A Gift A Day Gift Sixteen: Ballet Slippers

For my last day of gifts (thank goodness *laugh*), I made ballet slippers for my daughter to go with a video I'd gotten for her on beginning ballet (it comes highly recommended by Amazon reviews and by some bloggers I know, so I figured I'd give it a shot).  Armina is in this stage where she THINKS she wants to take dance lessons, but I figure this will be a good way to show her the basics before I spend money on a class only to find out she might or might not like it.

The tutorial that I found the most helpful, even though it was in the wrong size for my daughter, was Shabby Raggy Roses tutorial.  She really breaks the slippers down well so you can get an idea of what the pieces you need to cut out will look like, how much bigger the upper part of the slipper needs to be from the sole, etc.  I highly recommend checking it out!

Total Time to Make Gift:  Four hours.  I, once again, sewed these by hand, just to make sure that everything came together alright.  I was working with a satiny material that really was going to be a pain to work with my sewing machine, so I figured doing it by hand was going to be easier.  It was by the way *laugh*.  I'd LOVE to have put some pretty ribbon on the back of these to wrap around the ankle, as when I held some up and did a cursory run with some it was so STINKING cute, but my daughter is still learning to tie her shoes, so I figure that's going to have to be an after market improvement later on with these.

The slippers aren't as nice looking as I would have liked, but the satiny material kind of made the slippers a bit miserable to sew with the felt and such I was working with.  But, Armina loves them (she had to try them on to make sure her feet fit in them) and I figure really these are just dress up shoes, so they don't have to be perfect.

Total Cost of Project:  Nothing.  I had all the materials.  I used a  pink flowery material for the inside lining, felt for the sole and cotton batting left over from Armina's quilt for the batting.  I used a tan quilting thread I had to sew the slippers together.

And there you are folks.  The end of the gifts I made this year.  And now, onto some cool recipes starting tomorrow :).

Enjoy!