I don’t know about all you other mommies of little girls but
I love to put sandals and other cutsie shoes on my daughter (Now that she’s
walking. I’m totally opposed to shoes before walking HAHA)! Especially living
in Florida we get the opportunity to wear sandals most of the year! I ALSO do
not like to spend tons of money on all those cutsie shoes! Especially that they
grow out of them so quickly! One of my biggest money saving tips I could give
is to buy used! Normally I don’t like to buy used shoes but I figured with
infants and toddlers the shoes get used so little and for such a short amount
of time that if I could just clean them up a bit, I would totally do it! A
relative bought some adorable sandals for our daughter at a consignment shop. Although
I loved them I noticed they had those black foot stains at the bottom of the
inside of the shoe. GROSS! Wasn’t going to put that on my baby! But they were
just too cute I had to figure out a way to deep clean these shoes! I’ve always
heard of throwing old or dirty sneakers in the washer and they come out good as
new but I was afraid that with these being sandals and BABY sandals at that,
that they would get messed up. So I pulled an old trick that my grandma taught
me when I was growing up. An old TOOTHBRUSH! We don’t throw away old
toothbrushes at my house! We save them (clean them with bleach first) and use
them for those small tedious cleaning projects such as this one! I figured let
me try to take some liquid laundry detergent (my homemade stuff ;) ) and this toothbrush
and try to clean these shoes! Here’s what I did:
Took the shoes and ran them under warm water to get them
damp. Then, I filled the Cap of the Laundry detergent up and soaked the
toothbrush in it.
Scrubbed the shoe all around ESPECIALLY THE INSIDE of the shoe.
Then for extra stain removing, I sprayed the entire shoe with stain remover (especially the shoe's stitching thread) and let it sit over night.
Then I rinsed them off in the morning and they look practically NEW! See below: Right is before, Left is after.
The writing on the inside of the shoe may come off or fade but hey who cares! As long as they're clean and functional!
Now these aren't the shoes that I tried this on the first time. Both of these pairs are actually shoes that I bought my daughter that she had outgrown and dirtied. Instead of throwing them away I figured I could give them to a friend, sell/consign them or save them for later now that they are all clean! Just another way to save/earn money!
