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.

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.