Boots made of felt and modeling clay

The second Doll Shoe Projects book will be about making boots. This is one project that did not make it in the book, because things didn't go as planned. The yellow felt used for the uppers was already salvaged from another unsuccessful project. Probably should have just scrapped the whole thing, but I didn't want to throw all that felt away.

The pieces for the boots are simple, just the uppers and soles, both made of felt. The grey felt is made of recycled textiles and is 3 mm thick, so it's very stiff.

The first step was to glue the uppers to the edges of the soles. I used PVA glue for this. It works well when gluing pieces of felt together.

When the glue was dry, I sewed the front seams. The boots could be used like this, but my plan was to make the outer soles using modeling clay.

Here you can see the paper pattern on the left and a pattern cut from plastic on the right. The reason I was using a plastic pattern was that it's easier to get the modeling clay off from plastic after shaping the sole by pressing the clay against the pattern.

The clay I used was air-drying modelling foam, but any modeling clay would work. Actually, polymer clay would have been a better choice for the reason explained later in this post.

Here are the soles, shaped using the plastic pattern. I made them slightly bigger than the pattern, because air-drying clay tends to shrink.

Not big enough, it turned out. As you can see, the sole doesn't cover the entire insole and some gray remains visible. With polymer clay, this wouldn't be an issue as they don't shrink, at least not noticeably. At this point, I again considered scrapping the entire project, but decided to go on anyway just to see if this could still be salvaged.

I decided to glue some of that yellow felt to the soles to cover the gray felt. You get exactly the right shape by gluing a bigger piece first and then cutting off the excess.

The final stage was to glue the foam soles in place. I'm not sure I like how the seams between the uppers and foam soles look like, but at least the gray soles are hidden now. I may end up covering the seams with ribbon, but for now, these are good enough.

I've done all but one of the projects I intend to include in the book. The structure of the book is all planned, almost all photos are ready, and I have plenty of notes in Scrivener for writing the actual text. I'm aiming at getting most of it done before the end of the year, because I'll be very busy in January due to starting my studies. We'll see how that goes. The first book remained unfinished for a very long time.

I'm also waiting for a snowfall, because I plan to shoot the cover photos outside and snowy landscape would be perfect for that.

Fixing the loafers

The second try on the loafers was more successful. In the photo below, you can see the soles (black, made of the same old mousepad as the sandal soles), paper pattern, pattern cut from clear plastic (more durable than paper), and the vertical side pieces. The soles are smaller this time. I traced the foot on paper and just rounded the result, not adding any extra length.

This time I used hot glue for attaching the side pieces around the edges of the soles. I even used it for the back seam, overlapping the edges a bit. Hot glue works extremely well with felt. I had soles made of air-drying modeling clay for which I used hot glue to attach the felt, didn't like the result and tried to remove the felt. Can't be done. The felt gets so effectively stuck that if you mess up, you cannot remove it and try again, you need to start from scratch.

The top of the shoes is similar to the first attempt. I tried making it narrower first, but it didn't work with these smaller soles, so the pattern for the top part was drawn the same way as in the first time. Basically, everything else was fine in the first time, just the soles were too big.

Here's another picture from a different angle. I'm still thinking about adding some decorations, but haven't figure out what those would be. The main thing for now is that the pattern and structure work, you just need to get the size of the soles correct.

Simple loafers

This is the sole I made for the Kindi Kids sandals. You just trace the doll's foot on paper and then shape the sole around it. This time I used it for making loafers out of felt.

Here are the pieces for the shoes. The grey soles are made of thick felt (0.3 mm) that is made of recycled textiles. The red parts are made of thinner felt I bought from a supermarket's crafts section. The uppers are shaped using the sole pattern and adding a small bit that won't be sewn into the side pieces, so it will turn up along the top of the foot.

I sewed the side pieces to the soles and then the back seam. Then tried this on the doll to check how it looked like.

The sides of the toe part were too high, so I adjusted them while the doll's foot was inside the shoe. Then I wrapped the remaining side piece around the shoe to adjust it the same way before sewing it in place in the other shoe.

Then I sewed the uppers in place. At this point I realized that the upper should have been narrower than the sole, but I wasn't going to undo anything and just accepted that this first try wasn't going to be a success. The soles need to be smaller anyway, so I'll make all the necessary adjustments in the next pair of loafers.

Here are the finished shoes on the doll. Not totally awful, but definitely in need of improvement. This doll's feet are so oddly shaped that it is a challenge, but I'm sure I'll be able to make a nicely fitting pair eventually.

Sandals using hot glue

I have been practicing with hot glue, and the Kindi Kids doll I have is perfect for this. The proportions of the doll are so off that it doesn't matter, if the shoes look a bit clumsy.

I'm also practicing with some new materials. The first of those is the black foam I used for the soles of these shoes. It's from an old mousepad. I just removed the fabric covering of the mousepad, and the material was easy to cut with scissors. It's soft, but still sturdy as the mouse pad was 0.5 cm thick.

As usual, I started by tracing the doll's foot on paper and then shaping the sole around that. Then I cut the soles from the mousepad.

For straps, I used this Christmas decoration material. It resembles the material I used for the stiletto heels, but it's not as stiff as that was. I expect to be making several pairs of shoes while experimenting with this material as there's 2 meters of it in the roll.

Here are the main parts of the shoes. On the left, the ends of the straps are cut in a way that they can be placed slightly slanted on the sides of the soles. At this point, the straps are a bit too long as it is better to leave some extra and trim that away while checking how the other end should be glued.

I used hot glue for every part of the assembly. Here the blue headed pin marks the place for the front edge of the strap.

I first glued one end and then checked with the doll how long the straps should be and where the other ends need to be glued.

After gluing the other ends in place, I glued vertical pieces behind the heels for attaching ankle straps. I also glued some of the red material on the edges of the soles where they remained bare.

The ankle straps are made of three thin rubber bands. I glued the ends inside the heel part, because that was the only place to hide them. Another option would have been to make a knot and let it show on the outside or cover it with some decoration.

Here are the finished shoes. The soles could have been shorter, and maybe the strap should have had only three rows to show the toes, but these are good enough for a first try with new materials, new kind of glue and new type of doll.

Various types of shoes

The next part of my collection is yet again in a display case in my bookshelf. The top shelf contains shoes for Tonner's American Model, Jessica Rabbit and 16" Miss Piggy. The second shelf has shoes for Tonner's Agnes Dreary on the left, and two pairs for Mezco's Living Dead Dolls on the right. The small shoe in the middle is a charm that I cast using tin and a silicone mold. The third shelf has one pair (the yellow ones) for Rini and three pairs for Jolina by Zapf Creation, and the bottom row has one pair I made for Sybarite, plus her original shoes.

Here are the links to available blog posts:

Top shelf: first pair (Finnish blog), second pair, third pair, fourth pair

Second shelf: first pair & second pair, fourth pair

Third shelf: second pair (similar to the orange ones in the post about the third pair), third pair

Bottom shelf: first pair

First part of my collection

I started making doll shoes about 20 years ago, so I have accumulated quite a bit of them, although I did sell some for a brief time around 2004. The money I got for the ones I sold wasn't worth it because of the time it takes to make just one pair, so later I just traded some with friends for other doll items.

This is the first post of showing my collection and providing links to the relevant blog posts, if available. Let's start with some of the older ones, although future posts will have old and new mixed as I tend to group the shoes by the doll for which they were made.

The glass box I have on top of one of my dollhouses contains shoes for the following dolls: The shoes in the front row are for an old, 18", hollow plastic doll with no manufacturer markings. The doll has flat feet, so I haven't made very many pairs for it. The pair with pale green insoles is for Tonner's 16" Miss Piggy, and the rest are for Madame Alexander's Cissy.

Front row: The rightmost pair can be seen in a post in the Finnish blog. The post also has a picture of the doll. The brown shoes next to them are made after a Manolo Blahnik design. The blue shoes are made after a Mary Quant design and the post is in the Finnish blog.

Miss Piggy's shoes can be found in this blog. The posts about Cissy's shoes are all in the Finnish blog, links below. 

Back row: First from left, second pair, third pair, fourth pair.

Middle row: First from left, second pair, fourth pair.

It seems that there is no blog post about the ones in which I used a zipper in the upper (middle row, third pair). I thought there would be, but it's possible I just posted it in Flickr at the time (when I was still using it).

More resin castings

As I was using the last of the resin as long as it was still usable, I decided to make some castings for boot making. For shoes, you only need the casting to be up to the doll's ankle, but I wanted to make boots for Gooliope. 16" dolls are especially difficult to handle when making shoes, so having just the leg below the knee makes things a lot easier. As I was going through the trouble, I thought I might as well make some others. The other doll in the picture below is a Living Dead Doll.

The picture shows how messy it is to create latex molds. Latex keeps dripping for some time after dipping the doll's feet to it, so you need some protection, in this case a newspaper, on the table.

At this point, I had to start calculating the amount of resin required, so I wouldn't have any resin mixed without having a mold to put it in. The easiest way to check the amount needed is to put some water in a measuring cup and put the doll's feet in it. The rise in the water level shows the amount needed. Unfortunately I didn't have a better measuring cup, so the numbers were only approximates, but that's better than nothing.

You also need to remember that if you're using resin with the ratio of 1:1 between resin and hardener, you need half of the measured amount of both. Elementary, but can be easy to forget when you keep thinking that one number you just measured.

The latex molds I made were fairly thin as you can see in the picture. They were only needed for one casting, so I didn't see any need to make them real sturdy. The third pair in the picture is for a My Little Pony Equestria Girls doll. 

Below are some castings waiting to harden. The big pair is for a 16" male doll by Robert Tonner. The ones with flat soles usually stay upright by themselves, but the Equestria girls molds needed some support, so I put them into a small plastic cup.

Finally, here are some hardened castings that have been removed from the molds. They still need to harden some more after removing them, although these are so thick that there was no risk of anything bending. When making shoe soles, it is important to always check immediately after removing them from the molds that the shape is correct, and if it is not, fix it as long as the resin is still soft enough to do it.

The first Doll Shoe Projects book

I've had this book unfinished for a long time. I started it after I wrote Techniques for Making Doll Shoes, but I had so much other stuff to do that I left most of the doll shoe projects for a long time. Now I finally got the last project to be included in the book finished, so I've got all the pictures I need. All text is also written, but it's going to need some editing. This is going to be a series, one type of shoes per book with 4-5 different variations, easy to find and cheap materials, and every step from start to finish explained in detail. 

The most common complaint about the technique book was that people wanted instructions from start to finish, but it was a reference book. So, these smaller books will provide just that. Another complaint was that it was mainly about fashion doll shoes (high heels), so this one is for flat-footed dolls, but I'm sure I'll be also doing some high heel projects later.

The editing and publishing will take a few days, but this should be available next week at the latest. I'll probably also make it -50% for the first few days. I'll let you know when it's available by posting here and in Twitter.

Flat soles using MoldMaker

In one the old videos, I made flat soles for the Baha Cat using polymer clay with a mold. This new video is about making flat soles using mold making clay and polymer clay. The doll for which I'm making the soles is again Baha Cat, although near the end, I'm also showing a mold for male Monster High dolls and some soles I made using it.

Shoes for a Living Dead Doll

The Living Dead Dolls have flat feet, so quite a lot of faking is necessary to make something with even a small heel. Here are soles consisting of two layers of cardboard, leather insole, toe part made of air-drying clay (with a little piece of leather preventing the foot from touching the colored clay), and a thick layer of cork.

The toe part of the upper is the first to be glued in place. The clay part helps stretching the leather tightly to prevent creases.

Here you can see the idea. The thick part made of cork makes it possible to make heels for the shoes, and this sort of faking also helps in making shoes that are more in scale with the doll (the doll's feet are much too short compared to the doll's height).

The rest of the upper goes in place next.

This part isn't necessary as you could just glue the outer soles in place and make stacked heels, but I wanted to try something different. So, I took pieces of the leather I used for the uppers, cut outer soles that were slightly larger than what I would have used normally, and glued them in place.

Then I sewed stitches all around, giving the impression that the soles were stitched in place.

Here's a closer look of the stitches.

After stitching, I trimmed the edges, glued the outer soles in place, trimmed those as well, and made stacked heels using the same leather as for the outer soles. Finally, I made the holes for laces and made laces using the same thread I used for stitching.

The shoes go on and off without opening the laces, so I put a little glue to the knots to prevent them from opening.

Gladiator sandals

I've been wanting to make gladiator sandals for some doll and decided to make them for the skater doll. After all, this type of sandals are originally supposed to have flat soles.

The first photo shows the parts required: soles, zippers and straps. The straps are made of lace treated with sealer to keep its form. The insoles are pieces of leather with one layer of cardboard underneath. The white cardboard parts shown under the insoles did not make it to the final construction as it turned out that the soles need to be flexible or you can't get the shoes on the doll's feet.


Here you can see the zippers and straps glued in place.


And here is a back view. The problem with reqular sized zippers is that they don't open far enough. With high heel shoes, it is not a problem, but with flat feet, you need to be really careful with the length of the straps.


All that was left to do was gluing the leather outer soles in place. After this experiment, I'd say that buckles would be a better choice for this kind of shoes, although they would require more work both when making the shoes and when putting them on the doll's feet or taking off.

Ballerina shoes

This is one of my newest dolls in her original outfit. Her feet turned out to be almost the same size as the tall blonde doll's, but I still decided to make new shoes for her.

I still have quite a bit of orange silk left and decided to try a pair with lining. After cutting the lining with the pattern I had made, I sewed the lining and upper together (the piece on the right in the photo) and then sewed the seam behind the heel and turned the piece over (the piece on the left in the photo).

The insoles have a piece of leather with one layer of cardboard underneath. I glued the uppers in place, gluing sometimes both layers at the same time, but in more difficult places, first the lining and then the silk.

Finally, I glued the leather outer soles in place. The problem with this construction is that you need to be very careful when sewing the back seam or you'll end up with uppers that are not identical, which is what happened here. The difference is not big, but I see it and it bugs me.

So, I made another pair, this time without lining. When the seam is glued, it is much easier to make the uppers identical. The edge of the fabric was treated with Fray Stay to prevent it from fraying.