderland boots

Ever needed a certain type of shoe for a special occasion or costume?

As most people know, leather and satin shoes can be dyed by over the counter methods.

However, changing the color of non-leather, vinyl or pleather shoes has always been a challenge.  

I’ve known people to use canned paint, markers, or to create slip covers to hide the original shoe color.

In the past I’ve even used Krylon spray paint on a pair of boots-the problem with all of these methods is that they either crack and chip off, or the shoes fail to take the color.

However, thanks to a new spray paint product meant for car interiors, non-leather shoes can now be colored in a safe, and colorfast way.

Recently I altered a pair of white, fake leather boots purchased on eBay to copy the boots worn in the new Alice in Wonderland. 

Thanks to the success of the process, and the final product, several people have asked me to write out the process for their future reference.

Above are the original boots from the film.

Here we go!

First step is to gather supplies :)

-You’ll need special made vinyl spray paint-this special paint has vinyl mixed into it’s formula, which helps with it’s coverage.

-A fine grade sandpaper-or I used this new sandpaper eraser that worked really well and was a lot easier to hold on to while using.

-a bowl for soap and water

-painter’s tape

-a thin edged tool for making sure your tape covers all the right places

-a drop cloth

-a scrub brush of some sort-I used a nail brush and it worked great-if I were doing full boots I’d want a larger brush

-some way to cover the parts of the shoes you are not painting-I used excess plastic from the drop cloth

-a lint-free cloth

Step 1-use warm soap and water to wash the area to be painted

Scrub the area to be painted, rinse with clear warm water, and let it air-dry for 15-20 minutes.

This will soften the material and prep it for sanding.

Step 2-sand the area to be painted

I liked this sanding eraser a lot! It was easy to hold, and made the sanding process quick and easy.

You’ll want to sand the entire area to be painted-make sure to get all the curved parts and close to the shoe sole.

Your shoes will be sanded enough when you can feel the difference between the unsanded and sanded portions by touch. The sanded area should be rougher to the touch.

Now use your lint-free cloth to wipe away any dust left by the sanding.

Step 3-Wash the area to be painted with cold, soapy water.

Just like the earlier step, rinse the are to be painted-this time with cool, clear water, and let air dry for 15-20 minutes.

You’re all done with prepping the area now!

Step 4-Time to tape!

Take special care when taping your paint area.

I decided I wanted the curved seam to be painted, so had the challenge of taping behind the curve.

Practice taught me that smaller pieces worked best, lining them to a part of the curve with the straight side of the tape. Then moving down along the curve a bit, and adding another straight, small piece, then using a 3rd small piece to cover the area left exposed between pieces.

I used a straight edge to then insure that the tape laid flat against the seam, without laying over it.

Finally I used longer pieces of tape to cover the smaller pieces and make sure there were no gaps that paint would sneak thru.

Step 5-Cover the non-painting area

I used excess from the drop cloth to wrap the rest of the boot, then used the painters tape to seal any open seams.

I knew I didn’t want to have any paint on the heel area, so I wrapped the plastic from under the heel, around to the front of the boot, and then taped off the top.

Step 6-Repeat for the second shoe

Both shoes are now ready to paint!

1 more pass with the lint-free cloth over the painting area, and you’re ready to go!

Step 7-Let’s paint!

As with any spray painting, the best practice is to always do several thin passes of paint, rather than trying to cover the area in the first pass.

The advice with vinyl paint, due to it’s properties, is to do a thin almost non existent pass.  Then let the first pass air-dry for about 20 mins.

Then come back and do another pass, just as thin, and let that pass dry for 20 mins.

The entire process of painting these boots, took approximately 10 passes, with 20 min waits between each pass.

I knew my passes were getting to heavy around about the middle of the process, because my boots started sticking to the drop cloth.

Once I went back to light passes-nearly colorless passes-the boots dried faster and no longer stuck to the plastic.

Step 8-Time to remove the plastic and tape!

Now that you’ve let your shoes dry completely, carefully remove the plastic, check your work, and if all is well you can pull of the painter’s tape.

The above image looks as if the entire front of the boot is black. However, only the toes are painted, and the painter’s tape did a great job of protecting the rest of the boot.

I carefully peeled the tape, though the quality of this special type of paint made that unnecessary, as there was no cracking, or peeling of the painted area.

Step 9-Let’s protect are great paint job!

What do you use to shine and protect your new paint job? Well since this paint is intended for car interiors, there is nothing better to protect the paint job than ArmourAll! 

I used this easy-wipe version, and purchased them at PepBoys.

Not only did the wipes provide a great protective layer over the paint, but I’ll continue to use them to shine the boots before I wear them.

And with that, you’re all done!

For my personal project, I still had trim to add to the boots before I was finished :)

I purchased the smallest size ricrac I could find at JoAnns, and applied it with a thin layer of E6000.  I’ve used E6000 when making shoes from scratch in the past, so knew that it was the perfect product to use to add trim to boots that will gets lots of wear.

E6000 is a great bonder, and dries quickly when used in small amounts. An added bonus is that before it dries, you have a few minutes to adjust and move your project if you’ve mis-laid where you want the bonding to happen.

Also, take care to open a window when using E6000, as it has a strong smell, and tends to make people dizzy or give them an upset stomach if you work in an unventilated area.

When applying the trim, since E6000 has some move time while it dries, I laid each boot flat on the work surface, applied the trim, and then let that section dry.

Next I did the small section over the toes, and let that dry.

Finally I laid the boot on it’s other side, applied that trim, and let that dry.

To complete both boots, with dry time, the trimming took about and hour.

And there you have it!

My version of the boots from Alice in Wonderland