The making of slippers

I really enjoy working on projects, posting about them and reading about them on others blogs. So I decided it would be fun to make this a regular item at Proverbs 31 Living. I am going to try to post about a project that I have done every Tuesday. Sometimes I will try to include tutorials.

On of our recent activities has been slipper making. It started after we had made sandals in class at church (to go along with the Armor of God class that Emily and I are teaching and we made sandals for the feet shod in the preparation of the gospel of peace.) and then Mara wanted to make some sandals for her dolls at home. She made the sandals for her dolls (they are pretty cute too, I will have to take pictures sometime) but then wanted more shoes so I suggested she could use fabric and make a covered toe which ended up being slippers.After she made them for the dolls then she wanted them for her, then Jonathan got in the act and then they also made them for their younger siblings. They weren't at all perfect but they had a ton of fun making them and they have enjoyed "slipping" around the house in them too.

This past week when the Corders were here, Michelle was lamenting that she hadn't thought to bring her slippers. (She doesn't wear shoes in the house but likes to stay warm and cozy so slippers are pretty essential.) Well if you need slippers at our house that is no problem! We can help you make them. :-)

We pulled out the cardboard and had her trace her feet. Then she cut out the cardboard feet just slightly larger (two copies of each foot). I then went to my fabric stash and found some thick wool scraps. We cut a piece to go over the foot and also one in the shape of each foot. Michelle suggested that we add some cotton batting under the wool for more comfort.

Then using the glue gun we lightly glued the cotton batting on one left and one right cardboard foot. After that we glued down the wool. Then we measured how the fabric should be placed over her foot and then glued it on the under side of the cardboard. I also glued a little wool piece under each heel to keep things even. Then we glued the 2nd set of cardboard on the bottom of each slipper.

The last step was to glue strips of wool around each sole to cover up the cardboard edges. They ended up working pretty well and she wore them all week. The kids also helped make her girls pairs as well.

I actually did a lot of slipper making this week because we had decided it might be fun to have curving pointed toe slippers for a bunch of people in our play at the Winter Retreat so I made this bunch of slippers. We had fun putting bells on the toes of some of ours.

I think there is still room for improvement in our slipper making but we have had fun and it has pretty much all been done using scraps and stuff to be recycled. Our only expense has been glue sticks but I have a pretty big stock that I bought on sale.

Do you have any ideas or suggestions?