Straps for Shoes No. 2

Here's another simple solution. This one suits shoes with heels greater than 2 inches but will work for any shoes with heels that are fairly chunky. It can be used on shoes with slim or kitten heels but the construction of the straps (where they are attached underneath the shoe) will be more visible.



Shoes - Clarks via charity shop

You need:
One pair of heels
Two skinny belts matching your shoes. They need to be flexible enough to be curved. Plastic or thin leather is preferable to thick leather. Pick ones with small buckles. I bought mine for £1 each at Primark.
Craft glue or superglue
Needle and thread
Small blade scissors
Pencil
Paperclips, or bulldog clips or old hairclips

1) Put on your shoes. Loop the belt around your foot where the shoe should have a strap and buckle it. Push the strap until it hits the heel. Add a hole to the belt for the buckle pin to go through by marking the place with a pencil and then pushing a thick needle through the hole.* Widen the hole gently with embroidery or cuticle scissors.

2) Cut the belt off to leave a reasonable strap length. Do this for the other shoe.

3) Adjust the strap so the buckles are on the outside of the shoes and the end of the strap points downwards and outwards. Glue the strap to the base and sides of the shoe. Use paperclips clipped over the side of the shoe to hold strap in place until glue dries.

* In the case of these straps cutting the belt to the desired length would result in the woven belt fraying. I unpicked the belt at the buckle and cut it to strap length before resewing the belt components together. This allowed me to keep the rounded woven belt ends to make professional looking straps.

As you can see the straps blend in pretty well with the rest of the shoe.