Tall, Lean, and Crafty: Shoe Dying

* This project is based on a blog from Sweet Verbena. All credit to original poster*

At Walmart, I found these sweet babies for $5. Ugly now, yes. Old lady shoes, yes .But just wait.

So...here's what you'll need:

pair of shoes (little obvious :)
fabric dye (My first time with Rit - SO HOOKED!!!)
dying container ( I used a roasting pan. Something a little smaller would work better.)
scrap fabric (we'll get to that later)

First, you'll want to remove the laces. Bit of an improvement already :).

Next, you'll want to prepare your shoes for dying. Run them under hot water - it's fine in the sink. After rinsing, take out the insoles. We're gonna have a little fun with these later.

Then, get your dye ready. I used Rit liquid dye in yellow. I really don't think there's a difference between liquid and powder, except price. If I could have found yellow in powder, I would have used it.

Anyway, I used a roasting pan, as I said earlier. I used 7 quarts of water ( 1 3/4 gallons) and almost the entire container of Rit dye. If you want to make the color lighter or brighter, go ahead. To test my shade, I used strips of paper towels - just keep in mind that the real color will be several shades darker.

Now it's dying time! Simply place your shoes into the dye, and make sure they're completely submerged. The sides of the shoes kept poking up, so I put a small plastic bin on top.

Meanwhile, check if your insoles are dry. If so, time for a redesign!! Find some scrap fabric that can cover both insoles. Trace your insoles on the fabric. The making shows up better on the wrong (non-printed) side of the fabric.

Now cut out your fabric and lay it on top of the insoles. Don't worry if it doesn't line up perfectly. No one's going to look inside your shoes and comment. Glue down the fabric. Spray adhesive would work best, but if you don't have any, you can just use glue around the edges.

Now hold onto you're insoles until your shoes are done.

And now it's time to get back to your shoes. I let them dye for 30 minutes, but you can dye them longer or shorter. When your shoes are done dying, rinse them out. This is where the hose on the side of the house comes in handy. Rinse until water runs clear. Next, run them through the washing machine. I did a rinse and spin setting on a small load. Now, you can let the shoes air-dry, or you can throw them in the washer.

When your shoes are done drying, slip in your insoles. you can spray adhesive them down if you want, but they'll stay put just fine if you don't.