With this awesomely simple Instructable, you will create a pair of comfortable, cheap, and crazy-cool duct tape flats. The main difference between these and other duct tape shoes (as awesome as they are) is that with these, the shoes are made around your feet, so they fit awesomely (and how cool is wrapping up your own feet in duct tape!?)

I put together my first and current pair in two hours, and was finished in time for physics lab. I used them in place of paid-for shoes, both inside and outside. They've held up very nice-like, with the help of some extra duct tape every few adventures.

Blabberings
Why waste a roll of duct tape?

My motivation was the ability to throw these things in my bag for barefoot/sock-only days. When I need to succumb to The Man (always getting us down) who requires shoes for service, I need only to equip these and could acquire food.

If you choose bright duct tape, you can increase the attention your feet receive by up to 100!% (That's no typo. That's one hundred factorial percent. That's right, over 10^157 percent!)

When wearing these shoes, many of the one-phrase conversations passerby-ers say at you will become the question: "Are you wearing duct tape shoes?" You need only to nod to increase your coolness.

Step 1: Ingredients

You can get away with

Pair of socks you don't care about (or one sock for every limb you want a shoe for)
Roll of duct tape
Scissors
Permanent marker that can be used on socks and duct tape

Maybe cool

Cardboard for soles
Maybe for-real shoe inserts for for-real arch-support and such

Step 2: You Know When I'm Down to My Socks It's Time for Business That's Why They Call It Business Time

Goal: We'll be wrapping the sock in duct tape. However, it'd suck if you wrap 'em up and they're too tight. To prevent this, we put on multiple socks. Also, we begin to design the rough shoe shape.

Step-by-Step

Figure 1/ Put on a few pairs of socks for padding. I wore two pairs under the pair I was soon to destroy. These won't be destroyed.
Figure 2/ Put on the to-be-destroyed socks. Smooth and straighten them out.
You can draw a rough cutting line around your ankle. This way, if you have too much sock to work with, you can cut some of it off.
Sketch the shape of your shoe. I based mine off of some shoes that I owned. I slipped the shoes on, took out that handy marker, and traced along the edge of the shoe. This gave me a nice margin. You won't be cutting along this line for a while, and it's just an idea of how much of the sock will be covered in tape. (If you're being non-conformist, you might choose to do this somewhere else.)

Step 3: I've Got Sole

Goal: Cool, now we're going to wrap those socks up in tape. We'll begin by putting on the sole. This way, we're guaranteed plenty of covering on the bottom of our feet.

Steps:

Figure 1/ Let's give this shoe some sole. Create a rectangle of duct tape on a flat surface by overlapping a few strips parallel-like.
Gently step on it and trace your foot.
Figure 2/ Un-stick it from your sock.
Cut the sole out. Duct tape is sticky. Beware.
Figure 3/ (Before doing this, check out the optional step) Center the sole on your foot and step on it. If it's in place, stand up and really step on it. Like, walk around, jump up and down, and stomp like there's no tomorrow. But don't worry. There prolly will be a tomorrow. And if so, you'll have awesome duct tape shoes.

(Optional) Figure 4/ You can experiment at this point. In my first pair of duct tape shoes, I put a few round pieces of cardboard at where I thought would be the most worn part of my shoe. It turned out to be a good indicator of when the bottoms of my shoes were wearing thin. Perhaps you could put a real shoe insert against your sock. Haven't tried it, but it seems like it would be comfy.

Step 4: Call Upon the Power of What Holds the Universe Together: Duct Tape!

Goal: Wrap up your feet! Don't do it too tight, and try to avoid loose edges in highly used areas of the shoe (like near the toes and on the bottom).

Steps:

Figure 1/ I began by putting a band near my toes, connecting to my newly attached sole.
Cover your foot using the lines drawn in step 2 as a rough guide. More layers are better than fewer, and be careful to avoid loose edges in areas of your feet that will hit the ground and such the most. For example, edges of tape near toes and on the bottom of your shoe will start to come off.
Figure 2/ Get your feet mostly covered, and enjoy. Walking and jumping and stomping isn't a bad idea.

Step 5: Cut 'em Out

Goal: Cut the leftover sock off of the now-shoes. Trim the shoes. Admire.

Steps:

Figure 1/ If wearing long socks and if you haven't already, cut along your rough cutting line around your ankle. Remove the shoe from your foot. Admire.
Trim along your second cutting line. Trim along the edges to make smooth and symmetric between the two shoes. Admire.
Figure 2/ Admire. Look! They can fold up! They're gorgeous!

(Optional) Make some slits in the duct tape to the sock for ventilation. My suggestion is to stab some holes in the sides in the middle (Remove yo' foot first, foo'!). Also, some longer slits near the bottom on the the front and back seem to be effective in reducing foot-sweat build-up.

Step 6: Done-ness!

Aw man, now you have some awesomely awesome shoes!

They'll want some repair occasionally. Simply slap on some more duct tape (again, remember that edges of duct tape will be messed with by life, so keep them as safe as possible), and you can be on your way.

I've had these for almost four months now, and wear them as I do normal shoes a few times a week. They get a little uncomfortable if I have to stand in them for a while. Also, walking through sprinklers might be a bad idea, but they seem to dry quickly and they've seem to held up okay. The only issue is that socks inside are starting to get gross.

How has your experience with duct tape shoes been? Did I do badly grammer or spelleng lemme know?