I am going to make some moulds for doll shoe soles. There is some info on my home page, but I'll go into more detail here. Also, I know a lot more now than I did when I wrote those instructions.
First I drew a pattern for the foot. Then I cut one piece of foam core and several layers of cardboard using the pattern.
I glued the cardboard pieces together, cut a heel out of that piece and glued it in place to the foamcore sole.
Then I drew a pattern for the sole in the rest of the multilayer piece, cut out the pieces and glued them to the foam core sole.
When the glue was dry, I painted the sole. I used gloss acrylic paint and applied several coats.
Now I had the model ready and it was time to make a mould. I used Sculpey Mold Maker, because that is what was available. There may be other clays similar to it.
See the instructions in the package for making the mould. I noticed that it is easier to make the mould, if you cool the clay in the fridge for some time (after shaping it to suitable size) before pressing the object into it.
Bake the clay in the oven according to the instructions in the package. When the mould is cool, mist it with water and press a piece of polymer clay into it. As you may guess from the amount of water, I didn't actually mist the mould, I just put it under the tap and then shook off the extra water. It works fine that way.
After making the desired amount of pieces, bake them in the oven. I used red clay to get better pictures. The actual soles are going to be black or brown, but I do have some red leather, so maybe the Baha Cat is going to get red boots as well.
This mould was easy to make. I'm also planning on making moulds for casting plastic soles for Sybarite's shoes, but more about that later.
I made another pair of boots for the American Model. These are made of knitted tube, so there are no seams. As they stretch quite a bit, there is no need for zippers.
The upper edge of the leg was treated with Fray Stop, which is some sort of fabric glue. It stops the knit from unraveling, so there is no need for any other finishing.
The lace was sewn in place by hand. The heels are made of plaster and covered with the same knit and the outer soles are made of pink leather. I don't remember seeing real shoes with pink outer soles, but there is no point letting that stop me.
As I was making the loafers for Agnes Dreary, I was thinking about this video I first saw a couple of months ago. I really had no idea how shoes are sewn for real. I'm thinking of trying two needles next time. The reason for that is that I need to figure out how to make a strong enough pair of shoes for a play doll. The ones I usually do are for display only, but these will need to be robust enough to give to a 9-year-old.
I had a piece of thick white leather, which I had not even tried to use, because it was so stiff. I decided to try something very simple in which the parts folded below the insole would be as straight as possible. The result was the following structure:
Because the leather was very thick, I had to glue filler pieces to the underside of the insole. This way, the outer sole will be smooth even if it is not made of very thick leather.
I painted the cut edges of the leather with white acrylic paint to make them neat. The decorations are stickers, the heels are made of polymer clay and the outer soles are made of brown leather.
I once decided to try if I could make doll shoes using polymer clay. I was using Cernit, because I like it better than Fimo, which tends to get too soft in my hands.
First I formed the clay into a fairly thin sheet and then used a paper pattern and hobby knife to cut out the soles of the shoes. I used the heel part of the same pattern to cut two pieces for each heel. If the clay is difficult to cut neatly, place it in the fridge for a couple of hours to harden. Then it should be easier to cut. Also, the knife needs to be sharp.
I smoothed the edges of the soles, placed the heel pieces in place, and used the doll's feet to check that the form of the soles was correct. Then I baked the soles in the oven. When the soles had been baked and cooled, I added the insole, strap and small decoration.
The insole is probably more important here than when using other materials. Polymer clays have bright colors, so if they stain the doll's feet, it will certainly show. I'm not sure whether they stain or not, but I prefer caution and use an insole that insulates the doll's feet from the clay.
This experiment gave me an idea to try to make an entire shoe out of polymer clay. It should be fine, if you bake the sole first, so you don't need to be too careful with it. Then you could build basically anything on top of that, provided that you take care to check that the shoe will go on and off easily as this kind of shoes won't stretch at all.
It's been a while and I still haven't got into trying that, but maybe I will at some point.
The earlier posting reminded me of the boots I once made for Pullip. Pullips are approximately Barbie-sized, but they have a huge head and small feet. Fortunately, there is a joint in the ankle, so flat soles are fine. Heels would be a bit too much in this scale. Also, the doll's proportions are so unrealistic anyway that it does not matter, if the shoes have a bit strange proportions or scale.
These boots are made of leather and the insole is cardboard. Usually I cover the insole with leather, but in these, it is not visible and it was easier to make these using thin insoles. The outer sole is again made of different colored leather. The holes for laces are fairly big as 2 mm was the smallest eyelet I could find. The laces are made of cotton yarn. The 1 euro coin is in the picture to show the scale.
Another doll with small feet for which I have made shoes is California Girl Barbie. For a Barbie, she has sensible size of feet and it is possible to make shoes for her. The next picture shows some of the pairs I have made. The pink ones are made of polymer clay and I will post the instructions for those as soon as I have translated them.
