Paper tennis shoes pattern to print

Today we’re going to knock out some reverse printed faux saddle shoes with Mod Podge Photo Transfer Medium1

So here we are for project #5 of Mod Podge Week! This was my very first experience with Mod Podge Photo Transfer Medium and let me just say that I’ve already purchased my second bottle. This little bottle is big fun…

Some time ago I made a pair of saddle shoes using only a black fabric marker. I’ve mentioned before my shoe purges where I have to give some up to keep some of the new shoes I make. What I don’t keep I give to my sister who, conveniently, wears the same size as I do. Only having worn the saddle shoes a few times I went ahead and tucked them into one of the many bags of DIYed ‘stuff’ I carry down every visit.

The next time I went down she was wearing those saddle tennis shoes but with a big, big difference. It turns out that she loved and wore and washed those saddle tennis shoes so many times that the black area was just a light to medium gray. And the white part was a different gray from the wear that happens to the both of us when we try to keep white sneakers.

So my initial plan was to make Jen a pair of saddle shoes with print instead of solid black. But when I played with the Photo Transfer Medium it seemed like with the eyelets and whatnot that it would be an incredibly advanced first attempt. So instead I made some reverse saddle shoes with the print on the toe and heel and the solid in the middle. In the end, I think they’re lovely and I hope they’ll be tough enough for my sister!

For this project you will need:

First you’ll need to find something to take your pattern from for the transfer. I went through my copious amounts of scrapbooking paper and selected three very lovely patterns and had them printed at Kinko’s. Be sure that the machine you use is toner only. I think there’s not a lot of concern as I don’t even know if larger machines like that take anything but toner, but it’s always a good idea to play it safe.

Why won’t print offs from your home ink jet printer work? The way a photo transfer works is that the medium picks up the toner and accepts it onto the layer. If you try using inkjet the only thing that happens is the ink returns to a liquid and bleeds everywhere without any semblance of an image at all.

I tested out a small amount of my three papers on a pair of tester shoes I keep and found that I preferred the white background for one simple reason. I did get a few spots where the transfer didn’tt work 100% when there were odd curves to deal with (like on a shoe). The white background made any imperfections considerably less noticeable.

Now the directions tell you to put the transfer medium onto the image and then apply. But that wasn’t going to work out for me since I wanted a very specific area covered. I just went ahead and slathered that stuff right onto the shoes and went a bit thicker than suggested.