DIY Child's Fabric Shoes

Moooom, I can’t find my Shoes.

                                      

At least once I day I hear one of my children tell me,

“MOOOM, I can’t find my shoes.”

When we get in from an outing or activity we have our kids put their shoes away.  Yet every week I end up baffled as where all their shoes have gone.  I have tried baskets and organizers. I am now currently throwing their shoes on a shelf in their closets until I get my latest idea built.

Sometimes our shoe battle ends up with some interesting results.  My youngest son who loves going to the store with my husband or I, (if it’s just him and a parent) will go get two shoes, that don’t match.  We try really hard not to laugh because he is trying so hard to do as requested and we forgot again to tell him that his shoes have to match.  Just yesterday he went to the store with one cowboy boot on foot and one sneaker on the other foot.

We have another child who can never find shoes, unless they are his futbal boots.  Which is really not a big deal to me, he loves them and they certainly fit well. He spends the week unable to find any other matches, in the mean time I am looking for his church shoes all week.  By the end of the week I have found both of them.

I am not sure what sinister mastermind is behind it but for one month straight our oldest son could not find even his cleats on Sunday morning before church, despite laying them out the night before.  In the morning somehow they were not there. So I ended up squeezing my son into shoes he had outgrown.  After three weeks of looking I found one shoe.  We had already bought him new shoes which he couldn’t find either.

I was thus left with a problem.  My son needed to have shoes but we couldn’t keep buying him shoes. We have a budget which is sufficient but it has no room for waste.  So I thought, “Well, people used to make their own shoes, maybe I can find instructions on how to do that.”  I ran into lots of cute patterns for girls. I also found instructions for those who have professional tools, which I don’t have.  I did find someone who showed how to pull the pattern from an existing shoe to make a pattern using masking tape.  She did it with a High heel shoe that had these cute pleats at the toe.  While I couldn’t use her pattern, or follow her instructions, the concept could be applied to the one shoe of his that still remained.

So I pulled out one of my favorite tapes, duct tape (I think the uses for duct tape are endless).

Step #1

I covered one section of the shoe with duct tape. Not where the seams on the shoe were.   I would need professional tools to put the seams where the person who made the one shoe had. 

Step #2

I covered the toe and front section of the shoe.

Step #3

 

I pulled the duct tape off and stuck it to a piece of scrap paper.  Then I added a ¼ inch seam around the edge.

 I ran into problems with the toe lying flat so I cut slits where I thought I would be able to add seams that would create shape.

Step #4

I traced the bottom of his shoe and added a ¼ inch seam allowance. 

Step #5

I put the fabric wrong sides together, pinned the patterns to it and cut it for the outside fabric and lining. 

Step #6

The soles of the shoes.

Some people who made their own shoes used rope on the bottoms of their shoes.  i didn't have that so i used left over lanyard that I had kept from when my sister used to make key chains when she was in high school(back in 2005).  I used a four strand braid then stitched it to the bottoms of the shoes before i put the insides and outsides together. 

Step #7

I slide the linings inside the shoe outsides and stitched the two pieces together. 

Step #8

I tried on a bit of scrap fabric a button hole( for the laces) and the material just ripped clean.  Then I noticed that the material didn’t fray. So I decided to punch holes where the holes normally go with my snap tool.

Step #9

I laced the shoes with spare shoe laces. 

Step #10

He tried them on and said,

"Wow, these are really comfortable."

My response was,"Do you like them?"

His response was"Yeah, they are really comfortable."

Materials

Black pleather-left over from a family members project                      0.00

Thread-left over from a family member project                                              0.00

White pleather- left over from someones unfinished/unwanted project 0.00

Lanyard- left over from sisters unfinished/unwanted project                          0.00

Shoes laces- saved from done shoes                                                       0.00

Total Cost

                                                               0.00

Am I within my budget? Oh yeah, fist pump.