Hi friends! Today I am sharing a super fun project with you! Watermelon shoes! A while ago, I read Sophia Webster’s book, and learned about her Jessica watermelon shoes. Unfortunately, she only sold them for a small amount of time and they were quite out of my price range. So I did some research, and decided to make my own Sophia Webster inspired watermelon shoes!

How should I pick my shoes?

The kind of shoe doesn’t really matter. You can turn any kind of shoe you want into watermelons if you think about it. Heels, flats, boots, pretty much any shoe will work.

At first when I was purchasing my shoes, I was worried that the suede wouldn’t paint very well, but I decided I would just give it a go and see what happened! It ended up painting just fine!

I bought a pair of reddish-pink heels on Thredup. They were marked as a “flawed gem”, but that didn’t matter because I was going to paint them anyway. Speaking of paint… 

What kind of paint should I use?

I chose to just use regular acrylic paint because this project was just an experiment and I wasn’t necessarily wanting it to last for a long time. That being said, I did notice the last time I wore them, the paint was getting messed up. So, if you're wanting to create shoes that will last you forever, I might choose a different method. 

I used grass green, white, and black paint for my shoes.

A pair of shoes and paint seems like a pretty small supply list, is there anything else I’ll need? 

Not really! It’s a super simple project, but if you really want some other supplies, here’s a short list of other things that might come in handy:

  • A paintbrush or two (smaller ones will be best for the little details)
  • ½ inch painter’s tape or masking tape
  • Something to cover your work surface
  • And a pencil

Let’s talk about the orientation of your watermelon(s)! 

This part is totally up to you. You can choose how to convey the watermelon message on your shoes. Whether it be painting small watermelon slices on your shoes, or turning the whole shoe into a piece of watermelon the choice is yours. For my shoes, I chose to just turn the heel into watermelon leaving the rest of the shoe pink. 

Want to see the process? Let’s jump into it!

NOTE: this tutorial is based off of the shoes I created which were block heels. You will need to modify the instructions if you plan to paint a different kind of shoe. 

First gather your supplies (listed above) and prepare your workspace.

Next, tape around the bottom of your heel aligning the edge of your tape with the edge of the sole of your shoe. Tape another piece of tape along the top of that piece.

Then remove the bottom piece so you have created a stripe of pink between the sole of your shoe and the top piece of tape. If you want to keep the sole of your shoe the color it is, I would tape around it too. 

Paint that stripe of pink with your darkest green. It may seem a little darker depending on the color of your shoe. The paint may also soak into the suede if you chose suede shoes. I put two coats on mine. Wait for it to dry before applying the next coat and also before painting the next layer of green.

For the next layer, tape over the dark green so as not to mess it up (this is why it’s important to wait till it’s dry!). Then tape ~¼ of an inch above the dark green stripe leaving an ~¼ inch stripe of pink. Mix a small amount of green paint with a larger amount of white paint. Paint that lighter green stripe in! Once again, wait for it to dry before applying the next coat and also before painting the next layer which will be white. 

For the very last layer, I chose not to tape at all, because the whitish part of the watermelon needs to fade a little and that’s rather hard to do with the tape restraining you. I took a very thin brush with a very small amount of white and brushed it upwards from the top of the green stripe. 

To create seeds, I recommend tracing them on very lightly with a pencil first. I did not, and my seeds all look very different. Most of the time I don’t mind, but some of them ended up a little larger than I wanted. Paint them with a very small paint brush and black paint. 

If you want, you can either cover the visible sole or paint it green. I chose to paint it using my darkest green. I wasn’t expecting the paint to stick, but surprisingly it did! Just make sure you don’t touch it till it's dry! 

And tada! You have watermelon shoes! Congratulations! I hope you love them as much as I do! 

Happy crafting!