Decorating canvas shoes with sharpies and alcohol

Brighten up your footwear by decorating canvas shoes with sharpies and alcohol

I created these amazing rainbow coloured shoes by decorating canvas shoes with sharpies and alcohol. All you need to do is colour in your plain white shoes with alcohol based markers, and then add rubbing alcohol to blend the colours.

 

First, remove the laces of the shoes so they don’t get coloured. At this point, you could also tape up the rubber soles of the shoes to protect them too. However, I had difficulty making the tape stick, and in the end, I managed to avoid getting the colour on them relatively easily even without the tape.

Before you start, think about the pattern you want to create. I wanted to make a rainbow design, going from the front to the back of each shoe. I prepared the colours I wanted to use before starting to colour.

I started to colour my shoes at the front, working with each colour on one shoe and then the other. This allowed me to keep the design on both shoes as similar as possible. I made small, irregularly shaped blobs. There is no need to be too neat as the colours will all run into each other in the end anyway.

Once you have coloured in the whole surface of both shoes, you are ready to apply the alcohol. I used a paint brush, but you could equally use a spray bottle or a dropper to apply the alcohol. Add plenty of it so that the colours run together.

 

And that’s it! Leave the shoes to dry completely before re-lacing them. I was so pleased with the finished effect made with my rainbow colours. I think they go perfectly with my tie dyed t-shirts.

 

 

You can also use this same technique to decorate other items. Try it on fabric, to make an interesting piece of artwork, or to decorate other clothing or accessories. Here is a bag that had a simple black and white pattern, that I coloured in using this technique.

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