Make Do and Mend: Dying Leather Shoes

In the interest of making do and mending, as well as No Spender Bender, I decided to dye a pair of shoes blue because, well, every girl needs blue shoes (and yellow and green and red, especially red!!).

I had a pair of neutral colored hand-tooled wedge sandals I'd purchased last year on Ebay and I rarely wore them because I'm not really a neutral kind of girl, plus I also have the same wedge shoes in a neutral with hand painted flowers and that's good enough for me.

After a bit of research and bitching that I don't have a decent shoe repair near me (there is one in San Luis Obispo but I wasn't going up that way anytime soon), I decided to order from Kit Kraft in Southern California.  They promised same day shipping and with US Priority mail, I knew I'd have it the next day.  Excellent service and a vast selection of interesting supplies.  I recommend them highly.

I ordered Angelus Leather Deglazer and Preparer and Angelus Blue shoe dye (not listed on their site at this time).  The Deglazer smells a lot like acetone and I wouldn't be surprised if that's all it is.  The blue dye is odorless and applied with a soft round dauber that is included.

I prepped my work area to prevent accidental messes and gathered latex gloves (no blue fingers!!), q-tips, an old towel, old socks (for applying the deglazer) and a small paintbrush.

Disclaimer:  I am by no means a shoe-dying professional.  This was a first attempt and I am pleased with the results.  If you choose to follow/use these steps, your mileage may vary ;)


Step One:  

Clean with Deglazer/Preparer product.  I applied it to an old sock and rubbed it on the shoe.  This left the shoes dull and it dried rather quickly.  I did this twice to make sure the shoes were clean.  Be careful to use this in a well ventilated area and also please note it melted my latex gloves - I ended up wrapping the wet sock in a another cloth for the second cleaning so my gloves wouldn't dissolve.  (This photo is prior to the cleaning step, but they didn't look much different afterward, just slightly darker and dull.)

 

Step Two:

Shake the leather dye well.  The Angelus brand has a clever box that also doubles as a holder for the bottle to prevent spills.  I used the dauber that came with the product and a small paintbrush to get the edges and any hard to reach places.   Two light coats are applied, letting dry between coats.  It doesn't say how long to let it dry, but it seemed to dry fairly quickly (it was a warm day today).




Step Three:

Second coat applied.  At this point I completely freaked out as the color had oxidized to a bronze-blue color.  EEK!!  A friend who is a talented leather mask maker has since told me this is caused by either to thick of a coat of dye or using the tail end of an old bottle.  This was a brand new bottle and since this happened on the second coat, I suspect it was not as light of a coat as it should have been.



Step Four:

Hoping for the best, I proceeded to the last step - waxing and polishing the shoes.  I'm a fan of Meltonian shoe polish and always have several colors on hand, as well as their "neutral" polish.  The only blue shades Meltonian has on their color chart seem too dark for my use, so neutral it was.  Here it is applied to one shoe - thankfully it fixed the oxidizing problem as well.



Step Five:

I polished the shoes with a soft flannel cloth and horsehair brush (and a little elbow grease!), and behold my new blue shoes!!  They are not quite as bright as the flash picture indicates, but they are definitely blue and look great!  All in all this was an easy, affordable and satisfying way to bring life to a pair of shoes that were just taking up space in my closet.