Color Block Heels Refashion

Hello all!

I recently tried something a little bit new for me - shoe recons! I love looking at some of the zany things people do with their shoes. I knew I would have to start small, and start with a pair of shoes I wasn't crazy about, so I hunted through my closet and found this pair of super-boring black low heels that I bought to wear at conferences to work:

They're really comfortable but I hate the way they look. They are. So. Boring.

After the jump I give a step-by-step photo tutorial of how I turned these from my most boring shoes to my favorite shoes!

The first thing I knew I needed to do was create an easy, straight-lined "stencil" for my shoes. I didn't have any masking tape, so I held my breath, crossed my fingers, and applied some duct tape so that the bottom edge of it lined up with where I wanted my color blocking to begin:

Then I got some gray acrylic paint I had leftover from another project:

And applied the paint right on those bitches!

Then I applied more duct tape in a straight vertical line towards the back of the shoe:

And I painted those bitches too!

I was super worried about the streaks my paintbrush was leaving on the shoes. If this paint dried all streaky, I was going to have to do something else, and since I was already pretty committed to this idea, that was just plain not going to work.

Much to my pleasant surprise...

It turned out great! Nice and smooth:

I let it dry and painted another coat on all painted sections.

Then I carefully, slowly removed the duct tape...

And they turned out great!

Well, except...

The duct tape wasn't great for giving a perfectly straight line. I had some oozing of paint underneath the edge of the tape, and that was not the look I was going for. So I improvised.

I pulled out some black waxed cotton cord I had in my jewelry-making stash and superglued it onto the edge. It took three rows of cord to entirely cover the messy paint line:

But I only did one on the back since most likely nobody is going to be carefully examining the side of my shoe:

I really liked this effect! The cord looked exactly like the black leather of the shoe, and it added a very professionally-finished look to it:

Unfortunately my first use of this superglue (which was a new bottle and brand for me) ended up with a rather disastrous mistake:

AUGH!

But no worries...I used a Q-tip to cover up those spots carefully:

And they looked fine. :)

Here was the finished product!

Note: I did go back and add a coat or two of Mod Podge a few days later. I was really super nervous about wearing them out without some sort of protective coating.

I am so super thrilled with these shoes! They went from blah to adorable and I can't wait to wear them! Fortunately I am going to be in the office for work all next week, so I now have some awesome-looking professional-ass shoes to wear. So happy!!!

This was the easiest recon ever - even my terrible mistakes turned out fine! I strongly recommend this project to you. You can choose any color you want - red, or white, or sparkly silver, or gold, or or or... :)

Love to all! More shoes to come...

XOXO