juicy map shoes

[fabricfightsfire]

well, today this random girl in my school was walking down the hallway,  and i saw that she was wearing really awesome shoes. They had this map on them, and they were adorable. I asked here where she go them, and she said juicy. Now I'm not much of a fan of juicy, but they were cute. However, I'm not about to fork over 80 dollars for some high class "vans", plus i can't really buy them after asking her, and its different if i make my own. (you know how it goes)

so, if you don't care about all that,
how would i do this?

I'm horrible with a paintbrush and i don't think
that i could really do a good job painting it well
(although i could try) and i think sharpie would
seep through and make it all blurry like it is on
fabric. Iron on transfers? I don't know, but it looks like
how t-shirts are printed, with that sort of shiny ink
on the fabric. But I'm no expert!      
Ok so here are some pictures i could scrape together

   


also, i like them in pink, so is there a way to get pink vans? or van like shoes that are blank

[sarush]

you can totally buy pink vans or plain ones, however if you're going with plain old white, i would just try to find old man white ones at like wal mart for $10. they used to sell them when i was a kid because my sister and i would go to town with puffy paint on them.

but if you go to van's website, you can make your own vans, with custom fabric and rubber sole colors, etc. airwalks now sells their shoes at payless and you can get pretty cute ones cheap there, i got a pair with blue argyle and my sister just said she got a pair with rainbow colored hearts and stuff. i don't know if airwalks sells any plain ones.

i don't know what the best fabric application method would be, but there is a thread here: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=156073.msg1556972#msg1556972

it's about using acetate/chemical stuff to transfer images to different mediums. somewhere in that forum is the girl's results with color images. all you have to do is get the map printed out in color with a toner-printing printer, so not an ink jet one.

good luck

[jchinique]

Tracing is easy; you could get a pair of cheapies at Walmart or Payless, and probably find a neat map in a book from the library or online. You could dye them if you want pink; I've never done that, but I have clothes that have pink juice stains that were impossible to remove...

Get the image on paper by printing or photocopying, trim it to size (you could cut it into 3 sections - front, left and right, roughly matching the shoe's panels.)
Use a pencil on the back of the page to shade over the lines that you want on your shoe.

Tape or pin in place right side up and use a dull pencil to go over the lines again on the front of the paper. Use enough pressure to transfer your map to the shoe.
As far as coloring and details, I know sharpie makes a fine point version, but you can also look for fine-tip paint markers in a hobby store (I'm thinking walmart again) or colored pencils that you can heat-set in the dryer.

Good luck, I think it's a great project; and best of all they will be YOUR unique shoes!