Things that are pink now

Last year, I was on an ongoing mission to find some basic beige flat shoes. I was no longer content with my Western booties, and wanted something a little more delicate and feminine. Eventually, I succeeded in late spring, but not before I made the mistake of buying these ballet flats at the thrift store.

If you're being generous, you might call the color "champagne." It was not quite tan and not quite silver. It had a faint pinkish hue, which rendered it almost ineffective as a neutral. Beyond that, the color had worn away unevenly around the tiny gemstones, giving each one a dingy halo that made the whole shoe look shabby. 

After a series of unsatisfying wears, I was contemplating getting rid of them, when it occurred to me that I might dye them and turn them into a color that better suited my tastes. So I thought back to what I'd been wearing and what I'd been coveting, and I recalled that, over the last several months, I'd frequently wished I had a pink flat shoe.

Pink it would be!

Now, I didn't want to actually dye this shoe in the traditional way for a number of reasons:

1. I didn't have any pink dye, and spending 3 dollars on a dye packet would go against my thrifty principles.
2. I wasn't even sure if dye would work on these shoes.
3. I could attempt to dye them with semipermanent hair dye, of which I have quite a lot at present, but being semipermanent, I figured it would wash out and/or rub off.
4. I don't have the right shape of bucket to fully submerge an entire pair of shoes in a dye bath.

So I decided to try a new technique: watercolor painting!

I dipped the shoes in water to get the fabric uppers nice and wet.

Then I mixed some dollar craft paints, pink and white, to achieve a less saturated shade of pink.

I added water to the paint mixture so it would flow easily.

Then I painted the shoes!

It worked remarkably well. The watery paint soaked right into the wet fabric in a fairly even way. Although I can tell there are some darker and lighter areas, the shimmery fabric and presence of gold studs helps disguise that.

While the paint was still wet, I wiped it off the studs and from around the sole with a rag.

This was a very quick and easy transformation!

I have to say I was hoping for less of a bubble gum pink and more of a millennial pink, so I'm not sure if I'll get a lot of use out of these shoes, but at least they are more fun now and won't make me feel depressed every time I look at them!

I wore them for the first time along with a black outfit, a pink necklace, and something else that's newly pink—my hair! Yes! It is finally time for me to try pastel hair color!

I couldn't resist keeping my anemone fish tattoos for a couple more days!
They actually went quite well with the hair!

The first time I bleached my hair back in September, it turned an unnatural yellow which absolutely horrified me.

I immediately tried to cover it up with pastel purple, but (I think because there might have still been bleach remaining in my hair when I tried it) the color did not take at all. I did manage to tone it down with a second bleach job and the use of purple toner, which is why I felt able to go full blonde for a couple weeks. But having had all that time to think, I realized my present still-yellow shade would interact well with pink to possibly produce a cute strawberry blonde. So this weekend, I tried it!

I mixed Manic Panic "pretty flamingo" with a very pastel pink. The pastel shade was too light to color my hair (I'd already tried) and the "pretty flamingo" was too intense and orangey. I hoped that the two together would give me the subtle toning I was looking for. The shade that I got was about right in terms of lightness, but it's still a little more "neon" than I'd prefer. Live and learn, I guess. I have never used Manic Panic before, but I hear it washes out quickly, so I guess I'll be able to try again in a few weeks.