Unique shoes DIY

I recently purchased a pair of new converse type shoes from New Look, and decided that I wanted to make them a little bit more unique. I have plain white ones with the simple black lines on the rubber sole. When deciding the decoration I wanted, I chose a simple black&white look with Aztec-y geometric-y patterns, but you can do anything you want!! That's the beauty of DIY, you can make it the way you want it :)

You will need:

• Shoes (obviously!)
• A pencil
• A permanent marker or waterproof paints (I suggest acrylic)
• Some idea of the decoration you want
• Waterproofing/setting spray (optional, but recommended)

Step one: Draw out the design strait onto the shoes using the pencil (I did measuring and trial and error to get the right size and shape)

Step two: Go over the pencil lines using your pens or paint, there's really nothing to it!! I took a while since I only had a thin marker, so colouring larger areas took longer...

Step three (optional): Spray with the waterproofing or setting spray and off you go, personalised shoes!! Easy as :D

The finished shoe

Paint on the walls again... DIY

I have a memo on my phone of all my favourite lyric lines, but I only read them when I go on to add more to the ever-growing list, so I decided to take some of those powerfully twisted words and to put them around my room.

I decided to use the lyrics "But who am I to tell fate where its supposed to go?" from Colbie Callats song amazing song Brighter than the Sun, which also goes with my map theme... kind-of... :)

What I used:

• Lamp Black Acrylic paint
• Water
• Paintbrush and mixing stick
• My paint cup
• A pencil and rubber

Step one: Mix the paint and water to create a thinner solution (if you're using a thinner paint you can skip this step)

Step two: Draw out you lyrics onto the wall using the pencil. I went for my own handwriting font, but you can print off text to trace if you want a more specific finish.

Step three: Paint over your pencil outline using the paint (it's harder than your expect because you're at a strange angle) 

Step four: Wait for the paint to dry then rub out the pencil lines being careful not to smudge the paint (depending on the paints you use, this may or may not happen).

Ta Da!! Finished :)

DIY Map Wall

Okay, so today I decided to redecorate my room (I've actually been thinking about it for a while, but today it actually got done).  I didn't have any paints or wall paper and already had some decoration painted onto the wall, but I did have some old atlases and a lot of time on my hands, so here's what I did to create The Wall of Wanderers... (because it's a map, and people with maps wander about... get it? get it?... .. .)

You will need:

• Maps of some kind (I used road atlases) 
• or tonnes of craft paper, you can use whatever you like!!
• lots of blue tack
• a fair amount of time (it took me the majority of my afternoon)
• and a great playlist to keep you going...
• (optional) a friend to help you

Step one: Choose your paper and pile them up with the image you want facing downwards (this just makes it easier for the tacking). 

Step two: Go though all the pieces of paper and put a small amount of blue tack on each corner, then take them over to the wall you're going to cover.

Step three: Stick the paper to the wall (I started at the bottom right, then made my way along to the left, leaving the very top ones until last, which I had to get a ladder for). I had to cut up some pieces to go around plugs and to make them the right height and width so it looked good at the edges, but other than that, it was a simple task!!

I think it looks pretty cool and is definitely going to be staying up for a while, but by only using blue tack to put it up means it will be easy to take it down again if I want to :)

The finished wall