Earlier this week I shared that Allison from Dream A Little Bigger and I were doing post swaps. On Monday I visited her blog and showed how I made these cute and colorful perler bead bracelets. Surprise! Today Allison's over here, presenting this super cool sugar skull shoe tutorial. With Halloween and Dia de los Muertos coming up, this craft is a great one to do. It'll certainly get you into the spooky spirit!
Hello! My name is Allison and I'm a crafty cat lady that blogs over at Dream a Little Bigger. Crafting and creating is what I love to do and I'm so happy that I'm able to share that with all the sweet readers at Pink Stripey Socks! I'm a huge fan of Leslie and I'm so excited to be guesting here today!
I've kind of sort of got this huge thing for shoes. Not fancy or designer shoes or anything but shoes I've made up and crafted on. It's a pretty big deal and so far I've made almost 60 DIY shoe tutorials. Don't believe me? Check this gallery out.
But back to the task at hand, with it being October and the time for all things Halloween-y I put my thinking cap on and decided to make some shoes with sugar skulls that stylistically looked kind of like old timey tattoo work. This tutorial not only has a freebie file to make your own sugar skulls, but also has a little mini tutorial within itself... how to use an iron on transfer onto shoes. Google it, I dare you. Nobody will tell you how the heck to do this and so today I'm all over it. For this project you will need:
- White canvas sneakers (mine were just under $6 at Wal-Mart)
- sugar skull free printable
- Sulky iron on transfer pen in black
- fabric markers
- wash cloth
- straight pins
- iron on the hottest setting
First thing's first, you'll need to print your sugar skull. Using a copier make the skull a bit larger or smaller as needed to fit properly. I went ahead and knocked out a whole page worth and then selected the one I liked the best. Trim the excess paper flip over. Trace the lines onto the back with the Sulky transfer marker. You can also use a red transfer pencil but those things take forever and with the Sulky you can use your transfer twice with no problems.
Take your first shoe and jam your washcloth into the toe area. Shove and push so that it is nice and firmly inside of there. If you have some excess space jam another cloth in there. We want this to be super firm.
Use straight pins to attach the transfer, iron on side down onto the shoe as you'd like it. Run pins through the paper and the shoe and into the washcloth below. The only pins I own have plastic head so that's what I used but metal heads would be easier. Take your hot iron and place onto one area of the paper. If you have plastic heads you'll need to avoid them and move as necessary so they don't melt onto your iron. If you have metal heads you can just get after it!
Do not move the iron like you're ironing a pair of pants... Set it directly onto the paper and leave it there. Push down (the cloths inside will prevent the canvas from shoving and distorting). Pick up the edge of the paper and check to see your progress. Apply a second round of heat to anywhere the transfer hasn't taken.
Repeat on the second shoe.
And now, the fun bit! Color your skulls as you desire. The wet marker will bleed onto another color. I wanted my colors to blends so I worked one right up to the next for nice, fuzzy edges but if you don't want that, use one color and allow to fully dry before coloring next to it. Trace the entire skull with a heavy coat of black.
Since the main design on the skulls is flowers, draw some big flowers and leaves all around the sides and back of each shoe. I used a fabric disappearing ink marker to draw out my first designs, but flowers are simple enough.
Color in with the same colors as on your skull. Add the occasional cross, heart or diamond to fill any spaces that seem too empty.
And be careful while the shoes are drying. I was working on these while it was raining with my windows open and somehow I came back to find that this had happened. After the marker sets for a while water won't bother it, but while the ink is still wet you're going to have problems. I wound up whiting this area out with fabric paint and redoing the eye. It doesn't match perfectly but I don't know that anyone can tell from a quick glance.
If you find you need to use white paint to cover a mistake, know that there is no white paint I have found that matches white canvas. To even the design out, I painted white in similar spots on both shoes to keep the painted eye from standing out too much. (it's the one on the far right)
All together I only used five different colored markers. Two different greens, a teal, a yellow and an orange. I prefer using Tulip fabric markers because you can layer them to make colors lighter or darker!
Well, that's all she wrote Pink Stripey Socks readers! I hope you'll head on over and check out my blog, Dream a Little Bigger, and if you didn't see it already check out Leslie's recent perler bead bracelet creation with fish or fruit patterned in it, so neat! And last of all, thanks so much to Leslie who has been a joy to swap with. Hoping your day is a happy day!