Foot lasts with modified toe part

Monster High Gooliope Jellington is a really good doll to make shoes for because of her foot size. And it's possible to make really high heeled shoes for her, unlike for Miss Piggy. I wanted to make foot lasts for Gooliope for making pointy toed shoes.

I started by shaping the bottom of the toe part using paper and glued those to plaster castings of the doll's feet. This ensures that the toe parts will be as identical as possible.

Then I used modeling clay to shape the toe parts. If you're only planning to make one or two pairs, this kind of foot lasts are fine for it, but I wanted something more durable. I wanted resin castings, so the process continued from this.

I attached the foot lasts to a piece of cardboard and painted them. The paint helps in making the surface more even, especially if you apply several coats.

After painting the lasts, I applied some glossy sealer on them to make sure the latex molds would be easy to remove. Latex is fine for resin casting especially when you only need to do the casting once.

Here are the final foot lasts. Resin is so hard that it will be easy to stretch the shoe material tightly around the toe part to have a smooth finish. Of course you'll need to fill the toe parts with some sort of stuffing once the shoes are ready to make the toe part keep its shape.

Plaster casting continued

I used the molds for plaster casting and also experimented on using a latex mold to make polymer clay heels. I had never done that before, but thought it was worth trying.

Plaster casting with latex molds

The latest video is about making latex molds of heels for plaster casting.

Tiny Kitty's shoes

These shoes had been at this stage for a long time. In fact, so long that I didn't manage to find any of the earlier photos, even though I must have taken some. It doesn't really matter, because the stages up to this point are described in earlier posts about other shoes. I used a pair of wedge soles made by casting plaster in latex moulds. I glued some silver-colored fabric on the sides of the soles, glued pieces of leather as outer soles, and made the insoles using cardstock and the same fabric I used for the sides.

Next I glued the insoles in place as the straps were so thick that they had to be glued to the sides, not under the insoles (that works in bigger shoes, but not in 1/6 scale). The straps are made of card-woven bands left over from some earlier project. I glued one side first and let it dry.

Then I glued the other side and the pieces behind the heel that will hold the ankle straps.

The way of closing the ankle straps is a bit different from the ones I've tried before. I attached a small bead and button on the vertical piece and used glue to secure the ends of the thread. The bead is there to make some room between the band and the button, so closing the strap will be easier.

Then I glued the ankle straps in place. Making working buckles in this size isn't easy, so I used thin rubber bands. They will deteriorate in time, so I'm not too happy about using them, but they work very well in the short run.

Here are the finished shoes from different angles. Dark ankle straps probably would look better, but I only had rubber bands in gold, silver, bronze and multi-color, so silver will have to do for now. Also the vertical pieces look clumsy. This is really why I rarely make shoes in this scale (only slightly bigger than Barbie shoes). It is so hard to make them look right.

An old pair from 2007

I made these shoes for Madame Alexander's Cissy in 2007. These are among the first experiments I made with plaster casting soles.

I covered the soles with fabric.

Then I glued on some plastic decorations. The fabric had to be used partly to keep the plaster from chipping, partly because parts of the soles will always show between the decorations, no matter how carefully you place them.


Finally, I glued on the insoles and straps and covered the sides with sealer.


The shoes have been stored in a box with other pairs for several years now and the other day, when I took them out, I noticed this:

The sealer looks really bad. This is the only pair where this has happened. All the other ones, even the oldest, look fine, so I have no idea why it happened with these shoes. Could be a reaction between PVA glue and sealer.

The original Finnish blog post is here.

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 16" Miss Piggy

The basis for these shoes were plaster castings I had made some time ago. I glued the platform toe parts to cardboard soles that had 3 layers of cardboard glued in shape.

Next, I covered the sides of the toe parts with leather and filled gaps with leftover pieces to make sure that the outer soles would stay even when glued in place.

Then I covered the plaster casting heels with leather and glued them in place. Usually the heels are the last part to be glued, but I wanted to try a different method this time.

Then I covered with leather the edges that still had cardboard visible. The metal strip you can see in the photo is there to provide extra support to keep the arch in correct form. I don't use that a lot, but Piggy weighs more than smaller dolls, so some additional strength is a good idea.

For the closing mechanism I decided to try hook and eye, which turned out to be a bad idea as you can see later.

The straps are made of leather and the decorations are actually sticker strips with transparent background. Those are really easy to use for something like this. I covered the strips with glossy sealer just to be sure that nothing will fall off later.

The insoles are made of cardboard and covered with leather leaving some extra around the edges. I cut off the extra where the straps went, but in other places I turned it under the soles.

Here you can see the insoles with some sections already turned under.

The problem with hook and eye was that the end of the strap pointed to the side instead of going along the side of the foot. As I had already glued the pieces in place, I decided to fix this by cutting the hooks, pressing them flat and gluing the straps to the leather strips that held the hooks. So the result is no closing mechanism at all, but fortunately Miss Piggy's feet are different from most other dolls' feet and even shoes with fixed straps placed this high will be fine.

Finally, here are the finished shoes. The outer soles are finished with pieces of dark brown leather.

Platform shoes for a Monster High doll

I had several pairs of the plaster casting soles, so I decided to make another pair of platforms. These are basically similar to the orange silk shoes I made earlier, only the ankle strap is different.

I glued the front parts of the insoles (from toes to about middle of the arch) in place before gluing the straps in place. If the strap construction is anything more complicated, it is better to do it first, but in this case only the end of the vertical strap needed to be glued under the insole.


Here is a closeup of the strap construction.


And here are the finished shoes.

Monster High shoes with plaster casting soles

It has been some time since I last made any doll shoes. This pair has remained unfinished since March, but I finally decided to finish it.

The soles are plaster castings made with latex moulds. I glued fabric on the sides of the soles and on top of the inner soles made of cardboard.

After gluing the straps in place, I glued the inner soles to the plaster castings and glued in place the outer soles made of leather.

Another pair of platforms for Monster High dolls

I decided to use fabric on the other pair of plaster casting soles. The orange silk I used for Jessica Rabbit's platform shoes gave nice results (although it was bit hard to handle), so I decided to use it.

I started by cutting pieces of the fabric and gluing the ends to the side of the sole. This seam will remain visible, so you need to make it as neat as possible. If you botch it, all is not lost as you can always glue some additional decorations on top of it. In fact, if your original plan is to use decorations, plan ahead and place the seam where it will be covered with them.


As the fabric is not glued to the sides of the soles anywhere else, it needs to be glued to both the top and bottom of the sole. I prefer to do the top first as it is the harder part. When that is done, all you need to do is to pull the fabric tight as you glue the bottom part.


Here you can see the insoles (leather and one layer of cardboard) and the leather pieces for the bottom of the soles. The uppers shown here are otherwise similar to those in Jessica's shoes, except they are made of cardboard. In this scale, it is easiest material to handle as it is sturdy, but not too thick. Bend the cardboard to the desired shape and keep it that way while gluing the fabric to get the best result. Finally, place the uppers on the correct position on top of the insoles and glue the ends of the fabric under the insoles in the usual way, cutting off any excess and making little triangular flaps.


I got so concentrated on making the rest that I forgot to take photos. Anyway, the part that will be behind the doll's heel is also cardboard covered the same way as the uppers. This time, I glued a piece of fabric also on the inside as it will show a little even when the shoes are on the doll's feet.


The straps are made of thin rubber band and go trough little loops glued to the inside of the shoes. This way, the straps are easy to replace later, if desired.


Here are the finished shoes on the doll's feet.


One thing you need to remember with this kind of shoes is that they cannot take any moisture. The plaster casting is basically unprotected as there is only a thin layer of silk on top of it. The same goes with the uppers made of cardboard. If you want a bit better protection for the plaster castings, use material that can be glued all over them. Then the glue and the thicker material will offer some protection against moisture.