DIY Shoe Repair

Shoes are an expensive part of my budget. Sure you can buy cheap ones that fall apart in the first week, but I’ve learned to spend a little more to get something that’s better made. I’ve also learned that my feet don’t stink as much if don’t wear shoes made from plastic or vinyl.

I have no issues scouring the second hand stores for shoes, but it’s not easy to find shoes I like or in my size.  I have a couple of pairs I’ve managed to pick up second hand, but I’ve bought my favourites brand new.

Because I have a problem with sweaty feet, I can’t wear the same shoes two days in a row otherwise they won’t dry out and that contributes to the stinky foot syndrome. When I take off my shoes, I sprinkle a little baking soda inside them to absorb the moisture and smell and put them on the shelf to sit a day.

Even though I try to take care of my shoes, I still seem to be hard on them and sooner or later I will have a problem like the sole starts to crack and separate or the toe flap comes apart and they are pain to wear when that happens.

I was complaining to my Grampa the last time it looked like I was going to have to replace my runners once again and he took a look and said, “All you need is some shoe glue.”

I’d never heard about shoe glue before, but my Grampa had some in his shop so he let me borrow it. The stuff is pretty stinky, so if you can work with it outside, it’s probably better but Wow! Does that stuff ever stick! I carefully squeezed the glue into the parts that were

separating, then I put the shoe under the side of the shelf to hold it together while it dried overnight. The next morning, it was as good as new!

I started looking at all my shoes to see if they could benefit from a little shoe glue and sure enough, I was able to fix another pair that had cracks in the soles.  I bent the shoe to expose the crack pushed a little glue in with a popsicle stick, then put it upside down to dry.

My sister was pretty impressed with my shoe repair and wondered if there was a way I could somehow glue on new pieces of rubber to some of her high heels that she couldn’t wear anymore because there was just a nail left in the heel. Well, I did a little research and you know what? You can buy replacement heel tips for high heeled shoes! All you have to do is pull the old nail out and the new heel tips come with a new nail that you just hammer back in the hole and then your high heels are ready to go again.

When I started looking up shoe repair on the internet, I found a lot of things that may make you think again before you buy new shoes. For instance, did you know that you can spray paint shoes? There is special paint you can buy for shoes, but lots of people have just used regular spray paint. What if you’ve found a great pair of second hand shoes that are really comfortable, but you hate the colour? Or you have a favourite pair that are so scuffed up they just don’t look nice any more? Give them a good cleaning, stuff the inside of the shoe with newspaper, tape off the sole and spray away! What you get looks like a new shoe.

When I showed my sister the stuff I found, she got pretty excited about it. I can’t wait to share this info with Teresa. I know she’ll be impressed, and I’ll bet she can think of a bunch of other ways to use this stuff too.