Sandals for Ashanti Keisha

Ashanti Keisha by The Keisha Doll Company, 1991

Ashanti Keisha arrived with bare feet.  My written plan upon introducing her here was to make replacement sandals.  That task has been completed and is outlined below.

Materials Used:

• Foam, two shades of tan 
• Piece of corrugated box 
• Aleene's Tacky Glue 
• Scissors, straight edge and pinking shears 
• Scotch tape 
• Braiding cord (not shown)
• Something to use as a weight 
• Paper clips 

What Was Done (Photos follow): 

• Keisha's feet were traced onto a piece of corrugated box and the tracing cut out. 
• Two pieces of foam were cut out using the cardboard cut-outs as a guide. 
• Two rectangular pieces of foam measuring 4-2/8 inches x 1-1/2 inches were cut. 
• The rectangular band was wrapped around each piece of foam (the innersoles) allowing the edges to meet underneath and in the middle. 
• The wrapped edges of the rectangular pieces were taped to the underside of the innersoles.  Then,
• these were glued to the corrugated box pieces and a weight placed on top to hold everything in place while the glue dried. 
• Ultimately, jumbo paper clips were opened slightly and clipped to the gaps between the foam innersole and corrugated box sole -- this, however, left the impression of the paper clip, but it should eventually lift. 
• Braiding cord was glued around the edge of the soles to fill in the gaps in the cut edge of the corrugated box.  This also adds a nice trim. 
• Two, 1-inch strips of foam (same color as the band of the sandals) were cut along with two, 1-inch foam strips of a contrasting color. 
•  One edge of the above-described strips was cut using pinking shears. 
• The zigzag edges of the tan strips were joined with those of the strips of contrasting color and glued to the top-mid area of the bands. 

That's it!

The Photos:

Traced feet onto corrugated cardboard

Used cardboard tracing to cut foam innersoles; cut a foam band for each sandal.

Foam bands wrapped around innersoles and taped underneath

Band-taped foam innersole glued to cardboard soles; a staple gun and coffee mug used as weight to hold glued pieces in place until glue dried.

Removed the "weight"; added jumbo paper clips to corners of band and innersole/sole areas.  Cut four, 1-inch strips of foam; trimmed one side of each with pinking shears; joined the zigzag edges.

Glued the foam strips onto the band.

Ashanti Keisha models her new sandals.

Because all pieces are flat, these sandals required less time to make than the white Roman-style sandals seen in an earlier post.

~*~*~*~*~*

Before deciding to use corrugated cardboard for the soles of Keisha's sandals, Husband and I shopped at Walmart to locate just a small square of cork. He wanted to know why I needed it; so I shared my plan to make these sandals.  Walmart had cork in stock in a multipack, more than I needed and more than I wanted to pay.

With Keisha wearing her new sandals, I took her into Husband's, man cave to show him my handiwork.  Based on his initial sigh and the expression on his face, I knew he thought I needed him to repair her.  Then he saw the sandals and said. "Oh, the sandals.  You're getting pretty good at this, with a design on top and all." 

I smiled.  Then Keisha and I went back to our cubbyhole on the opposite end of the house.

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