Skeleton Shoes Made With Laser Cut Stencils

Perfect for trick or treating, these comfy flats are spooktactularly easy to make and super rad.

Use glow in the dark paint, or glam it up with glitter. Or creep it out with shiny red.

You will need:

Plain black shoes

Tape

Paint of choice (puffy, glow, glitter, etc. fine tip is best)

Laser cut cardstock (see Outfab.com)

Step 1: Find Some Smoking Flats

These are a popular style of slip on shoe. You can find some really inexpensive ones on Ebay, H&M, Target, etc.

I chose a suede version so the paint will really stick. But it can be anything you like.

Take a photo from above so you can trace the vamp (the top part of the shoe)

You will want to use a vector based program like CorelDraw, Illustrator, or Inkscape (free open-source software great for beginners! Download it at Inkscape.org)

For the stencil you can use your own laser cutter or if you're like most people and don't have one, you can use a service like Outfab.com

Step 2: Resize Shoe Photo to Actual Size and Trace the Vamp

Scale the photo of the show to the actual size based on the measurements that you took. Measure the length of the bottom of the shoe along with the width and length of the vamp.

Next, trace the image of the vamp and flare out the sides to account for the cardstock wrapping around the vamp.

Step 3: Dig Up Some Bones!

Find an x-ray photo online or use your own.
Import the photo in to the file, you will use this as a guide to trace the bones or you can wing it and draw the bones by mouse/tablet.

Step 4: Stylize Your Final Design

Finalize your design layout and spread out the design to define the toes.
On the left you will see the initial tracing in transparent red with a RGB blue outer line. I did this to make it easier to see where I was tracing.

The tracing is fine, but there are some overlapping areas. Additionally, the toes could be more pronounced so that they fill the entire vamp area.

Step 5: Send File to Laser Cut

You could print on to cardstock and cut with an X-acto knife, which will probably take you a weekend to cut by hand or you could get laser cut precision by using a service such as Outfab.com - this site has flat rate pricing per unit size.

I used cardstock because it's inexpensive and I only need the stencil for a few uses, but you could have the stencil cut from mylar to use over time.

Step 6: Final Steps! the Dirty Work

Tape the stencil to the shoe so that the stencil is centered over the vamp.
Trace the outline of the bone. You can use a white jelly pin or a white fabric pencil or fabric chalk (if you make a lot of mistakes!) all work great for this project.

Remove the stencil and use your fabric paint brand and color of choice. (I used a glitter gold and a glow-in-the-dark fabric paint.)

Paint the outline first, then fill it in, this will give you a cleaner look.

Step 7: The Finished Product!

Pretty cool and fashionable shoes on the cheap! Great for Halloween or all year round.
You can do anything you want though! These zombie shoes are a great starter project for laser cut stencils.

Step 8:

Step 9: