My First Doll Shoes Project

Greetings and Salutations!

Doll shoes are crazy expensive. Not sure if you knew. Girls need shoes to match outfits right?! So... What to do? Learn to make our own! I looked at this pair of shoes my daughter had received for Christmas for her doll. It looked like it was made with fun foam, cardboard and some sort of material to make the upper portion of the shoe. I have fun foam and cardboard... The upper portion of the shoe shouldn't be that hard if I start with sandals right? So since I had nothing to lose I figured I would give it a try and make a pair. Here is what I came up with.

They are a bit rough but given that they are just my prototype I think that they will get better with my next pair now that I've worked through it once.

And here is what I did to make them:

I started out with these materials... I later change my mind about the adhesive that I was going to use to put the shoes together but I took this photo first so there it is. Just imagine a hot glue gun in photo because I actually ended up using my hot glue gun told everything together so just don't pay any attention to the glue sticks. 

Using a pair of sandles (I discovered the sandles and shoes are different sizes on bottom, the sole of sandles is smaller) my daughter got for her doll at Christmas, I made a template for the shoes out of thin cardboard from food packaging. I only made one template because you can use one side for the left-hand side and the other for the right-hand side shoe. 

Using the template I cut out four pieces of material for each shoe, one from the glitter foam, one from this and cardboard and two from the non-glitter fun foam. 

I forgot to photos the next step so I will try and explain it as best I can. You simply start hot gluing all the layers together starting with the glitter foam which will be the insole of your little sandal. You glue it to the little piece of cardboard. Then take your ribbon or whatever you're going to use the top portion of your sandal and glue one side to the bottom of the cardboard. Then take it and measure it over your dolls foot to make sure it fits right, then glue the other side of the ribbon down in that spot on bottom of 'shoe' on cardboard. I learned to do that with my first sandle because I just eyeballed the first one and it was a little too loose for my doll and slips off a bit. But I guess that's why they call it a prototype, as you're working out the kinks. Then after you include on the ribbon apply your next layer of fun foam below that and then another. Be careful as you're going to hold the little pieces together so that the edges of your shoe will be as smooth as possible. Of course you're going to be working with hot glue so this might involve some pain on your end. Haha! Crafting is it for wimps! Anyway, I still think the edges of my shoe are a little bit rough and I suppose I could sand them down if you will with a nail file. I am actually playing with the idea of taking some glitter and putting around the edges and then putting glitter around the edges but I haven't tried it yet. If I do I will come back and let you know how it goes. A lot of premade sandles have a little 'heel' on the bottom but I know that flip flops for people don't have heels and I was going for that look so I kept the bottom even. If you were making the soles for shoes, you would just just another sole from same template and cut off the front portion, keep the heel portion and then glue it on accordingly. 

Also, the sandles don't hold on as well as I would like and I am going to try and add a small ribbon backing to the next pair... 

That is it! 

As an aside, since I had my hot glue gun out anyway I decided I would try a little project I've been meaning to since I thought of it. Since I made the table for the dolls I've been looking for ways to find tableware for them, dishes and whatnot. So I was at work the other day, and I happen to work at a church. As I was cleaning up a little I looked down and saw a communion cup...  Hey! Those look perfectly doll sized! I asked permission to take home a little stack of six to try out my idea. I wanted to alter them in some way to make them look more like tumblers and less like communion cups. I decided it'd be cute to make a little 'base' out of a button, hot glued on. 

I only had enough buttons for three so that is what I made. 

Ok, that is it for now! I am off to my craft table for an hour of me time before I wake up my crew!

Thanks for dropping by! See you next time I hope!

XOXO