DIY Patterned Shoes (Firu's Birthday Special!)

This year I made Firu DIY shoes for his birthday. I have this habit of giving handmade or deeply thoughtful gifts for the people that I love. Double that for my family, best friends and, of course, Firu. The shoes I used to DIY came from Asos, though there's no reason why you can't use cheaper shoes. Although I think the quality of the canvas won't be as good - but it shouldn't be quite apparent. These ones are pretty good, seeing in how fast they absorb water when I used water colour. Cheap knock offs might be less absorbant and can have a negative effect on the whole process. I know it's probably rather lame to gift him DIY shoes since it's pretty easy to do and pretty much everyone can make it too. But it's the thought that counts, right? Plus, what better time is there to DIY shoes if not summer?

You'll need: 

canvas shoes
fabric paint
fabric markers (I used 2 shades of a colour)
brushes (various sizes help)
water colour

This is how I did it: I went nuts with the markers, drawing all these spontaneous patterns - sorry, bad instructions, I know. But I did. Then I let the markers dry for a day before painting the linings of the hole. The fabric paint I used instructed me to wait at least 3 days for it to dry then I washed the shoes (using the machine, though it's not recommended). And finally, I dab some water colour on some parts of the shoes, creating soft hues all around. That's it. Visually, it goes like this:

I've got some confessions to make. First, the water colour thing was an accident. I did want to actually paint the whole thing with water colour but it went down the drain real quick. It was supposed to look like this pair from Valerie Chua but, it didn't. I tried to scrub it off but it didn't work so I decided to just make some hue-ish effect. Second, I first used a fabric marker for the darker colour and a paper marker for the lighter colour. Stupid mistake, really. After I put it into the machine, the lighter colour was washed right off and I had to start filling the gaps all over again. Since it was all hand-drawn, it was pretty obvious that I couldn't make the same pattern twice - I'm not a printer. If you look closely, you'll notice the differences between the right and the left shoe. So there you go. Hope you guys find it helpful and have fun DIY-ing!