I love canvas sneakers. I love the idea of WHITE canvas sneakers, but in reality, mine wind up being gray smudgy tennies that vaguely resemble the white shoes they started out as. In fact, when I’m watching Baby traipse around the resort in her one pair of white Keds that stay pristinely white – I find myself getting irrationally irritated. That isn’t real life! (Not that falling in love with your hot, honest and intrinsically good dance instructor while on vacation is – so let’s just move on).
Every once in a blue moon I buy white tennies with the hopes of them remaining white. But they never, ever do. So, I took a pair of once white tennies and set them on my desk. Finally, an idea struck me…
MY LATEST VIDEOSDo you spend a lot of your day on the telephone? I do. Doodling on order forms, doodling on post its, doodling on mail I have gotten and sometimes even doodling right onto my desk. I’m not sure why I do it, but I remember as a kid, watching my mom on the phone doing the same thing. I would look at her little drawings, mostly of cubes, flowers and repeating patterns and copy them. So I guess maybe that kind of thing is in your blood.
So, one day I naturally grabbed my Sharpies and started doodling on my shoes with my phone pressed to my ear and awful elevator music piping into my ear holes. I just drew and colored and drew some more. Thankfully this impulse worked out well; I have to say that I LOVE them.
There really isn’t a DIY involved here – it’s kind of a “hope to inspire you to do your own thing” kind of post. What I can tell you is this: I doodled with a fine point sharpie on both shoes sporadically. Then I would go around and fill in some of my drawings with Sharpie fabric markers and get back to doodling to fill in the extra space. I wanted to leave an amount of negative white space around the tops of my shoes, but you can fill them in 100% if you prefer.
When I look at my snazzy oodles of doodles sneaks on the ground or just before I put them on, I think they look crazy. But when I get them on my feet, it is instant and recurring love! So get out there and snub your nose at Baby and her pristine Keds and get a little crazy!
Happy Shoesday…Hope your week is works out to be wonderful!
Written by Allison Murray - Visit Website
When you used sharpie markers, did you seal the canvas to prevent bleeding/fading? Would you recommend using fabric markers or sharpie markers?
Hey, Maggie for these shoes I used Sharpie brand fabric markers. There are lots of brands, including Tulip that will work great. Regular markers will bleed and even fabric ones will if you hold down for a long time or run up against wet areas, but in the long run are really worth it.
Oh, and I found no need to seal them :)
First, your Baby comments made me laugh!
Second, these are so cool!