DIY Denim Shoes

These white patent pumps were a favorite of mine...I wore them here, and here, and even under my Bridezilla costume...but after 5 years of being my go-to white shoe, they were getting more shabby than chic.

Before parting ways with them forever, I thought I might be able to squeeze a little more life out of them by covering them with fabric. I'd kind of been wanting denim shoes to wear as a not-quite neutral, these seemed the perfect candidates!

I had a few strips of denim from some prior project I no longer remember, and I wanted to use them up, but there wasn't enough of that material to cover both shoes...so I got the idea of doing a kind of graduated color scheme with three different shades of blue!

So I also grabbed a pair of old jeans I was tossing, and some choice fabric originally cut from my DIY cropped flares, and cut them out into wedge-shaped strips. I placed each strip into position as I cut it out, so I could get the shape just right to fit around the different contours of different parts of the shoe.

At this point, I thought it would be a good idea to rough up the shiny surface of the shoes to make the glue adhere better. So I grabbed some sandpaper I had lying around and had at it!

Then I began gluing down the strips one at a time, starting at the toes and working my way to the heels. I used Aleene's Tacky Glue, which worked great! I have to say that using stretch denim was a good (entirely accidental) choice as well because I could stretch it to fit around the shoe without any lumps or bumps.

I folded strips over the top and glued them to the insides, and used an X-acto knife to trim the edges at the sole and edge of the heel.

I cut one large strip to finish off the heel, wrapping the raw edges to meet on the inside. 





Here's the finished product (and here's how I wore them the first time!). The shoes look a little rough around the edges, but that's by design. I hope that as they age, the fabric will begin to fray and show that classic denim cutoff look.