How To Dye Converse Type Shoes

I love green. Most forms of it other than the bright acid lime greens. Teal is my favourite but it's so rare to find teal as i view it. Mostly it's a few shades down from turquoise. No thanks. It's so hard to find things in the colours i like. So when searching for some Converse i came unstuck. Parasailing is a close match to what i like, as is Kelly Green but at £45+ they were out of my range really. I don't mind paying that for patterned Cons like these Wonder Woman ones and these Furry Leopard Print ones but i didn't want to pay that for plain ones that weren't really what i wanted.

So i had a brainwave. Buy cheap fake white 'Converse' and dye them! Now all was going well until i realised that Dylon who are the only people who make fabric dye in the UK have a poor colour selection. But still. I would have very unique one of a kind shoes. And this is how i did it...

1) My 'Cons' were £6.99 in New Look. As long as your shoes are natural fabric, you'll be fine. You're meant to wash the fabric first but i just soaked them in lukewarm water for a minute then left to drain.
2) Mix your dye (I used Dylon Dark Green, £2.99 in my local hardware shop) with 500ml of warm water and stir to dissolve.
3) In a plastic bowl or stainless steel sink, add about 5 tablespoons of salt to about 6 litres of warm water. Add the dye mix and stir to dissolve the salt.
4) Add your shoes. Now it says to stir for 15 minutes and then again frequently for the next 45 mins but i just made sure it was all covered and underwater and basically left it there for about an hour and a half (i was sunning myself and forgot but no harm done!)
5) Take them out and rinse in cold water. Rinse again well in warm water. And again for good measure. Leave to dry and you're done! Mine are currently on the front door step drying.

Mixing the dye 

As Con as i could get!

Soaking in the dye, after i took this i turned them over for the main dying time

After first rinse

 All rinsed but still wet

This was stupidly easy and so far, the results are great. I have no doubt they will dye my feet green and run if i end up getting them wet but the beauty is, i can dye them again! When i blog next i'll show you a quick shot of the finished (dried!) article but so far so good. If you end up dying yours, please let me know how you get on. I would also use this to breathe a new lease of life into old battered ones, but isn't that half the fun of an old pair of Chucks?!
Hope you're all enjoying the lovely weather x

EDIT - I've just thought. If i ad a little blue to the dark green dye it *may* turn out just how i want. I feel a summer project coming on.....