Not sure if this would qualify as 'crafting', but once a month have to do 'shoe maintenance'. When you have a bunch of highly expensive shoes, you want to make sure they're maintained as much as possible to keep the appearance pristine, and take care of wear and tear as the materials that make shoes, while high durable and built to the wear and tear of the potential years of use, will not last forever unless you look after them.
Personally speaking, I have a fondness for Air Force 1s, Air Max 1s and Air Max 90s. When I got my first pair of AM 90s, the midsoles are notorious for wearing down and discoloring. This isn't a defect, it's a matter that the rubber that makes the midsole is a yellow color. We don't see this as generally the midsole is painted with a type of latex paint(or potential acrylic paint, I'm not quite sure). Anyways, as you get the shoes scuffed and marked, this paint will eventually wear off. Which just makes the shoes look like utter garbage....at least, for people that are deep into the hobby
I've been prepping these pair of shoes this evening. Usually requiring a lot of painter's tape. Believe it or not, the usual answer to repaint midsoles is some kind of leather or nylon paint designed for that material. What I've found that works the best when refurbishing sneakers is vehicle paint, specifically the spray paint made to paint car seats, consoles, and dashboards.
From this angle you can't really tell the damage done to the midsoles, the second picture with show what I mean.
