Shoes that fit Pinkie Cooper dolls

I just got Pepper Parson of the Pinkie Cooper range and of course I had to check, if any of the existing shoes would fit her. Unfortunately, it looks like only boots will fit, because the doll's feet don't need to go all the way into them.

Here is the doll wearing Barbie boots from 1970's.

A closeup from the side shows that the boots aren't a perfect match, but they look like this on most other dolls as well.

Another pair of boots that fit are these white cowboy boots I have originally bought for Blythe.

However, the best fit comes from a Re-Ment set. These look very nice and just the right size.

No other Barbie shoes than the brown boots fit the doll, but these Barbie leg warmers look quite nice on her. I might try making something of ballet shoe type to go with these.

Unfinished projects

I've been doing some cleaning and there are a lot of unfinished projects, some of which may never be finished. I decided to collect some of them to this post.

First, a pair of Barbie stilettos, which were bright pink to start with. I painted them black using acrylic paint and then added sealer to prevent the paint from chipping. These are unfinished, because I haven't figured out what kind of straps to use and how to attach them.

Next, a pair of plaster castings for Monster High dolls. The first stage was making a master using balsa wood.

Here's the sanded and painted master with another one made of modeling clay.

Making the latex mould. If you want something else than a wedge sole with this technique, the easiest option is to make the back of the heel straight, so the opening can be placed there.

A pair of plaster soles right out of the mould.

Here after a few coats of paint. And that's how far this project has come.

Then another Monster High repaint. The next stage will be painting the round studs, but I've been postponing that, because I know how hard it will be with eyesight like mine.

The final one is an experiment with shrinking plastic. It's a thin sheet of plastic (white, opaque or transparent), which shrinks and hardens when you bake it in the oven. The first picture shows the piece I made to get the right measurements. The scale drawn in the piece of plastic was originally 3 cm long.

When you bake the pieces, they first curl and then straighten back. The result is flat, if the oven temperature is just right.

I used the plastic sheets to make the same kind of heels as in the shoes made entirely of cardboard. Far right is the pattern in the correct size, far left the pattern enlarged to take the shrinking into consideration, and in the middle is the baked plastic heel.

Here you can see the difference in thickness. The upper piece I'm holding is an unbaked sheet and the lower one is a baked piece.

I have also made the straight parts of soles for these and glued the heels into them, but that's where this project has stopped, at least for now. The next stage would be to make the inner soles, probably out of cardboard as usual.

Shoes for Alvin Ailey Barbie

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Barbie has pointed toe feet, so very few Barbie shoes fit. I decided to try making shoes for her, although Barbie feet are a bit too small to my taste.

The first step was to make the insoles out of cardboard. As you can see here, I made a toe part for the sole, although it would be left empty. The shoes need to have closed toe to disguise this.

Next, I glued pieces of leather there, so the toe part would keep its form.

Here you can see the pieces in place. I could have printed the texts directly to the cardboard I used for insoles as it would have been neater than gluing separate texts in place, but as this was the first try, I didn't bother.

I used narrow strips of decorative band for the uppers. Using several narrow strips helps getting the correct form as they can overlap, if needed.

Here one half of the upper is ready and the other needs to be glued in place next.

I made the ankle straps using rubber bands the same way I used them for Barbie shoes once before.

Here are the finished shoes from front and side. The heels are made of round pieces of wood cut to a 45 degree angle on the other end and painted white. The outer soles are made of leather.

I'm not quite happy with the result, but for a first try, it is good enough. Also, I learned a few things that should be done a bit differently, so I will probably try another pair at a later date.

Louboutin Barbie shoes

The Louboutin shoes for Barbie finally arrived. The first photo shows the contents of the set: 9 pairs of shoes, 9 shoe boxes, 9 shoe pouches with print, and a stack of silk paper. As you can see in this picture, also the insides of the shoes are painted, which is unusual. The outer soles have the signature red of Louboutin shoes.

My favorite pair is the red one. It is also one of the two pairs that fit Silkstone Barbies as you can see in the picture.

The blue pair also fits Silkstones and is almost as nice as the red.

The rest of the shoes only fit regular Barbies. Here they are shown on a Fashionistas Barbie. I didn't even bother to try the shoes on my Hollywood Royalty Lana Turner doll, as her feet are wider than Silkstone Barbie's. As you can see from some of the thinner heels, these shoes are made of fairly soft plastic. That means bending heels, but otherwise the shoes seem more durable than the ones made of harder plastic.

The black pair with ribbons is my third favorite.

The ankle straps of the shoes have an opening to get the shoes on the doll's feet. I'm not sure which Barbie these were designed for, but the straps won't go all the way around Fashionista's ankles.


The straps of the pink shoes are closed, but it was fairly easy to get the shoes on the doll's feet. When I saw the first photos of the set, I didn't think much of these, but they are actually quite nice.

The upmost strap of these shoes is open on the back and the opening leaves a huge gap.

The opening in this pair is similar to what is used in boots and looks much nicer than the way the black pair was made.

Barbie shoes from Mattel

Here are a couple of particularly nice pairs of shoes from Mattel's Barbie fashion sets.

First, ankle boots, if you can call these boots. The doll wearing them is a Fashionistas Barbie and these do not fit Silkstones.

These came with Barbie fashion worn by the Alvin Ailey Barbie in the next picture.

The next pair came in a set of three outfits. The doll here is a Silkstone Barbie and the shoes fit very well.

The set these came in is shown in the next picture. The picture is small, but you can see the dresses well enough to recognize the package, if you come across it. The other pair of shoes in the package is also very nice.


Of the dresses, the blue one fits also Fashion Royalty dolls well.

Update: The set seems to be available in Amazon: Barbie Fashion Doll Clothes - A Night out on the Town!

More pictures about the Barbie shoes

Here are more pictures of the Barbie shoes I made earlier. The blog post about making them is here. I will explain later the reason for adding these photos.

The shoes on Hollywood Royalty Lana Turner doll:


The shoes on Silkstone Barbie:


The shoes on Fashionistas Barbie (a bit loose as you can see):


Outer soles:


View from back:

Wedge soles for Barbie and Fashion Royalty

Here is another pair of Barbie shoes. These don't require any special materials, just cardboard, ribbon, glue, paint, and scissors. The shoes are modeled here by Hollywood Royalty Lana Turner doll.

You can find the pattern and detailed instructions as a PDF file on my web site.

Wedge soles for Barbie

These shoes are a variation of one of the pairs I made for the Monster High doll. In the photo below, you can see the plaster castings of Silkstone Barbie's feet, a pair of wedge soles I have made using casting resin (these soles can be seen in the second row from left in the picture showing all cast soles), and a drawing of the insole. When the sole is ready before you start making the shoes, you need to draw the insole pattern using the sole, not the doll's foot as is normally the case.


Here are the insoles with the leather insoles glued in place and small pieces of leather glued underneath (but not yet trimmed) to guide the straps and make the toe part of the sole even. The crosses on the cardboard soles are there to help keep the right side down. As the wedge soles are uniform soles (right and left are the same), but not exactly symmetrical, it is important to make sure the cardboard soles won't turn over unnoticed before they get glued to the leather pieces. 


Here are the uppers, which are almost identical to the ones I used for the Monster High doll's shoes.


The next photo shows the uppers glued in place. All that is left now is to glue the wedge soles in place, paint them and glue leather outer soles in place.


Here are the finished shoes. The reason why I painted the sides of the soles last is that the edges of the leather pieces glued underneath the insoles need to be painted as well, so they will not stick out. The leather pieces at the bottom of the wedge soles are there to cover the unevenness of the surface. As the soles are cast so that this part is in the opening of the mould, the surface is different from the other surfaces. Another solution would be sanding, but it is much easier to just glue leather outer soles in place.