Embellished Tap Shoes

If you have followed some of my recent posts here, you may remember that I scored some old shoe taps at a recent estate sale. Apparently, the person who had the estate, was an avid collector of the somewhat eclectic, like old shoe taps.

I recently discovered that I LOVE using Jacquard’s Neopaque paints with leather! So, I set out on a mission to transform these basic (boring) shoes into something that would make a little more of an artistic statement.

If you have a similar pair of shoes at home, you can do this along me easily with some basic supplies. As far as the taps go, search for “shoe taps” on a site like ebay. You should be able to find some for little expense. I paid .$50 each for mine. I purchased several so I plan to create some pendants with them as well.

Start by dry brushing the shoes with Neopaque in White.

Let that coat dry, and dry brush over the white with Neopaque in Black. This will create an interesting background for your shoes. When dry brushing, swipe the brush up and down as well as side to side, this will create a more natural dry brushed effect.

Let the black coat dry, and use a black medium point Tee Juice marker to create some simple patterns such as large and small dots.

Tee juice markers need to be heat set so I carefully heat set the dots with a heat tool. This way, if I get caught in the rain, my dots will not wash away.

Next, use StazOn ink to stamp a sentiment on Inkjet Cotton Percale. I chose a fitting sentiment like “just dance” to go along with the tap theme. Since Inkjet Cotton Percale sheets are created for inkjet printers, you can skip the ink and print a sentiment in the font of your choice.

Cut the sentiment out and use decoupage medium and a foam brush to decoupage to the front of the shoe. Make sure you use three to four coats and let each coat dry between applications. This will ensure your sentiment stays in tact.

I also decoupaged a vintage image, cut from the pages of one of my vintage text books, to embellish the tap. When doing this, make sure you do not cover up any of the holes on the tap.

To further embellish, I used Stickles in clear to outline the image and a “little sparkler” from Websters Pages. Both of these supplies can be purchased at Scrapbook.com. Use some very strong tacky adhesive, such as E-6000, to glue the sparkler to the bottom of the tap.

Now for the tricky part, getting the tap attached to the top of the shoe. Position the tap on the shoe like you want it to appear when it is attached. Use the Tee Juice Marker to outline the tap and mark above the position of two pairs of the top holes.

Remove the tap and use a heavy duty punch, such as the Big Bite by WR Memory Keepers to punch the holes. If you don’t have one of these tools, I would highly suggest you consider investing in one. I think it is one of the best tools I have purchased. It punches through metal, fabric layers and all kinds of things I used to have to get the drill out for! I LOVE it!

To securing attach the embellished tap to the shoe, I used a combination of wire and tacky glue. Cut four lengths of wire to 4″ with wire nips.

Thread the wire through one pair of the punched holes, going from the inside as shown, so the ends of the wire are sticking out of the holes.

Now thread the wire through two of the closely positioned holes on the tap. Repeat for the other side. Use some round nose jewelry pliers to curl the ends of the wire together, securing positioning the tap to the top of the shoe and making sure the ends of the wire curl under for safety.

Lastly, use the tee juice marker to fill in where the drawn line is and make it thicker. Also, place some super tacky glue under the tap to further secure it to the shoe. Neopaque paints, Tee Juice Markers and Inkjet Cotton Percale sheets can be purchased from Dick Blick.