Fixing Frayed Shoe Laces

I’ve got the World on a String

“I want to go outside” says my youngest son.

“Get socks and shoes on” I say in response.

He puts on his socks and shoes.  I tie the laces on his shoes and we go outside.  We go outside together and he goes to play in the back yard and I do gardening near him.  It is amazing all the planets he has visited, stories he comes up with, characters from books or movies he pretends to be while playing in the back yard. 

Yesterday I was planting carrots, sage and Brussels sprouts. I had prepared the soil for seeds.  My children decided that the weeds we were pulling were Mandrake that they well pulling out of the dirt.  They then threw these “Mandrakes” at the imaginary Death eaters.  As I was about to put worms in the soil they decided that the worms were really Flubber Worms from the Harry Potter world.  It was a lot of fun. Nearly every day in the back yard is something different and it makes me happy to hear them use their imaginations.

About two weeks ago my youngest son asked me his normal question.

“I want to go outside” says my youngest son.

“Get socks and shoes on” I say in response.

This time he says,

“I can’t my shoes are broken. He then starts crying.”

I comfort him and tell him, “I will see if I can fix it.”

I am thinking there is nearly no way you could have actually broken your shoes.  So I look at his shoes and the laces are frayed, badly frayed. I am thinking how did that happen so fast.  Now I am debating, well he will probably out grow these shoes in another month at the rate he is growing but he has to have shoes.  Just tying them with the laces that frayed would just lead to a head ache later.  So I start researching to see if there is a way to fix them.  However, I did not have the supplies others talked about using to fix the aglet on his laces.  So I thought, “Well, I will just have to do the best I can.”

Step #1

I cut off the frayed string.

Step #2

I took apart an orange marker that had dried out.  

Step #3

I put a small amount of glue on a piece of paper.

Step #4

I cut a small amount off the dried out maker.

Step #5

I mixed the fibers from the inside of the marker with the glue.

Step #6

I dipped the end of the shoe lace in the glue/marker mixture.

Step #7

I put  the needle threw the shoe lace then wrapped

 it along the lace where the aglet would normally be.

Step #8

Then i dipped the wrapped part of the lace in the

 mixture again and smoothed it with my fingers.

Step #9

Then i let it dry for a day.

It has been almost two weeks and the repair to his shoe laces have held strong and he is free to go outside and explore his world again, or whatever world he want to pretend he is on.