DIY Cap Toe Flats

After lusting after the Ann Taylor Elizabeth flats, I swore up and down that if I was able to find a pair of nude flats, I would recreate them myself (at a fraction of the cost).  

Enter Ardene flats.

I was so ecstatic when I saw these puppies and when they had one pair in my size left, I almost squealed.  Now it was just a matter of choosing between neon pink or yellow for the cap toes (both of which I had already).

Let's get started!

Supplies:

* Ardene flats $15

* China Glaze nail polish $5 (sale)

* Masking tape $1

* Paint brush $1

Tape off a cap-toe section.  I eye-balled it but used the bottom of the stitch line around the toes to line up my masking tape so it would match both shoes.

Paint.  Paint, paint, paint.  Seriously.  Neon nail polish isn't very opaque so it took me about 10 coats over the course of three evenings (that up there is about four coats).  The good news is it dries very quickly so you can bang out several coats quickly.  Another idea might be to use white nail polish first, as a base coat, and then the neon polish.

I ended up just pouring the nail polish onto the shoe, then spread it around with the brush.

I started using the nail polish brush, but it wasn't big enough.  Unfortunately the big paint brush was leaving brush strokes, but that's okay for the first eight coats or so.  When it started to be more opaque and was looking like I was getting close, I used the nail polish brush for the last two coats so there wouldn't be big brush strokes or patches.

Once finished, seal with a clear nail polish top coat.  Before I did this, I put my shoes on, walked around and the cap-toe started to crack.  In a panic I painted the clear nail polish on to seal it and it seems to have worked.

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diy, neon