My sister is well-known for her shoes. They’re always interesting, eye-catching, and unique. Finally I asked her how she keeps finding all these amazing shoes and she told me her secret—“Easy. I add glitter and glue.”

So simple!

I love the idea of customized shoes but I’m not really into glitter. This is why I decided to try decoupage shoes, and discovered how simple and easy it really is!

Decoupage is a fancy word for decorating something with paper cutouts and varnishing it up after. Yeah, gluing paper on stuff. So now that you’re not afraid of decoupage let’s get started.

Here is what you need

• Patterned paper. Since you’ll be cutting shapes out of the paper to affix to your shoe, you need paper with a pattern of an appropriate size. I have a great stash of vintage-style matte wrapping paper, so I went through and found one I thought would look good on my white heels. I nearly went for stripes but decided for my first try I would avoid something so intricate.
• Solid-coloured shoes. While this is a preference choice I recommend a solid colour as your paper will be the focal-point here.
• Mod Podge. There are plenty of workarounds if you want to avoid the $10 price tag of this craft glue such as white glue and water, discount craft glue, etc. You want something that will glue permanently and also give a nice, smooth, clear finish.
• Paintbrush/foam brush. The type and size of brush isn’t too big a deal, but if your shoes have any creases you will love having a small brush to really work the paper into them. The foam brush is good for once-overs and smoothing.
• Scissors. For cutting of course.

Here is what you do

Decoupage is a simple process. Cut, glue, glue more, repeat, dry. However, this will take a while as you’re working with small pieces and there is a lot of drying time.

1. Using your scissors, cut out the patterned shapes from your paper. After you have a few, lay them out on your shoe to find a layout you like.
2. Once you’re happy with your layout take your paintbrush and apply Mod Podge to the area of your shoe you’re affixing the paper. Apply the paper immediately after gluing.
3. Apply Mod Podge to the paper. Don’t be stingy—really give the paper a good drenching and make sure it’s going to stay put.
4. Repeat steps 1-3 until you’re happy with your shoe, then do it all again for the second shoe.
5. After your shoes dry for a couple hours put another layer of Mod Podge on with the foam brush, and let them dry for 24 hours. Apply more glue as needed.

After everything is dry your decoupage may require some trimming, but hopefully everything is good to go after 24 hours. Have fun!