Sequins

I made these shoes with the same pattern as the white pumps. I treated the fabric with sealer and cut the pieces. The sequins and beads are sewn in place.


The next step was to cut the pieces some more. The fabric was too thick for rounded parts at the heel and toes, so I made both open to help gluing the uppers in place. Then it was time to sew in some more sequins and beads.


Here you can see the process of gluing the uppers to the soles. As you can see, there are only straight lines in the parts that are turned under the sole, so it is easy to get a good result.


The finished shoes look like this. The heels are made of polymer clay and I mixed the color myself. This is probably the easiest design to make, but with some decorations, you get nice looking shoes.

Sandals for Miss Piggy

The straps on these shoes are made of narrow card woven band. I used cotton yarn for that, so it is a bit thick, but as Piggy isn't as realistic as fashion dolls, deviation from the correct scale doesn't matter.

I used modeling clay for the outer soles, because the straps were so thick that this was the best way to deal with them. This clay is the sort that dries on its own and doesn't need to be baked. The reason for using that kind of clay is that the other parts of the shoes probably wouldn't like the heat and the soles need to be in place while drying to keep the correct shape.

The clay soles won't stick to the inner soles as you can see. Still, it is important to have them in place while shaping and drying them, so you get the indentations for the straps in correct places.

When the clay soles are entirely dry, you just glue them in place (PVA glue works well) and maybe sand them a little, if the surface isn't smooth enough. In this picture, you can also see the purpose of those flowers in the back straps. They cover the ends of the straps which have been glued together.

Finally, I painted the clay parts and the sides of the inner soles and applied a coat of sealer. The heels are made of polymer clay and I mixed the color myself. It's a bit lighter than the soles, but close enough.

First pair of shoes for Miss Piggy

I have been making shoes for Miss Piggy for the whole weekend, but some of them need time for the paint or glue to dry, so this simple pair was the first one I could finish.

Usually I don't glue the back seam this way, but the sealer made the fabric really stiff and this was the only way to apply enough pressure to the seam.

The sole is made of one layer of cardboard and the leather inner sole. When the upper is glued in place, the sole will hold its shape without any additional strengthening.

The heel is made of polymer clay and the outer sole is made of leather. Red decorative trim is glued in place on the edge and on the seam between leather sole and polymer clay heel.

Shoe size comparison

I ordered a Basic Miss Piggy in May and she has finally arrived. She's about as tall as Tonner's 16" dolls, but as you can guess, she's a bit wider. The picture below shows her with Sybarite Savoy.

Because she is a Basic Miss Piggy, the outfit is simple and so are the shoes, which are on the right side in the following picture. On the left are shoes for Sybarite and in the middle shoes for American Model.

As you can see, Miss Piggy's feet are considerably bigger, which is a good thing as it means more room for details in the shoes. Right now I'm making latex moulds of her feet and next I will make plaster castings of them. Then I will hopefully have time for making something interesting. I guess it's time to look at the shoe books and calendars for some inspiration.
For the Finnish post, see here.

Christian Dior shoes for Silkstone Barbie

I've got the Shoes Gallery Calendar 2009 (Page a Day Gallery Calendar) and I noticed something interesting when I bought a Barbie outfit set a couple of weeks ago.

The picture for May 4th was a Christian Dior shoe from 2007:




And this is the pair from Mattel's Barbie outfit pack (it had three dresses for Barbie and a groom outfit for Ken):




The similarity is quite remarkable, although the Barbie shoes are much too small to include that twisted strip structure the Christian Dior shoe has.

For the Finnish post, see here.

Silver leather ankle boots for Sybarite

I got the idea for these ankle boots from two pictures in the book A Century of Shoes: Icons of Style in the 20th Century. The pictures are these:


The good thing about this design is that it is a lot easier to make than normal ankle boot as the parts to be glued under the inner sole are almost straight.

I used a pair of soles I cast using casting resin. The color is a bit off in the picture as the soles are actually pale blue.


I drew a pattern first and marked the places for holes in it. Then I cut the pieces out of leather and marked the places for holes in them using the pattern.


The special tools needed are the pliers for making the holes and the tool for attaching the eyelets.


Here are the leather pieces with eyelets in place, but not hammered flat yet (if you want to see how to attach the eyelets, see the beginning of the video in the previous post). The eyelets are even paler blue than the soles. I would have preferred smaller eyelets in a slightly darker shade, but these were all I got.


Here are the inner soles before cutting the extra leather around the cardboard soles. As the outer soles are made of hard resin, the inner soles only consist of one piece of cardboard and one piece of leather. This is enough to keep the form during the assembly.


Here are the boots before gluing the outer soles in place.


And here are the finished boots.


For the Finnish post, see here.

Making boots for a Pipos Baha Cat BJD, part II

Here is the second part of the video for making the Baha Cat boots.




The boots with the polymer clay outer soles glued in place.


With laces made of cotton yarn.


And last, but not least, Baha Cat in an outside photo shoot.





Earlier posts on the subject:
Mould making: Flat soles with Sculpey Mold Maker
Making a foot last for a doll with flat feet
Making boots for a Pipos Baha Cat BJD, part I

For the Finnish post, see here.