Well, Brooke what did you do today? - Well, I made a pair of SHOES! (and I blogged about it)

Today I woke up relatively unmotivated. But, somehow... this one little spark of motivation came through while doing my dialy surf of the net of all things crafty and awesome... LET'S MAKE A PAIR OF SHOES, BROOKE!

Don't ask me where the decision to make a pair of shoes came from. God knows, I have dozens of perfectly good shoes just gathering dust in the closet. Probably part "Let's see if we're capable of this." and probably part "If you're really good at it, perhaps you can do it for money." Who knows. Whatever was driving me... drove me all the way.

BEHOLD!



















Now obviously I'm not ready to become a cobbler or anything. But, given that I've never made a pair of shoes before... and my very limited tools, I'd say I did alright... a very shoddy version of a pair of Toms if I ever saw one.



















Basically, I drew up a pattern with construction paper (yes), pinned it together and tried it on my foot. When I was satisfied with my paper pattern I made one prototype, and then changed anything to the pattern if I saw something with the prototype needed to be changed.

I made the uppers and inner sole and lining out of green canvas material. The inner sole (interior padding inside) is actually a cut up foam hand that was given as a souvenir at a friend's wedding (you know, the kind that look like they're pointing and saying Number One!)

Then, I cut up a pair of gross looking Teva-look-alike Old Navy sandals that I bought last year cuz they were $3 and I needed river shoes. Now, this left little holes in the soles where the sandal straps used to be, but that's ok... these aren't profesh, ok? I just won't wear them on rainy days.

I used Gorilla super glue to glue the soles to the uppers... and then I was done!





A few things I'll change for next time...

I'm going to look for something better than old flip-flop stuff for the soles. I'm thinking rubber tile, it's thinner and easier to cut.

I made these shoes to fit me, but they ended up very snug... like comfortable snug... but a little snug. I'm going to enlarge the patter for next time.