Our newest make for our Get Inspired series, featuring these chunky rubber soles which we just cannot get enough of! 🌟
'Get Inspired' is a series of shoe designs with the intention to inspire our community to get creative with their home shoe projects. All the shoes made in this series (or variations of them) can be made by following the instructions in our Online Footwear Masterclass.
We bought these sole units from Etsy, which we have found to be the best place to source interesting sole units like this in small quantities. Usually we’d start by designing the uppers of the shoe first and then make some soles to suit the style, but when we have really fun components like this it’s much easier to design the upper around them.
We’ve been seeing lots of chunky loafers around recently and we wanted to do our own take on the traditional black loafer by making them patent pink! We also really liked the contrast of the traditional loafer upper with the modern chunky soles.
There are lots of ways you can decorate that strip of leather that sits across the top of the shoe. We wanted to do something a bit different from what we’d seen before, so we created this cute flower and square motif with some of our hole punches :)
Want to make your own pair of DIY loafers? Why not download our loafer pattern to help you get started!
Here’s a little run through of how we made the shoes...
Step 1 - We made the patterns and cut out the leather for the uppers.
Step 2 - Stitched together the uppers including punching out the design across the front tab.
Step 3 - Cut the insoles to fit the lasts.
Step 4 - Lasted the linings.
Step 5 - We inserted the counter stiffeners and toe puff stiffeners.
Step 6 - Then, we lasted the uppers.
Step 7 - Applied some cork bottom filler to the bottom of the shoes to fill out that empty channel.
Step 8 - Finally, we glued on the soles and glued in some insock socks!
Estimated time to make = 6 hours
learn shoemaking for yourself
I created a free 40-minute online course called 'Introduction to Shoemaking' to show how easy home shoemaking can be and to give you a little taste of what I Can Make Shoes is all about. SIGN UP HERE for instant access.
If you are wanting to dive a little deeper into the world of home shoemaking, my online Footwear Masterclass is one of the most popular shoemaking courses in the world!! 🌍 (Casual brag! lol)
The course covers how to make shoes from scratch including heels, flats, boots, sneakers, sandals, and more. The thing that really sets this course apart from others is that it's specifically designed for total beginners and requires very little in the way of tools & equipment, there's even a bonus module on how to start your own shoe brand. To make getting started even easier, the course comes with a FREE Shoemaking Starter Kit, delivered to your door, anywhere in the world! 🌍
We are a tight community and regularly limit our intake to ensure the best experience for our students - so if our enrolment is closed I would recommend you sign up for our FREE Introduction to Shoemaking course while you wait.
Happy Shoemaking, Amanda xx
Pssssssst.... If you want to have a look at the shoes our students have been making, give us a follow on Instagram.
