How to Make Men's Leather Sandals

Men's leather sandals not only look good, but are fun to make.

Men's leather sandals, like all leather shoe wear for men, are very expensive. It makes much more sense to try to create your own home-styled, fashionable leather sandals. You may think this is next to impossible, but centuries ago, that's exactly what was done, and they never had the modern tools and conveniences we enjoy today. Making men's leather sandals sounds difficult, but is a fun and fulfilling project to do.



Once you have mastered the art of forming sandals, you can experiment with style and design. You can work with different colors or shades, and even make women's sandals for someone special.

Things You'll Need

• Large paper that can fit your feet size
• Cutter
• Super glue or hot glue gun
• Heavy-duty stapler
• Leather piece measuring about 20 x 40 inches, plus a few inches for allowance or errors
• Shoe wax or liquid polish for leather

Instructions

1. Make an outline of your feet. Do one for each foot because often, there's a slight difference in the length. Use cork tiles.

2. Cut out the outlines, but leave an allowance of about an inch and a half on all sides. Use a sharp cutter. Once done, cut an outline once more, but use plywood instead.

3. Glue both outlines together using super glue or a hot glue gun. Check that you glue left outlines together, and right foot outlines together.

4. Cut two leather pieces, 3 by 7 inches. These will serve as the sandal heel section.

5. Cut four pieces of 2 by 5 inch pieces of leather for the sides of your sandals. Measure them up against your base outline, and trim if necessary.

6. Trim scallop edges along the top of the side pieces. Be sure not to cut to the bottom of the sides. You can also start adding some designs like crescent moon shapes, stars or simple holes around the sides of your sandals. This is where your creativity will show. You can glue the shapes or cut through the leather. These shapes, if you cut them out, should be small enough to fit the laces. You will need them to bring the sandals together.

7. Staple your heel leather pieces to your sandal soles. Cut small lace holes as well so you can lace up from back to front.

   Staple your heel leather pieces to your sandal outer soles, the wood side should be up.Cut small lace holes on the leather heel pieces and then begin to lace up from back to front

8. Staple your leather sides to the soles.

9. Lace your sandals through the holes you cut. The laces are essentially what will keep all pieces together and form the sandals. Polish and wax your leather sandals periodically to maintain the softness of the leather, and prevent cracks.