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| Ribbon elastic glued to cardboard makes colorful shoes. |
Bigfooted, voodoo eyed barbie clones often have frozen hips and big feet. The same things that make them less playable for kids, make them wonderful for collectors. They model clothing very well. The only drawback is their lack of shoes. Barbie shoes are too small. Little Miss Revlon shoes are too big. If you carry a Bigfoot around to multiple doll shoes, you might find the right sized shoes.
My solution is to make them myself, by drawing around the dolls' feet onto lightweight cardboard and gluing an elastic sleeve to the sole. Using spandex ribbon elastic allows me to put shoes on the doll without fear. You can reuse broken vinyl shoes as your base, if you have them.
My solution is to make them myself, by drawing around the dolls' feet onto lightweight cardboard and gluing an elastic sleeve to the sole. Using spandex ribbon elastic allows me to put shoes on the doll without fear. You can reuse broken vinyl shoes as your base, if you have them.
Drawing around the doll's foot and making cardboard soles is easy. The thickness of your cardboard
matters. Cereal container cardboard is thinner than tissue box cardboard, and
both differ from soda can cardboard. I
like soda can cardboard because it will bend and hold a shape. I cut two soles
per foot.
Wrap the stretchy ribbon or elastic around the doll's foot at the arch, and sew the ends
together. Slip the elastic ring around her foot, then glue it to one of the
soles. Doesn't matter if it is upper or lower because you will be sandwiching the
elastic between cardboard layers. It pains me to admit that hot glue is useful
for this as it levels itself. It also produces glue strings that must be
trimmed, or even filed off with an emery board.
The easiest heel for Bigfoot Barbie Competitor is a bit of
glue stick. Measure from the doll's heel to the table top, slice this length
from the glue stick, then slice it in
half lengthwise to make two heels. Again, a hot glue gun is an effective way to
attach them.
Attempt #1 uses elastic glued under the shoe sole, and papier mache' heels.
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Doll Shoe #2 uses a broken vinyl shoe as a base.
Finish your doll shoes with an emery board. This removes
glue at the sides, and trims the cardboard.
That shoe sole template you used to make your cardboard soles can be placed under parchment paper or waxed paper to use as a guide for a hot glue sole. Patience helps, but I don't have any. Often I will make several thin soles and iron them together.
That shoe sole template you used to make your cardboard soles can be placed under parchment paper or waxed paper to use as a guide for a hot glue sole. Patience helps, but I don't have any. Often I will make several thin soles and iron them together.
It doesn't look great at this stage, but finishing helps. Some people run a hot glue gun around the sides to smooth the glue. Some people use an emery board. I use whatever is close to hand.
