Buying new shoes for a kid once every six months can be tough, especially if the reason you're buying them isn't because said child grew out of her shoes, but because all the glitter came off and now, in the words of my mother, the shoes need a good throwing away.
I get so frustrated with the quality of products these days, but I wasn't raised to be wasteful, and if I can fix something rather than replace it, I do. Interestingly enough, I got the idea to repair my children's shoes with nail polish from the book Little Women. In the book the family goes through a tough time financially, and rather than be shamed in front of her peers, one of the daughters paints her old shoes so they look new again. Given that nail polish is essentially paint, and I have a whole lot of it, I decided to try this trick with my daughter's glitterless yet still wearable shoes.
I've done this a lot already, usually with solid colored shoes, but the ones I tackled today were easily the most desiccated and most colorful, thereby making them the most complicated to repair. Nonetheless, I want to share the process with you, incase, like me, you're a total tightwad.
Prep: Gather all your supplies so you don't have to keep getting up.
I used rubbing alcohol, cotton balls, Q-tips, hair cutting scissors, super glue, a paper plate (to catch drips) and TONS of nail polish. I use the cheapest I can find, and I never go buy any just for this project, I just have an enormous hoarde. But if you had to, some brands are much cheaper than new shoes.
I did this project at my dining room table because I have done it a lot before and am very experienced, but I would recommend either sitting on a tile floor or at a stone countertop for your first go, because nail polish does not come out of wood finish, and nail polish remover has the same effect as paint thinner, and you don't want a big raw spot in the middle of your table. Worst case scenario if all you have is carpet and wood, sit outside or use tons of newspaper to cover your indoor workspace.
Step 1: Make necessary repairs.
If the shoes have lost their luster, chances are they need some other repairs. This is where the super glue comes in. I use the gel kind so it doesn't drop all over the place, but I still end up getting it on my hands every time, so if you have sensitive skin you might want to use rubber gloves. I put the glue in the gap between the sole and the shoe upper and just hold it there for about a minute until it sticks by itself.
Step 2: Give the shoes a haircut.
Along with loss of glitter, you might notice these annoying little strings that pop up along the seams of the shoes. RESIST THE URGE TO PULL THEM. They do NOT stop unraveling. Instead, grab some nail scissors or hair cutting scissors and give the shoes a little trim wherever you see loose threads. Make sure to clean the scissors with alcohol afterwards, you don't want shoe bacteria in your hair or nails.
Step 3: Clean any dirt you see.
These shoes have a little Hello Kitty head on the toe, and she had seen better days. I used rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball to clean her.
Step 4: Paint over white spots.
This step isn't always necessary, but if the shoes are so scuffed that there is absolutely no glitter at all in some spots, it's best to use a solid paint color that is similar to the glitter color so you don't have to use tons of coats of polish to cover it. On these shoes I used fast drying matte neon pink as the base paint.
Step 5: Glitter it up, baby!
This was the longest part of the process for me. These shoes were a combination of pink, purple, and red glitter, and they were the large grain glitter, not the fine glitter, so I had to dig deep into my admittedly enormous hoard of nail polish to find the right colors. You have to wait for it to dry between each coat, too.
Step 6: Details.
Not all shoes have this, but these Hello Kitty slippers have a faux leather hem around the top and some on the toe, and I didn't have the exact shade so I had to be creative and mix two colors. I mixed them on my paper plate, using the brush from the darker color to mix. When I was finished, I wiped as much of it off on the plate as possible before putting it back into the jar.
Make sure to let the shoes dry overnight before your child wears them!
The final result is below. The shoes turned out a little darker shade of pink than they started out, and they don't look perfect, obviously, but they do look a lot better, and they'll last her until school lets out at least.
Make sure to let the shoes dry overnight before your child wears them!
The final result is below. The shoes turned out a little darker shade of pink than they started out, and they don't look perfect, obviously, but they do look a lot better, and they'll last her until school lets out at least.
