Thomas Breeden
     Staff Writer

One day during mid-summer 2010, Rachel Blackburn’s phone rang. It was her friend, Tyler.

“He called me and he was like ‘Hey let’s hang out! Let’s spend the day together,’” Blackburn remembered. “He’s like, ‘Here’s what we’re gonna do: I’m gonna bring shoes over and we’re gonna paint them.’”

That’s what they did. It was on that day she painted her first pair of shoes — some Converses — with a colorful peacock.

“We spent the day painting them and at the end of the day I was like, ‘This doesn’t look terrible!’” she laughed.

Tyler had the idea that they could make it into a business. He set up a website and posted pictures of what they’d made. Soon their friends saw what they were doing and wanted some for themselves. Want a Pair? Custom Shoe Design was born.

Though Tyler moved away shortly after that, Blackburn kept up the project.

“I built my Etsy account, made a Facebook for it and then I started painting shoes for my friends,” she recounted.

Blackburn painted a sun and moon design for her friend’s 18th birthday. Another classmate wanted a peacock on their converses. Those became her most popular designs.

“I think I have six or seven different sun and moons because each one has to be unique. I don’t copy,” Blackburn explained.

Blackburn prides herself on the hand-painted nature of her work and wants her customers to have the experience of owning one-of-a-kind shoes.

During her freshman year of college her cousin wanted a pair of painted Toms for her birthday. Blackburn jumped on the opportunity to continue designing on Toms.

“Who doesn’t love Toms?” she asked. “They’re so popular!”

It turns out she was on to something. Once she began painting Toms, her business exploded. She received orders left and right from her new friends at school who had seen what she could do.

Most recently, she’s started doing Lilly Pulitzer-inspired designs, especially for the sororities here on campus. The downside, she said, was that she’s received some notifications on Etsy from sororities for the use of their letters.

Copyright warnings aside, she loves the challenge of custom orders. Her favorite pair is one where she painted the Seattle skyline on one shoe and the Sydney skyline on the other. The customer who ordered them had a special connection to both cities.

She’s done similar work with her “memorial shoes.” Someone will send her a picture of their lost loved one or favorite family pet and ask her to do a portrait of them on the shoes.

Though she loves it immensely, she still gets nervous when she gets a new order. Blackburn works from reference images and paints directly onto the shoes. There’s no sketching or drawing out ideas before hand.

“I never know going into it — there’s always this fear of like, ‘These are going to be horrible and someone’s paying for it,’” she explained. Despite Blackburn’s fears, her designs continue to please.

Her favorite part of what she does, she says, is getting feedback from her customers. Seven out of 10 times she ships them off and doesn’t hear anything back, but she lives for the other three.

Sometimes it’s a simple thank you note, but other times it’s pictures of her customers opening their shoes. Once she got a picture from the woman who ordered bridal shower shoes that Blackburn had embellished with Swarovski crystals.

“That was really cool. To be able to see I’m making people really happy with these. People love what they receive,” Blackburn said.

Another of her favorite moments was when she received a picture of two boys opening their Easter presents. She painted Minecraft and Harry Potter-themed shoes for them.

Though she’s made a fair amount of money from her hobby-turned-business, the personal connection she has to her customers means more to her.

It’s one of the reasons she uses Etsy, a crafter-centric site where the arts-minded can sell their creations.

“It’s more personal for sure. Like, you can send a message and it feels more [like] you’re talking directly to them. Instead of through Ebay where it’s a little harder,” she noted.

Her next stage for her business is working with leather paints. She got some this past Christmas, and she’s been experimenting with wallets, purses and her boyfriend’s white Doc Martens. She’s excited about moving into these new areas for her art, even if that area is not too far away from shoes.

In her personal life, Blackburn is preparing for law school. Blackburn majors in political science/pre-law with minors in Spanish and environmental studies. She aspires to become an environmental lawyer.

“I would love to get a job with someone like the Southern Environmental Law Center. Or maybe if there’s a northern environmental law center…Basically a law firm or an organization of law firms dedicated to litigating environmental offenses. That would be an ideal job,” she explained.

Wherever she ends up working, though, she’ll probably still be asking people: “Want a Pair?”

You can see Rachel Blackburn’s designs on her Want a Pair? Custom Shoe Design page on Facebook and order from Etsy.

You can check out her page at etsy.com/shop/rachelbdot.

Are you or anyone you know working on an interesting artistic project? Let us know at ae.carolinian@gmail.com!