More of my collection

The next part of the collection is two display boxes in my bookshelf. These shoes are mostly for Madame Alexander's Cissy and Tonner's 16" Miss Piggy.

We'll start with the display box on the left. The bottom shelf has one pair of shoes for Cissy and two pairs of boots for Monster High dolls. The rest are shoes for Miss Piggy. There's no blog post for one pair, which I think I made when writing the Techniques book.

Top row: left pair, right pair

Second row: left pair

Third row: left pair, right pair

Bottom row: leftmost pair (Finnish blog), middle pair, rightmost pair

The display box on the right only has shoes for Madame Alexander's Cissy. These blog posts are all in the Finnish blog.

Top row: leftmost pair, middle pair, rightmost pair

Second row: leftmost pair

Third row: leftmost pair, middle pair, rightmost pair

Bottom row: middle pair, rightmost pair

First part of my collection

I started making doll shoes about 20 years ago, so I have accumulated quite a bit of them, although I did sell some for a brief time around 2004. The money I got for the ones I sold wasn't worth it because of the time it takes to make just one pair, so later I just traded some with friends for other doll items.

This is the first post of showing my collection and providing links to the relevant blog posts, if available. Let's start with some of the older ones, although future posts will have old and new mixed as I tend to group the shoes by the doll for which they were made.

The glass box I have on top of one of my dollhouses contains shoes for the following dolls: The shoes in the front row are for an old, 18", hollow plastic doll with no manufacturer markings. The doll has flat feet, so I haven't made very many pairs for it. The pair with pale green insoles is for Tonner's 16" Miss Piggy, and the rest are for Madame Alexander's Cissy.

Front row: The rightmost pair can be seen in a post in the Finnish blog. The post also has a picture of the doll. The brown shoes next to them are made after a Manolo Blahnik design. The blue shoes are made after a Mary Quant design and the post is in the Finnish blog.

Miss Piggy's shoes can be found in this blog. The posts about Cissy's shoes are all in the Finnish blog, links below. 

Back row: First from left, second pair, third pair, fourth pair.

Middle row: First from left, second pair, fourth pair.

It seems that there is no blog post about the ones in which I used a zipper in the upper (middle row, third pair). I thought there would be, but it's possible I just posted it in Flickr at the time (when I was still using it).

Baha Cat's boot lasts

The final piece of resin casting was making a pair of boot lasts for the Baha Cat. I used the last I made using balsa wood. I made one latex mold, then placed it beside the last when making the second one, so the two molds are connected and, thus, easier to keep upright when pouring the resin into them.

I cast a pair of lasts from the regular resin, and as I had some clear resin left, I used that for making an additional last just for fun.

More resin castings

As I was using the last of the resin as long as it was still usable, I decided to make some castings for boot making. For shoes, you only need the casting to be up to the doll's ankle, but I wanted to make boots for Gooliope. 16" dolls are especially difficult to handle when making shoes, so having just the leg below the knee makes things a lot easier. As I was going through the trouble, I thought I might as well make some others. The other doll in the picture below is a Living Dead Doll.

The picture shows how messy it is to create latex molds. Latex keeps dripping for some time after dipping the doll's feet to it, so you need some protection, in this case a newspaper, on the table.

At this point, I had to start calculating the amount of resin required, so I wouldn't have any resin mixed without having a mold to put it in. The easiest way to check the amount needed is to put some water in a measuring cup and put the doll's feet in it. The rise in the water level shows the amount needed. Unfortunately I didn't have a better measuring cup, so the numbers were only approximates, but that's better than nothing.

You also need to remember that if you're using resin with the ratio of 1:1 between resin and hardener, you need half of the measured amount of both. Elementary, but can be easy to forget when you keep thinking that one number you just measured.

The latex molds I made were fairly thin as you can see in the picture. They were only needed for one casting, so I didn't see any need to make them real sturdy. The third pair in the picture is for a My Little Pony Equestria Girls doll. 

Below are some castings waiting to harden. The big pair is for a 16" male doll by Robert Tonner. The ones with flat soles usually stay upright by themselves, but the Equestria girls molds needed some support, so I put them into a small plastic cup.

Finally, here are some hardened castings that have been removed from the molds. They still need to harden some more after removing them, although these are so thick that there was no risk of anything bending. When making shoe soles, it is important to always check immediately after removing them from the molds that the shape is correct, and if it is not, fix it as long as the resin is still soft enough to do it.

The first Doll Shoe Projects book

I finally finished the book, and it is now available in Amazon. I was planning to make it -50% for the first few days, but it seems that I can't do that. The promotion page says it needs to be available for 30 days first. So, it's $3.29 or whatever that is in your currency. To check it in Amazon.com, click here.

Edit: It seems that the price is actually $2.99 like I set it when publishing the book, but I'm seeing $3.29 due to VAT being added to the price, so your price will be equivalent to $2.99 plus any applicable taxes.

This is the first book in a series of books of doll shoe projects. Each book will have a theme, like this one, and all the materials used for the projects are selected so that they will be as easy to find and as affordable as possible. The projects are described step by step, and everything you need to know is explained, so although some of the techniques are the same as in Techniques for Making Doll Shoes, you do not need that book for making these projects.

Stiletto heels for Gooliope

This is one of the projects that have remained unfinished for a long time. The idea with these was to create resin soles that would require little additional work for finishing. Of course that didn't turn out to be true, because the painting alone took a lot of effort as these had to painted a bit at the time and using several coats.

The first thing I did was creating a universal sole (same for both left and right) using modeling clay. In this sole, there are holes on the sides for attaching the strap that goes over the toe part. For making the latex mold, the holes are not punched through, but just depressions in the modeling clay to make it easier to drill holes in the resin soles after casting.

In the picture above, the sole is attached to a piece of cardboard with double-sided tape for making a mold. A made two molds (below) to be able to cast a pair at the same time.

Latex molds aren't the best for resin casting, but I managed to cast several pairs using these molds. Below are two of those, and you can see on the leftmost sole that the holes on the side have been drilled through. In the master, I also made a depression for drilling a hole for the heel. In the rightmost sole, you can see a hole drilled there.

The next step was painting. I used enamel paints as they work best with resin. First I painted the inside with a light color as it will touch the doll's foot and I wanted to prevent any staining. I guess I could have left the inside unpainted as the resin is so light colored, but I thought painted inside looked neater. Then I painted the outside edges. I wanted to make sure I wouldn't smudge them, so I painted the outside in two parts to be able to let this first stage dry so that there was no risk of anything touching the paint.

Then I painted the undersides. I don't remember how many coats this needed, but I think it was at least three. With resin, the first coat is always a primer, because there is no way to get it to be even. Once you have one coat of paint, the next coats will stick much better and spread more evenly.

After all sides of the resin had been painted, I attached round wooden sticks as stiletto heels and painted them.

The strap going over the toe part is made of silver-colored plastic, and I used silver-colored thread to attach it in place. 

Here is one finished shoe. I have that plastic also in black and silver (I used that for Sybarite's shoes earlier), but that didn't look good with red. I think I might make another pair with that and soles painted with black and silver.

Finally, here are the shoes on Monster High Gooliope Jellington. They aren't a great fit, but they still look nice.

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.