Naruto shoes DIY

Wow, it's been a long time since I have posted anything to this blog!! Blame my PHD getting in life's way ;-)

In the last year, I have studied for and written my comprehensive exam. Submitted my proposal. Organized a international conference. Travel to Vancouver and Florida to present papers and off course taken care of my two amazing kids who are now 1 and a half and 3 and a half!

Right now, I am working on my thesis! Yeah! It's the last stretch... so what do I do... decide to get back into cosplaying!

Well I can totally blame my thesis director for that... As I study asian influence in francophone picturebooks, on my reading list for my exam were quite a few "manga study" books I had to read. One of which was a Naruto case study. Add that to my own daughter finding the manga at home and being all excited to have found a "new coloring book"... and there we are... getting the kids ready for their first cosplay experience! Fan Expo 2015 here we come... Naruto style.

So that brings me to the footwear issue... How do I get my not quite 2 years old son and my not quite 4 years old daughter to have awesome looking Naruto shoes (in their size) that are comfortable enough for them to spend the entire day walking in them! (Yes cosplaying with Toddlers is a whole different ball game! But more on that in a different post!)

Dollorama to the rescue!

Here is a tutorial on how to make Naruto shoes from 2$ dollorama crocs.

Note that these ones are black-ish as they will be for my daughter who wants to cosplay as Gaara. On some pictures, you will see a blue-ish variation that are for my husband (Kakashi). 

I kept the whole thing very simple and affordable as

1.  I have 5 pairs to make and really I should be working on my thesis... not on making Naruto shoes.

2. Two off the pairs are tiny and do not leave much room for details.

3. Everything should be simple in life.
4. Shoes  2$, for the rest I used scrap fabric and some craft foam (also from Dollorama)

Also, the shoes are not meant to be replica of the anime version (they could if you wanted them to be). We decided to make our cosplay more like the Naruto Live Action. Therefore we did some variation and intend on making them look like they have seen some real action :-)

1. Cut the shoes

2. I added a leather insole for comfort. You could skip that step if you wanted too.

For the top of the boot
1. Cut a long rectangle on the fold. Make sure it is long enough to go around your ankle, with enough space to slip your foot in. Make sure it is high enough for the height of the boot (add about and 1 inch to the desired height.The fold should be at the top of the boot.


2. Open up your rectangle, and sew the "height" together into a tube. Once you are done, flip it over and fold it back in half.

3. Inside the fold, slip in the foam noodle (for the kids shoes, I cut the noodle length wise, to remove half the bulk. For the adult shoes, I left it as is. Make sure it is completely in. I used pins to keep it in place. Make sure the bottom hem is even. This is also a good time to try it on. Your foot should be able to slip in easily.

4. Sew tightly against the noodle. Push the noodle in and gently pull on your fabric as you sew. To make sure the noodle is all the way to the top nice and even.

5. Once it is done, you will see how nice and structure the top of the boot is.

6. Now slip in the foam between the two layers of fabric.

 7. Quickly baste around the bottom hem to keep the foam in place. By now you should have a nice structured upper boot.

On the fabric, mark the shoe length from the toe cut to the heel.
Add about an inch to the length and expend the toe area upward.
Cut two piece for each shoe (so 4 in total)
Sew the heel together, and the top (if you don't want a seam over the toe area, cut the fabric on the fold)

Turn over, attach the shoe cover to the upper boot part.
Align the back seam of the upper boot, with the heel seam.
Turn it over.
Finish the hem around the bottom.



























Here you have two choices

1. finish the hem over the toes, OR 2. add another piece that will fold back into the inside of the shoe. It is not anymore work and makes for a nicer finishing.


Last, I added elastic underneath for greater stability.

Once the shoes are done, go a head and add any details you might want to add. I am still in the process of distressing them, once done, I will add a picture. But this is a basic Naruto shoe that is extremely comfortable.

Toys from your garden! Part 1

Last year, a good friend of mine, through a special playground, introduced me to Waldorf style (education? parenting?). Although in all honesty, I never went back, and although our daughter very happily attends a Montessori school, many aspect of the Waldorf philosophy caught my eye! Nature, nature and nurture are really important to me! So it was not surprising that I fell in love with all the wooden toys, felted animals and organic material. (In a way, not so different than the tactile material used in a Montessori classroom which not only takes on household items, but also features many wooden activities, water, rocks....)

Needless to say, as a two and a half years old, my daughter LOVES playing timber! You should see her and grand-pa! It can get loud and wild! At home, I often let her built tower taller than herself in toilet paper roll! I call it, my quiet version of timber (although if you heard her laugh... you would say "doesn't sound quiet to me").

In the last 2 weeks, my husband and I have been working our garden (still working on becoming produce sustainable through permaculture). Last year, a strong wind storm took down big branches from near by trees, we also had to prune our plum trees, and therefor ended up with lots of branches! Some of which will be used in our fire pit, and some of which we decided to turn into toys! Wood toys! We already have a few Melissa and Doug toys (but I don't like the fact that they are made in China) and even fewer Hape toys (who can afford those???), so my husband decided to turn into Ghepetto and here are some of the project we are currently tackling!

- Timber pieces to play timber!
- Numbered disk
- Fine motors pieces for Phénix
-And old fashion buttons! 

In the next few days, I will be posting individually about these projects!
 

First up today is "Numbered disk" Now I am not going to lie... this is taken straight out of Pinterest! A branch cut into 1/2 inch thick disk with numbers from 1 to 10 painted on! They can be used as a counting tool, ordering tool, timber toys or even as a memory game.

To do mine, and because I have no artistic skills, I used a "pochoir", but if you have a nice handwriting, the sky is the limit. I also decided to not paint "10" on one disk. Instead I painted an extra "1" and an extra "0". This way, the set can be use to teach beyond the first 10 digits. Another variation possible would be to paint letters, or 2 each of a picture to use it as a memory game.

If you have older kids, this can be a fun rainy day project! Provided you have a branch and a saw and are reusing left over paint, this project is free! Eventually I plan on having the kids "pochoir" the letters to their name, so then we can use it as a spelling puzzle!






To finish it off, I sew a bag out of canvass on which I painted with the same pochoirs "number". Instead of using a drawstring (which could be potentially dangerous as it could strangulate a playing kid, I used a soft elastic, which leave the opening wide enough for a hand when unstretched and wide enough for a wood disk when fully stretched. 

   

DIY advent calendar

For the first time ever, we will be receiving for Christmas! This meant, I had no choice... I had to decorate and put up a Christmas tree! After selecting a color palette, off I went shopping for ornaments (and made a few thanks to pinterest!). Next was to figure out a reusable advent calendar for the kids. I wanted something I would be able to reuse, fill myself and would match our Christmas decor. It had to be big, bold and exciting. I browsed pinterest and found many great ideas. In the end, I came up with my own design! And here it is! 

 

Basically, I bought fabric in 4 colors, sewed 12 bags (about the size of a sandwich ziploc), I stenciled the number on the fabric with some glitter paint. I filled the bags with goodies and tied it with a little piece of shinny twine. I then covered my staircase railing with Dollorama Christmas garland and I used cloth pins shaped like birds (got them last years at homesense) to hang the bags.

I decided to make the bag big enough so that I could put multiple item in each (this way, all the kids will share the same advent calendars). I also decided to only make 12 bags, for the 12 days of Christmas... instead of 25. This way, I could buy better items.... hence less junk.... and not have to spend too much money.

The bags mostly contain useful items, craft material or even some fun activity... (example, in one bag a little card says, let's go to the pool! In another one, there is a pouch of hot chocolate and a memo that says, let's go play in the snow!)

The breakdown of the cost was as follow:

-Dollorama garland 4 $

-Fabric + twine 11$

-Cloth pins 7$

-Paint 1$