How To Revive Your Old White Trainers

Having always worked in shoe shops the whole of my working life, I happen to know a thing or two about shoes. I can measure feet, check the fit of shoes, offer style advice as well as giving advice on how to care for your precious purchase. But despite this I found myself not taking my own advice and wrecking all of my favourite shoes because I'm too impatient to spray them with protector before I wear them. 

An example of this is my beloved Adidas Superstars, that after having been worn practically everyday for a couple of months and on a few nights out (sticky floors, spilt drinks and white trainers do not mix) were left looking dirty and brown. This is a far cry from the crisp white leather they were when I bought them and before buying a new pair I thought I'd try restore them to their former glory and share the process with you.

The first thing to note when cleaning leather trainers is that unlike canvas trainers (like converse) they cannot be put in the washing machine, I repeat DO NOT PUT THEM IN THE WASHING MACHINE!!! Putting leather trainers in the washing machine will ruin the leather and can result in holes, then if you try to return them to the shop because they are 'faulty' they will not give you a refund. What you can machine wash however is the laces, so your first step is to remove the laces and chuck them in the washing machine, or hand wash them in hot soapy water.

To clean the actual trainers I used a clean soft brush and Kiwi Whitener.

I then slightly wet the clean soft brush and started scrubbing the outside of the trainers to get all the dirt off of them and then wiped them down with a clean cloth. I also found that using a brush was better than using a baby wipe as the brush got in all of the nooks and crannies. As you can see from the picture above this made quite a dramatic difference on it's own but they still weren't a perfect white and there were a few grey marks around the front and on some of the stitching. 

Still with the laces removed I went onto use Kiwi's whitener white is basically a fast drying white paint for your trainers. It's just pigmented enough to brighten the trainers without looking patchy in places and the triangle sponge applicator means application is easy. Just make sure to avoid all of the black and gold details on the trainers as you don't want them ending up white. I made sure to use the whitener all over the shoe, including the tongue, front and outer sole. When your trainers and laces are dry (the whitener dries pretty much immediately) lace up your trainers and you're done!

This has made such a difference to my trainers and from the outside look practically brand new, so if you love your trainers looking white and want to save a bit of money this may be the perfect solution for you! My trainers are a bit worn on the inside at the back (I shouldn't of been so lazy and unlaced them properly everytime I took them off) so eventually I will need a new pair but they won't need throwing away just yet. I also used the same process on the white soles of my vans and it worked just as well on them so don't be hesitant to this use on other trainers.

What do you think of my revived trainers? Have you ever tried doing this with your shoes?

Eleanor xx

DIY Polaroid Wall Decoration

I love DIY's and some of my favourite blogs, like A Beautiful Mess, often post DIY's. I do like to have a go at some of them myself but I always forget to take photo's or I think that they're so obvious that I don't bother blogging about them. But today is a bit different because I've decided to share with you a little DIY I did earlier this week: a Polaroid wall decoration for my room.

You will need:
- Some string

- Paper clips

- Polaroid pictures 

- Blue tac 
- Scissors

If you don't have a polaroid camera like myself there are hundreds of websites that will print off your Instagram pictures into a polaroid. I chose to use the printic app because not only can you use pictures directly from your Instagram account but also your camera roll. After using a promo code I found online my order of 15 prints came to £1.35 including delivery which is unbelievably cheap and the best thing is that while they are cheap the prints are very high quality. Mine took 5 working days to be delivered which is a reasonably quick considering they come from France and they arrived in an adorable orange envelope. If you use the code B01EFE you can get £4 off your first order.

The next thing I did when I got my prints was to arrange them in the order I wanted to hang them up in. You can do this however you like, randomly, colour co ordinated or even in chronological order it's totally up to you to decide what look best for your photos. I then measured how long I wanted the piece of string to be to hang on my wall, making sure it was the length of the wall plus a bit extra and cut it with the scissors. I then simply paper clipped the photos along the string leaving equal gaps between each photo. 

The last step is to hang your photo garland along the wall, you can do this in a variety of ways including a staple gun or hooks but I just hung mine on a picture hook already in the middle of my wall and then blue tacked the ends to the wall so the wall wasn't damaged if I decided to take it down. 

This is a very cheap, easy and personal decoration for your room that can be altered to fit your style. Want something a bit more fancy? You could easily use indoor fairy lights (make sure that they are the type that don't heat up and can be used near paper) instead of string or colourful little pegs instead of paper clips.

Do you often do DIY's? 

Eleanor xx