Custom-painted TOMS with hearts ♥

As you can imagine, I don't get much of a chance to do anything creative while my kids are in school and play sports. But every now and then I can squeak something in and get it done.

My most recent project is pair of really cute black TOMS shoes for a friend's little girl. I wanted to do something simple and wouldn't take me hundreds of hours to complete. In the past, I've painted everything by hand with a paint brush but since I love to work with black ink and create patterns and designs, I decided to introduce a handy dandy DecoColor paint marker into the mix. It gave me those nice, fine black lines and I didn't go blind in the process. Loved it and it came out fab.

After I created the initial design, I worked on these shoes in the car while my sons had baseball practice. I know, the glamorous life of an artist!

I lay out my sketch using a white watercolor pencil.  For this project, we decided on simple red heart shape with wings. Then, because I am painting on what is basically black canvas, I primer my original design with white (sorry, don't have a picture for that step).

The finished product. A simple, one color design. I want to snag a pair for myself. Sometimes I forget that I can paint my own shoes if I want to! Heh. I guess it's sort of like the construction worker living in a home that is falling apart. He works on everyone else's home but his own.

Preach.

If you are interested in getting your own pair of custom-painted TOMS painted by me (woohooo!), please e-mail me at pearmama@gmail.com and let your request be made known. For reals. ♥