My boots re-made for walking & that's just what we'll do

I truly love my purple patent Dr Martens. So you can imagine my dismay when the colour started to wear away. I didn't mind so much that they weren't shiny any more, they're supposed to be my stomping boots & when you stomp as much as I do you've got to expect some kind of wear & tear :)

So I looked around on the internet for ideas about fixing/revamping my boots. My first idea was to glitter them up. If you type glitter boots DIY into google you get a tonne of ideas.

I read that the patent sheen on the boots can mean that whatever you spray or paint on the surface of the boot can easily flake or chip off, unless you treat them first. Most sites recommend acetone. So I thought if clean them, sand them down & then used some nail polish remover to clean them again & remove any dusty particles I'd be in business :)

Here's stage one:

 

I made my glitter paint by mixing 50/50 water & PVA glue & then proceeded to paint them in lots of thin layers. I probably spent around 2 days working on them, slowly building up the layers until I was happy & then I painted them with a water based clear varnish. Which was the BIGGEST mistake I made. I go so carried away with getting them finished so I could wear them, I may have been high on purple glitter ;) I painted the varnish on without watering it down :( after just a few hours of stomping this happened:

 In an attempt to salvage them I tried to sand off the now rock hard varnish, & then paint them with just a couple of more thin coats of glitter, but to no avail :( I wasn't happy with the finish. So I set to picking all the glitter off. 

Now to attempt number two :)

This time I did some more research & i found that some people recommended painting them with an acrylic based spray paint. So here we go again:

I was so pleased with the finish this time, it was exactly what I wanted to achieve :) they looked good as new :)

Now there is a part three to come. Sadly The acrylic paint suffered a similar fate. The natural creases in the leather from just general everyday wear also caused the paint to flake off in the same places. So it was back to the drawing board I went.

This time I've sanded them down again to try & give a better surface for the paint to bond to. I got some 100% pure acetone to really take off those tops layers of paint & patent & on the recommendation of a friend at a festival I got hold of some clear acrylic based spray lacquer. The kind of stuff you use on cars. Both items you can get on ebay &/or Amazon. 

Pictures will follow. They're so shiny, even more than the above. I left 24 hours between painting them & lacquering them in the hopes that this will give them a chance to dry off. I've left them several days before wearing them too, so keep your fingers crossed for me. I'll update this blog entry with how they go soon :)