Friday, October 22, 2010

I'm a Cobbler Now!!!

I got this crazy idea to make my own dress-up shoes out of wood.  Wait…I don’t mean “my” own, they are for my two year old.  Partly driven by the fact that those dumb plastic playshoes can be $5 or more a pair, but mostly because I wanted to see if I could do it, I started to sketch a shoe shape on this scrap of 2x8.   
Before I knew it, I had not one, but 5 pairs!!!  Surprised?  Then you don’t know me very well.  My husband is still rolling his eyes at how many pairs of shoes I “had” to cut out!  They really weren’t too hard to cut with my bandsaw.  Then I sanded all my imperfections away with a disc sander.  The little mistakes still there disappeared after a visit from Mr. Palm Sander :0) 
We painted, varnished and sanded. 

Did you know that a simple paper lunch bag works great as sandpaper? When you paint wood, it always causes slivers of wood to expand and bulge. If you rub a paper bag on the shape, it will smooth it right out! I am always amazed that it really works :0)
Now to decorate!!!
I used ribbon for most of the straps.  Being a cheep person, I opted to sew two pieces of ribbon together instead of going to buy the 1 1/2" ribbon I needed for the top strap.  It might have something to do with the fact the clock had already struck midnight some time ago.

I added ruffled ribbon or ric-rac down the seam next to add some Flair.
*sidenote*Loven this ribbon from Hobby Lobby.  Got it 50% off, of course, At$3 and there are 10 yards of it!!!  If you pull on the elastic running down the middle, it gathers making it as ruffly as you want!  If you think you "need" to have some too, you can get it in the wedding section.

I also used knotted fabric as the top strap.  I used 1/8yd of fabric.  I folded the right sides together, sewed the edges, and turned the tube right side out.  After cutting the tube in half, I ended up with 2 10" pieces.  After knotting it, the piece is about 7" long. 

I also made some ruffle flowers for tops. 

Here are all my shoes and the straps ready to be put together.

Below are pictures of them put together.

Black with Red Bow

what I like to call Pink with Spunky Stripe
Hot Pink with ruffled ribbon flowers

Purple Little Mermaid

And lastly, Blue Cinderella.  I planned to put a vertical ribbon on the center of the strap on this pair of shoes.  That way we can put bows on clips (like hairbows) and she could put them on her shoes.  Then the shoes can be accessorized to match Emmalee's swiftly changing wardrobe :0)

There you go!  My shoes!!!...Ahem, Emmalee's shoes!
That was so fun, I am kinda sad it's over :0)  Now I have to wait until morning to see Emmalee's face when she sees the shoes.  She has been walking around with the wooden shoe shape for days, putting them on the floor and trying to walk around, even thought there wasn't a top to the shoe.  Now there are tops...and I am sure she will LOVE them too!

3 comments:

  1. Those are gorgeous! Have you considered some sort of gripper medium on the soles to keep them from being too slippery?

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  2. What a great job and a great creative idea....I hope we get to see pictures of your daughter modeling them. you have to tell us if she just flipped when she saw them!

    Carol

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