How to Paint Canvas Shoes the Easy Way!

Painting shoes canvas can be an easy and fun craft. Grab some chalk paint and learn how to paint canvas shoes for any occassion!

Besides Christmas, my second favorite projects to make are patriotic crafts.  I love showing off pride for our great country.  You might remember my reverse canvas with a free SVG cut file I made a while back.

In the past, I have made a few Proud To Be An American shirts (free cut file) and a baby 4th of July outfit, but this year I’m going to the feet.  That’s right, some fun patriotic shoes!

This was the first time painting shoes and it was so easy.  Really, I promise!!  No fancy cutting machines needed for this project so anyone can make these distressed flag shoes.

Aren’t they fun?

I made a full narrated video tutorial link at the bottom so make sure to watch it.  I also have printable directions for how to paint canvas shoes at the bottom of the post.

In the video, I demonstrate how to paint just one of the shoes, but simply do the process on both of the white shoes at the same time. 

Materials Needed for DIY Patriotic Shoes

I love using chalk paint for so many different projects because I think it’s the best paint to work with. It goes on easily, cleans easily, and gives the best results. I haven’t tried painting on leather shoes but if you thin down your chalk paint and add thin layers of paint, it should work!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links from Amazon, Target.com and/or Cricut.com. I receive a small commission at no cost to you when you make a purchase using my links (purple text).

• canvas shoes – I bought these new shoes from Target.com (just search canvas shoes if it doesn’t automatically come up!)
• chalk paint in different colors – I used Waverly paint from Walmart.com in Crimson and Ocean.
• blue painter’s tape (0.5 inch or 1 inch)
• X-Acto knife and cutting mat if 1-inch tape
• stars – either foil stickers or cut from adhesive vinyl with an electronic cutting machine

Prepping to Make Distressed Flag Shoes

If you have 1/2 inch painter’s tape, you can skip this step.  If you are using 1 inch like I did cut the tape in half.  I laid mine down on a mat and used a ruler and X-Acto knife to cut it right down the middle.

The first thing you’ll want to do is tape off the areas you don’t want to be painted. With white shoes, our base color is going to stay white.

Place one strip of the painter’s tape down the middle of the shoe.  Apply another right next to it and another right next to that one so there are three in a row.

The middle serves to keep the exact spacing between the striped lines.  Take off the middle strip and place it on the opposite side of the strip next to it.

Keep placing strips of painter’s tape next to each other and pulling up the one in the middle on both sides of the shoe. 

Make sure to watch the video, if this part seems confusing.  This is what your shoe should end up looking like with all the tape on it.

You can add a strip of painter’s tape around the bottom on top of the rubber soles if you are a messy painter like me!  Push down the painter’s tape as well as you can on the canvas shoes.

Painting Shoes Canvas to 4th of July Shoes

Now, start painting the white stripes with red chalk paint.  Try not to go under the blue tape.  You can fill in the whole space or leave some spots if you want more of a distressed look.

Once you have everything painted, pull off the blue painter’s tape.  Chalk paint dries pretty quickly so I pulled mine off right away, but you can wait a few minutes. 

Just make sure not to get paint on your fingers and touch the shoe with it!

Viola!   Stripes are appearing!

Now on to adding stars to our 4th of July shoes!

Apply the foil stickers onto the small area heal of the canvas shoe in any pattern you like.  Push them down as well as you can on the canvas material.

Then paint over them gently with blue chalk paint.  Try not to let the edges lift by being rough with the paintbrush.

It’s up to you on if you want to paint the bottom of the shoe or the top ridge.  Totally personal preference!  That’s what makes making things yourself so unique!

Wait a few minutes for the paint to dry (no heat gun needed!).  I used my Cricut trueknife (XActo) to lift up a corner of the star and then gently pulled it off with my fingers.

That’s the beauty of distressed, it does not need to be perfect!

Once the paint is fully dry, you can lightly sand the chalk paint if you want to add a more distressed look.  If you want the vibrant colors, simply leave it how it is.

Quick and easy and a great way to add character to plain shoes!  Now you have some fun patriotic shoes to wear for 4th of July or really any time of the year!

How to Paint Shoes Video Tutorial

You can hop on over to my YouTube channel to watch the full detailed narrated tutorial on painting shoes if you would like to watch the steps in action.

If you’d like to share or save this post for later, simply hover over the top left of the image below and PIN It now!

And here are the printable directions…

Thanks so much for stopping by and I’d love to hear if you have other shoe painting ideas that you’ve tried on your own shoes!

Have a creative day,