Cork soles for Monster High doll shoes

I haven't made any doll shoes for some time, but as I got two of the Monster High dolls, which have odd-sized feet (not Barbie scale, but not like 15" dolls either), I got enough motivation to make some shoes.

The first idea was to make cork soles a bit differently than before. The usual method (stacking cork sheet pieces horizontally) requires a lot of work in the carving stage. This time, I decided to try if I could get the arch in the right shape in the cutting stage.

First I drew the shape on paper, cut the pattern, copied it to the cork sheet and cut the pieces. The two pieces are mirror images, so that the pencil marks are hidden inside and won't be visible.


Then I glued the pieces together using PVA glue and making sure the sides with pencil marks were inside and clean sides outside. These little plastic clamps are very handy when gluing something this small.


While the heels parts where drying, I made the bottom parts. The picture doesn't actually show the final form as I cut these in roughly the correct shape and carved the final shape after everything was glued together. The reason for this is that the bottom part needs to be a bit bigger than the heel, so you can remove the excess following the edges of the heel to get as seamless result as possible.


Here the pieces are together before gluing. I carved the heel shape as close to final as possible before gluing.


This is what a finished sole looks like. Now I only need to decide what kind of shoes I'm going to make using these.