Re-birthed Chucks

I have a confession to make. My shoe choice is still stuck somewhere between Year 9 and 11. This includes my strange affinity for Converse Chuck Taylors. I try to keep them age-appropriate (I have sensible navy-blue and grey, among others), but sometimes...bright colours get the best of me.

I scored a bargain on eBay. (Not the first, but we will just discuss this one this time!) I got two pairs of used hi-cut Chucks for $10. I bought them mainly for the pair in better condition, which were red/green/orange plaid. The other pair was well worn, and was white with crayon-looking 'childhood' designs all over them (hopscotch, rainbows, etc). I figured I would experiment on them, since I didn't feel like they had really cost me anything and I wouldn't wear them as-is.

(I neglected to either take a photo of them at this point or save the eBay pic, so you're going to have to use your imagination as to what they looked like.)

I figured I would dye them, since I always wanted a teal-coloured pair of Chucks. But first, I needed to get those designs off. I dunked them in a bucket of bleach for several hours. Nothing happened, except the insides turned from bright blue to bleugh. I scrubbed them with bleach. Not much more happened, except I nearly died from bleach fumes. It did, however, start to break up what I now realised was fabric paint.

Next I tried rubbing acetone (nail polish remover) and a toothbrush. Now, we were starting to get somewhere! It took a lot of elbow grease (and I'm pretty sure I may have got a little, ahem, affected by the smell), but I got the majority of the paint off. But, I decided, not enough to dye them and get a decent finish, as any remaining paint would repel the dye. I put them aside until I got bored enough to deal with them. They were kinda ooglay by this time!

Check out those blue/bleugh insides!

 I'm not sure who to credit my next brilliant brainwave with. Possibly Pinterest. Possibly random Google-browsing. However, I figured that, rather than dyeing, I could colour my shoes in with Sharpies! The downfall to this idea is that while I can create stuff, I can't actually draw to save my life. So actually drawing anything on there and making it not look crap was going to be a challenge. So I decided to go with an all-over pattern, which would not only hide my lack of artistic skills, but it would camouflage any extra paint. I chose three colours (purple, pink and teal - see, I still got my teal!) and went with a kind of 'fireworks' design. The Maestro made more than one reference to 'how old are you again?' when he saw me colouring in my shoes, and at one stage threatened to kick me outside (Illinois winter - that was a true death-wish) because of the smell (noticing a theme here?) Over the course of an afternoon, I went from this...

...to this...

...to this...

...to this!

To be honest, I was so happy with the effect that the scribbly-firework pattern made on the tongue in just the purple marker, that I kind of wish I had done the whole lot in just one colour, but of course, I did the tongue last! At any rate, I had comments about them from the first time I put them on, so they definitely got attention!

I can't comment on longevity of Sharpie on canvas shoe as I haven't had much chance to wear them yet (we've gone from sub-zero temperatures to torrential rain to 30°C - none of which is Chucks weather), but considering Sharpies are permanent markers, I wouldn't expect there to be issues. I don't ever wear Chucks in the rain anyway (I HATE wet socks and feet, so canvas + rain = doesn't make sense to me), and if you value your work, I wouldn't advise you go mud-puddling in them, but it is the easiest way to rejuvenate an old pair of canvas sneakers that would otherwise have ended up in landfill!