Giving an Old Pair of Shoes New Life with Leather Dye

Did you know that you could dye leather?   Clearly I like the idea of giving apparel a second life with dye, and as I was doing some spring cleaning last week,  I realized I might be able to do something similar with shoes. See, I had this very sad looking pair of yellow boots (yes,  I wore a pair of yellow boots to shreds), but I could never bear to get rid of them.  They were just so comfy and the little heel is the perfect height to wear walking around the city all day.  
Exhibit A:

I'm not even sure the photo does justice to how stained and beaten up they were.    I tried cleaning and polishing, but I just couldn't get them looking presentable.

This is where the dye comes in:  I figured if I couldn't get the stains off,  maybe I could cover them up!  After  a lot of Googling about dying leather, this seemed like a simple project I could tackle myself.  However, they also needed to be re-soled.   I figured I would take them to the cobbler to get them fixed up while I waited for the dye to arrive in the mail.  When I took them in,  I saw a sign that they dye leather.   So,  it was settled,  for just $30,  I basically got a new pair of shoes!

The results:

They're much darker than I had envisioned, because the cobbler said that dark brown or black was all that would cover up the stains.  I think they'll be great to throw on in the winter! Of course, I was so excited about them,  I threw them on today (see below)

Moral of the story is,  if you have something you love,  don't give up on it! I also had two other shoes fixed up at the cobbler(new heels and a new sole).  Clearly,  I can't let go of a good pair of shoes.

An Attempt at Upholstry

A couple of months ago I found a pair of chairs on Craigslist for $5.  We needed some extra seating in our living room, but don't have much space so the low profile of the chairs seemed perfect. Since the pair was so cheap,  I figured I could play around with upholstering them. (Or,  if it went really poorly, take them to a professional) Here are the results of the first chair:

Not bad for a first attempt, but I learned a lot.  I figured this was a pretty simple project as far as upholstry is concerned.  However, without the right tools,  I was pretty limited.  I couldn't quite  get the fabric cleanly into the frame with the standard staple gun that I had.  And,  the piping didn't totally cover up my work.  (Maybe I'll show some detail photos in a later post).  My mom helped with the pillow-cover so that piece looked great.  However, choosing to use stripes probably wasn't a good choice because that just added to the challenge.  

I'm still deciding what to do with the other chair.  Maybe use this as a learning experience, and see if I can do it better?  Or, maybe just hire an expert?  For now,  I'm happy with some new seating in our living room.