Munchkins & Monkeys: Decoupaging My Wedding Shoes

How To Make Your Star Wars Shoes

Decoupaging with Comics

Here is a little background info into my shoes & Star Wars wedding theme bringing us fittingly to what I am about to do to them! My Wedding Shoes - The Next Episode!

What you will need:

Your Shoes!
Mod Podge
Small paint brush
Old Comics & Magazines in desired theme
Piece of cardboard to protect work surface
Kitchen towel (for wiping fingers as you go)

Mod Podge is a special craft glue that also acts as a sealant, glue and finish. I purchased the 236ml Matte version but there are other types such as Gloss, Glitter, Pearlescent etc etc. It cost me about £5 on line (Hobbycraft (UK) no longer stocked it). It is safe, low odour and just peels off fingers like PVA glue :)

The comics and mags I purchased via Ebay were an old 1978 Star Wars comic and a set of special publication magazines from when Episode 1 first came out in the cinemas. This was a little bit of sacrilege and I shed a tear as I took the scissors to them (I will withhold my address for fear of reprisals from hard core SW comics collectors! :P)

Episode 1

Prepare the shoes by taking off any diamanté like I had on mine. As these shoes were satin and pleated they were possibly the worst sort of shoes to do this too, I sealed them fully, heels and all with 2 coats of the Mod Podge. Mod Podge goes on white like PVA glue but drys clear so don't worry :D
Go through the mags and comics and cut out anything you may need - speech bubbles, characters, special words, pictures - if its interesting cut it out! Keep some good images and speech bubbles etc for adding last for extra effect.

Episode 2

I started with the wedges and the heels, for this I picked out blue/black space background and stuck this all over, making sure to cover the whole area and making sure the edges are neat as you go, this saves having to sort any issues later as when it dries it dries solid! Then I did the edge around the top of the shoe as this was a prominent seam that needed covering neatly. Be careful what the inside of the shoe looks like - keep it a neat edge if you can, some people also stuff the inside of the shoe with newspaper to protect but I didn't find this necessary.

To apply the piece you want: Paint the Mod Podge onto the shoe in the area you want it, place the image and now put some more Podge on top, smoothing with brush and finger as you go. It will start to go 'off' in about 3 minutes which allows you to press down any sticking up edges (I had alot in the creases of the pleats of my shoes). After about 6 minutes give it another press, you can place other images down during this time - just keep going back and pressing it down. The whole thing should set in about 20 minutes. In general I found comics easier to stick than magazines which were thicker and took some holding.

Episode 3

Next I went around the inside edge of the shoe with other background snippets (namely Tatooine sand, Death Star and Millennium Falcon!) This left the middle section of the shoe now bare which I then filled with other back ground scraps from Padme's throne robe, more Tatooine, more space sky, some R2D2 and general comic bits. This gave a background in which to now add the main images and pictures ....

Episode 4

Now split the nice images and speech bubbles you have kept back in half roughly so you can evenly place these between the two shoes. I worked going from shoe to shoe, checking the spacing, colouring etc. as I went, this way you can keep on track of it easier. At the end of this you will have covered your shoes in fantastic images!

Episode 5

I covered the shoes in 3 fairly thick layers of Mod Podge allowing each layer to dry completely which take approx 1 hour to set. Some people have also sprayed a sealant onto theirs however the Podge is also a sealant and personally I don't plan to jump in any puddles wearing them :) I only used about 1/3 of the Podge container and therefore have loads left over for other projects. If you only plan on doing one pair of shoes perhaps buy the smaller size bottle which you can get also :)