chezlin ·
A while ago I saw some Jeffery Campbell skulltini flats, which are basically simple flats completely encrusted with skull studs. I thought they were super cute and I wanted them, but of course I ended up talking myself into making some of my own. So today I'll be showing you how to make some, too!
I absolutely love how these turned out!
Here are some affiliate links for some of the stuff in this project:
chezlin ·
Look at this face.
Meet Hobbes, the destroyer of shoes. Actually, I should give him a little credit because he has only ruined one pair of shoes, however they happened to be one of my most favorite pairs.Thankfully he didn't do too much damage to them, so instead of throwing them away I decided to try to fix them.
In this tutorial I'm basically just explaining what I did for this specific pair of shoes so hopefully this tutorial can be helpful if anyone else has similar damage to some shoes.
Supplies.
First, I had to finish what Hobbes started. I removed the rest of the material from the chewed up heel, and then removed the corresponding material on the other shoe.
I rolled the heel on the scrap leather to eyeball how much I'd need to cover it and cut the excess off.
In small sections I glued the scrap leather on the heel and kept it taut as I worked my way up.
When I got up to the top of the heel and underside of the shoe I cut a notch into the leather so I could stretch it to wrap around the heel.
I applied the glue and then laid down one side of the leather.
Then, using the grove in the middle of the heel, cut the excess off with an xacto knife. 
And then I repeated for the other side.
He popped off the heel tip while he was enjoying my shoe as a chew toy, but thankfully there was almost no damage to it, so I just folded over the extra leather, applied glue and stuck the heel tip back on. Then I applied a good bit of pressure for a few minutes while the glue cured.
On the other side, since I wanted them to look the same, I had to pop off the heel tip and then I repeated the last few steps to glue it back on with the scrap leather sandwiched in between.
He made sure to damage just enough of the back of the shoe to where I felt like it needed to be covered as well, so I did that and added a little design element where the leather folded down towards the outside of the shoe.
Then I cut the excess off, forming a little cap on the back.
I did it a bit messy though and the edge looked really rough, so I ended up cutting a thin strip of leather to cover that ragged edge.
And I repeated on all the edges, to make everything cohesive.
And here they are, complete!
I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. What do you all think?
chezlin ·
I was lurking around on the internet the other day and came across these viking shoes. As I scrolled through the post, I saw it was a tutorial on how to make them, so of course I had to make some myself. I went out to my craft store and bought some leather remnants for less than$5 and hoped there would be enough to make a pair of shoes. Before I cut into the leather, I made a pattern out of felt and put it together. I made some modifications to the original pattern to try to make them into flats instead of sandals and I wanted to make sure it would work.
Here's the pattern all put together
Drawing the pattern out on the leather. I had JUST enough!
All cut out.
Rounding out the little tab things.
With a marker, I marked out where the holes should go.
Here I am, wishing my boyfriend still had his leather hole punch.
The exacto knife worked alright, here are the holes!
The leather cord was more expensive than the scraps of leather I bought!
Lacing up the back. If you make these, make sure you pay attention to how you're supposed to thread it, I messed up a LOT on this step.
Lacing up the toe area.
Almost done!
All done and pretty comfy!
Back.
Front.
I think these things are pretty cute and they're quite comfortable. It's just thin leather though, so these ones are more suitable to just be house slippers. I'm thinking about ordering some thicker leather and maybe a shoe sole or something to see if I can make something that would be fit for wearing outside.
chezlin ·
A week or two ago, my little sister asked me if I could dye her shoes black because she didn't like the blue and red plaid. I finally decided to do it and share the process with you guys. This is my first time dying shoes, so I might have done some things strangely, so if there's any way I can improve, please let me know!
What I used: shoes, dye, a container, gloves, cotton balls(not pictured)
You need rubber gloves unless you want colored hands for a while.. I got a dye concentrate, so I just poured a little into the container and got going.
Here I am, about to start the dying process.
Oh yeah, here we go.
Pretty much done! And this is why you need gloves :)
Ta da! A pair of black shoes.
Thanks go to my older sister who dyed the left shoe as I dyed the right. :)
Again, I'd like to apologize for my absence lately.. End of school and whatnot has calmed down, so I should be able to start posting regularly again. :)
