Yellow shoes

Riley's robot shoes have been on the verge of too small for several weeks. Plus, the soles were starting to shred. Clearly, he needed new sneakers. I burned a lot of time looking for his Robot shoes in a larger size to no avail. And there was a pair of Vans that had a robot pattern. but while I could find pictures of them all over the Internet, they didn't seem to be for sale anywhere.
But these robot shoes were really a distraction. What Riley really wanted were yellow shoes. And it is nigh on impossible to find that color for a boy. It isn't in the palette of drab and drabber allotted for boys.

Having failed at finding a second round of robot shoes, I decided to take matters into my own hands. If I couldn't find yellow sneakers, I would make them.

And it turned out to be amazingly simple. Originally I thought I would have to paint them with fabric paint. But after a little thinking, I realized that I could dye them. I got a packet from the Craft store, and after 15 minutes, these plain white sneakers were delightfully yellow.

Riley is beyond thrilled. He loves wearing them. And he loves the clip-clop sound that the still stiff soles make when he walks.

And I'm already thinking about how I might tweak the next pair. It was a win-win solution.