DIY Baby Shoes

Hello! I'm Kenzie of THE WANDER YEARS, a lifestyle blog I started as an outlet for personal style and DIY projects when I was pregnant with my two month old daughter Maxine. The hope of 'THE WANDER YEARS is to inspire young family and all things creative and thrifted. Abbey and I have been blog pals for the last few months, and I was so honored when she asked me to guest post for her while she takes care of sweet, sweet Wesley. Isn't he the absolute cutest!?

When Abbey asked me to share a baby DIY project, my mind started spinning a million miles a minute trying to land the perfect project for the blog and the thing that kept coming up was baby shoes, the one thing I have been dying to try to make. So I got out a few thrifted materials and made it happen. I will not lie to you, the first shoe took quite some time for me to figure out (much longer than any mom of a newborn should spend on a project), but once I knew what I was doing and how the design should look I flew through the second one in maybe 20 minutes tops. And this is coming from someone who has zero ability to sew a straight line on the sewing machine, so I promise it can be done. These shoes are definitely girly with the lace detail I added, but take some twine and make them fit for a boy or ditch the laces and they kind of look like tiny TOMS.

**My dimensions: heel- 5 1/2in x 2in, sole- 5in x 2 1/2in, top/ toe- 5in x 3 1/2 in, laces- 7in.

1. Start by cutting out your pieces (see photo one). Two rectangles for the heel, two ovals for the sole, & two oddly shaped cut outs for the top or toe of the shoe.

2. Sew rectangles together on the sides and top and reverse so sewn edges are facing in. Sew the two strange pieces together on the top side and reverse. (Photo two).

3. Next take the rectangle piece that will be your heel and pin the center of it to the center of the oval sole (photo three) with the outside pieces both facing inward. Finish pinning heel to sole before stitching, working the pins all the way around the perimeter of the heel. Sew & reverse back to correct way to check for errors.

4. Flip shoe inside out again to pin and sew the top piece/ toe of the shoe. (The piece that has been sewn will be the top of the shoe by the laces and will not be stitched over again.) Just like with the heel take the middle of the curve and beginning pinning to the front, middle of the sole. Curve around with your pins. Now you should have at least two extra inches of the top of the shoe which you will fold over to create a simple gather on each side. Stitch around the perimeter of the toe.

5. Sew or hot glue the laces to the inside corners.