Jingle Bell Elf Shoes Tutorial

Hi everyone!

Bear with me, I've never written a tutorial before, and I didn't take any progress shots, so I'll try to explain everything as well as possible so that you too can create some adorable elf shoes for your little one this holiday season!

The inspiration came this Halloween...my son was going to be a garden gnome for Halloween and I wanted some cute little boots to make the costume, but I wasn't going to buy an expensive pair of shoes just for a costume. That's when I remembered this tutorial at Brown Paper Packages. It wasn't -exactly- what I was looking for, but I knew I could make it work for me so I set off on crafting my creation.

Here's what you'll need for this project and a shot of the finished product:

A pair of socks, plain duct tape, black duct tape, black electrical tape, 2 small jingle bells, 2 zip ties, aluminum foil and card board become fun little curly toe elf shoes

You'll have to sacrifice a pair of socks for this project; I used a pair of knee high white socks to make these for my one-year old son. I put the socks on OVER his pant leg so that the boots were a bit looser and easier to cut off. After I put the socks on, I traced a pair of his walking shoes onto cardboard and cut out the shape to use as a 'sole' for the boot, to give it some shape. I taped the cardboard pieces to the bottom of his sock covered feet and began the process of making the base form of the shoe.

To help speed up the process, since toddlers don't like to sit still for too long, I set up everything I needed and pre-cut lengths of plain duct tape, attaching them to the seat of a chair next to where we were working. Once we were all set up, I started taping around his foot, ankle and calf. Wrap it slow and loose and take your time to avoid too many crazy wrinkles. I imagined it like making a cast, just tight enough to support the form, but loose enough to be comfortable. For the little ones, remember to hold his foot in a bent position so that you don't end up with shoes that are made for pointed toes, especially when they are sitting down while you work. You can see in the image my shoes still look as though he was slightly pointing his toes, but I wasn't too worried since he wouldn't be walking around in them.

Keep wrapping the foot until you have it all covered and then add some more layers over the first ones. You want a good amount of tape so that the shoe will retain it's shape once removed. I think I ended up with three or four layers once I was finished, and the shoe was stiff and kept it's shape very well. To remove the form, I carefully slid a scissor down over his shin, at which point I was -very- glad I had formed the shape over his pants. It gave me a nice buffer zone so the scissors never once even came close to his skin. I would suggest eliciting some help for this part. The last thing you need while operating scissors in such close proximity to curious one-year is accidents. My husband was kind enough to keep my son entertained and watch for any stray little fingers that wanted to explore the action! I didn't worry about cutting it down as far as I wanted, I just cut it till it was loose enough to pull off his foot.

Once the shoes were off, I cut the opening down past the ankle area so that they would be easy to slip back on. That night, after my son was sleeping, I was able to start the finishing touches. I knew I wanted to make the shoes into curly toe shoes, so I would need a nice base to form the shape out of. I thought of using paper, but I knew it wouldn't be easy to get the exact form I needed, plus I wanted it to be tough enough to withstand my child's kicking, tugging and play. I ended up using tin foil and it worked out EXCELLENT! I pulled a piece about 2.5 feet long from the box, and holding the shoe between my knees with the toe pointing up, I loosely folded the foil so that one end was under the shoe and the opposite end on top and started gradually scrunching and molding the foil into the desired shape, essentially wrapping the toe of the shoe in foil. Be careful not to scrunch the toe area too hard or you will push the shoe out of shape and make it difficult to put back on. You just want it scrunched tight to the shoe surface so that it clings. I molded and pushed until toe of the shoe was taking on the right shape. The foil worked well because it didn't bounce back and I could always squeeze it harder to get rid of bulges and wrinkles. After working it into the right shape, I used that shoe as a model to work on the second shoe so that each shoe had the same size, angle and curl. Make sure you keep comparing the two shoes and squishing and modeling until they match. I used some more plain duct tape to secure the foil to the base. I did not cover the foil with a base coat of plain tape because I didn't want it to get bulking or have wrinkles.

Meanwhile, take two jingle bells and string them onto small zip ties. Zip the tie closed around the bell loop and begin to curl the plastic tail into shape. Don't cut it, you want a nice long tail to use to affix the bell to the shoe. Once you have it laying right, use a strip of plain duct tape to secure the tail of the zip tie along the curl of the toe at the front of the shoe. Now you can start adding the final layer of tape. This layer is the aesthetic layer, so take your time and make sure you don't get too many crazy wrinkles. I started with the curly toe and I knew that duct tape would be too wide and difficult to wrap around the curve without a ton of wrinkles, so I elected to use electrical tape for the toe of the shoe. Electrical tape forms really nicely around shapes and once cured, sticks like crazy, so I wrapped around the whole curly toe, making sure that all the foil was covered. Then I started covering the shoe with black duct tape. I started at the top, covering the cuff of the sock and making sure the tops of the shoes were both at the same height and making a nice finished edge at the top. Slowly work your way down the shoe, wrapping the edge of the tape over the opening that runs down the shoe. As you work, slide your fingers into the shoe and keep pressing the interior into shape so that the shoe doesn't get smaller and tighter. Push the toe out, push the heel back, keep forming and squeezing and molding the shoe as you cover it with black tape. Cut small pieces to cover any plain duct tape that remains. You don't want too many layers of black tape, just one layer to cover the base. (One thing that helped was that I was seriously running low on black duct tape, so I was very judicious in my use of it!)

Once you are satisfied that the shoe is completely covered, the last thing you can do is add a black tape 'tab' to one side of the opening of the shoe. I didn't want my shoes to lace, so I chose to simply secure them in place on the day of with an additional strip of tape, The tab made it possible to do this while ensuring that I did not get tape residue on my son's pants or legs. When putting the shoe on, I pulled the sides together till snug, laying the tab over the outside and securing in place with my LAST TWO PIECES of black duct tape! Talk about fortuitous!

The shoes worked awesome for Halloween. Unlike his usual shoes, he was not able to kick or scuff them off, despite kicking his feet the entire time to hear the jingle bell! He loved his jingle shoes and so did every one we met on Halloween. When we got home, we were able to simply slide the boot off his foot and I have them saved to use around Christmas time! Because the form for the sole was about a shoe size larger than his current shoe size, the shoes ended up being very roomy around his feet and I know they'll still fit in the next two months! It was a quick, easy and satisfying DIY project and I hope they tutorial was easy to understand and thorough enough! If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments section!