Shoes on shoes

When I found this fabric, I knew I had to get it for making a pair of shoes. Usually, the biggest problem is that all instances of a certain picture are facing the same way, but in this case, I found one that had a mirror image. It is the pair of green shoes, which became the main focus of the design. Also, the single floral shoe is the mirror image of one of the shoes in the pair.

I had made wedge soles for Tonner's Jessica Rabbit using polymer clay and they were big enough to accommodate the green shoes. The fabric had to be cut in two pieces to get as close to identical pieces as possible, which meant there would be seams on both sides of the soles.

One of the handbag pictures also had a mirror image, so I used those for the insoles. The pictures around them were different, so the tips of the insoles are different, but I decided to let that be.

This is the pattern for the strap. I used an actual picture for making it as it was important to get it just right. The pattern is a bit frayed as I did not treat the fabric with sealer before making it. However, I did treat the actual straps with sealer before cutting them out of the fabric using the pattern.

Here are the straps and insoles in place. I also used additional pictures from the fabric to hide the seams. I first treated the parts of fabric with sealer, which helped cut the pictures out accurately.

I also added pictures to the front of the soles, because the triangular pattern in the green part of the fabric was crooked in one of the soles Finally, I applied sealer all over the soles and glued the leather outer soles in place.

Silver shoes for Miss Piggy

I haven't been making any shoes for months due to too much work, too hot weather in summer and a general lack of energy and motivation. However, I am trying to continue writing the book, so there will probably be some blog postings as well.

The shoes I made this time are made of silver-colored leather. As leather is thick material, making a neat toe part requires some stretching, so I decided to use polymer clay to make fillers for the toe parts to help them keep their shape.

The leather pieces for the toe parts were easy to cut as only one edge need to be finished at the cutting stage. The rest goes under the insole and will be trimmed during the gluing process.

When gluing the uppers in place, the first parts to glue are the tip and the first flaps on the sides. Then cut flaps in the middle of the sides and glue them in place. These will anchor the uppers in place and the rest of the flaps will be easier to cut and glue.

Here all flaps are glued in place. The most important thing is to ensure there is no overlapping as that will show as bumps in the outer soles.

The heels are pieces of round wooden strips covered with the same leather and enough excess left to reach to the edges of the insoles. Usually there is no need to have this much excess, but these heels were a lot narrower than the width of the sole. The only way to find out the right amount is to try the heels in place, cut a little, try again, cut more if necessary, and repeat as many times as needed.

Here the heels are in place. The seam is a bit higher than I would normally place it, but I had to cover some unevenness in the part where the upper was turned under the insole.

I used leftover pieces of the leather to fill the underside of the insole. This ensures that the outer soles will be even. The leather I used for the outer soles was fairly thin, so any depressions would have shown if I hadn't done this.

The finished shoes have a hole in the strap and a small bead in the opposite part to close the strap.

New foot lasts

Going through the stuff inspired me to do something else as well. I decided to use the rest of the casting resin before it goes bad. The latex is also getting a bit thick, so it's better to use it as well. So, I'm making some more foot lasts.

All this has been done before and posted in this blog, but here are some photos anyway. The first one shows Sybarite's feet with flower tape around the ankles and several layers of latex applied.

The next one is Tonner's Jessica Rabbit (17" athletic body). First with flower tape covering the ankle joints...

...and then with latex applied.

Here are the finished moulds for both.

And here are the resin castings made with the moulds. You can see the flower tape clearly, but it is much neater than saran wrap.

As you can see in this photo showing the earlier plaster castings of Sybarite's feet and the new resin castings.

Sandals for Tiny Kitty

Going through the resin soles I made on my first attempt at casting resin, I noticed some for Tiny Kitty and decided to make shoes using them. I started by making the insoles using card stock and leather. That way, I could continue with the uppers while waiting for the paint to dry.

I attached the resin soles to a support using double-sided mounting tape, so I could paint all sides except the top at once. I was using enamel paints and with them, the result is better, if you can paint all at once. I use mounting tape, because it is so thick that the sole does not touch the support.

Here are the soles after first coat of paint.

I wanted to use leather for the straps, but it is too thick to turn under the insoles when making shoes as small as these. So I cut the straps without any extra and made notches on the sides of the insoles for the ends of the straps.

Then I glued small strips of fabric at the ends of the straps.

And glued the straps into the notches, turning the fabric strips under the insoles. You could do this without the fabric, but the glued surface would be very small and I wouldn't trust it to hold. So the fabric is just for extra security.

I don't have pictures of the rest of the steps, but they are very simple. Just attach the straps for the toe parts the same way, glue the insoles in place and close the straps by attaching a bead to one side and making a hole to the other. You can see it below in the photos of the finished shoes.

I was planning to use some decorations on the straps, but I thought these looked so good like this that I discarded that plan. I can make another pair for that experiment.

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.

Sandals for Jessica Rabbit

The winter slumber is hopefully over now and I'll be able to make some new things. First, however, there are old ones to finish, like these shoes.

The picture below shows the thinner insoles in the middle and thicker outsoles on the edges. All are made of several layers of cardboard glued together with PVA glue. The heels, shown on the back, are made of casting resin (more about that in an earlier blog post).


I covered the heels and the edges of the outer soles with fabric.


Then I covered the insoles with black satin. In this stage, you need to be careful not to get glue anywhere else than under the insoles. It's a lot easier to avoid glue stains than it is to remove them.


Next, I made the straps using narrow silk ribbon. The ends of the piece that keeps the five ribbons together are glued on the underside as it looks better. In this scale and with thin silk ribbon, there won't be too much bulging even with three layers of ribbon.


With all the straps in place, I glued the inner and outer soles together and added the buckles. The buckles are small plastic decorations I painted with gold color. The last stage was to add leather outer soles and taps (little pieces at the bottom of the heels).


Finally, here are the finished shoes on the doll's feet.

More cardboard stuff

Cardboard proved to be interesting material, so I had to experiment a bit more. Here are shoe soles for Jessica Rabbit (who has Tonner's Athletic Body with high heel feet). These are similar to the Barbie and Monster High shoes, except for the curved part in the heel.

Here the soles have been painted with gold paint.

I decided to make the insoles the same way as for the orange silk shoes. The main thing with these is to make sure there is glue only in the parts that go under the insoles, so the fabric stays neat. Also, be careful when cutting the triangular flaps. There should be no cut edges visible on the sides of the insoles.

I glued little loops for the straps. When you do it this way, you can glue the insoles to the outer soles before putting the straps in place, which makes things easier. Also, you can change the straps to different ones at any point, so you get a very versatile pair of shoes this way.

Finally, here are the finished shoes. You can vary the material, length and positioning of the straps to get different results.

Orange silk platforms for Jessica Rabbit

These shoes look simple, but surprisingly, this is the most time-consuming pair I have made so far. In all, I estimate that I used 8-9 hours for making these shoes. These are for Tonner's Jessica Rabbit, who has an Athletic Body with high heel feet. This means the feet are almost as big as American Model's.

I started with parts I originally made for American Model, although the original masters were for Madame Alexander's Cissy. The good thing about making the sole using two separate pieces is that you can use the pieces for different dolls as long as their foot size is approximately the same. In this case, the differences are in the shape of the arch and the length of the foot, both of which can be accommodated when making the cardboard parts of the sole.

The picture shows the resin parts of the soles and the patterns for making the cardboard parts. The pattern on the right is an extra one as it turned out I didn't need it. 

These are the platform parts with the cardboard parts for the outer sole in place. I made the upper cardboard part first with two layers of cardboard, glued it to the resin part and then glued the lower parts (two layers) in place one layer at a time.

Here are the plaster castings of the doll's feet, cardboard insoles (with two layers of cardboard in each), outer soles, and heels.

Next, I covered the insoles with white satin. As glue would seep through the fabric and make it lose its shine, the fabric edges needed to be glued under the insoles where they wouldn't be visible. Usually I just treat the fabric with sealer and cut the excess along the edges of the insole.

The fabric I planned to use for covering the outer soles was silk, which has the same problem as satin. So I had to be careful not to get any glue on the fabric in places where it would be visible. Only the flaps, which were glued over and under the sole could have any glue in them.

Here are both insoles and outer soles with fabric glued in place.

Next, I made the uppers. Silk is too thin as such, so I cut the uppers from thicker fabric and covered them with silk. No part of the thicker fabric was to go under the insole, just the silk covering, so the uppers needed to be exactly the right size.

I don't usually use lining, but the flaps would have been visible without it, so I cut slightly smaller pieces than the uppers from the same white satin I used for the insoles. I glued the lining in place with Fray Stop, which doesn't get hard when it dries like PVA glue does.

Then I glued the uppers into the insoles, which were now finished.

Covering the heels with silk all the way would have been too difficult, so I painted part of them with silver color. Some stiletto platforms have this construction in real life.

In the upper part of the heels I used silk I had treated with sealer. It looks different from the fabric in the rest of the shoe, but there was no choice, if I wanted a neat result.

Here the heel is glued in place.

Then I glued the fabric to the outer sole the same way as before, using triangular flaps.

All that was left was gluing the two finished pieces together and covering the underside of the outer soles. For the arch, I used silk treated with sealer, like in the heels, and the platform part is covered with a little piece of leather.

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