Free Rain Boot Craft

As usual, I was doing my searches for craft projects and came across a tutorial for puddle jumpers. Thing is these aren't your usual ones. The woman who decided she had enough of her knee high rain boots made these and I thought they were cute enough to share and give my take on items needed, where to find the rain boots, gumboots as she calls them, and other crafts to make with the left over rubber.

What will you need besides the black and orange rain boots?

A hole punch. Since the rubber on these boots are rather strong and somewhat thick, you will need a hole punch or hole punch dye kit that can make circles around the area to be decorated. She shows using a hole punch found in the office supply aisle at any store that sells this type of stuff.

Heavy duty scissors. Commercial style scissors would work the best since you will be cutting down the side of the boot and around the line marked areas. Normal household scissors may work, but they may not be much use after this project.

A utility knife. If you have one of these that you know will cut through anything, you can use it instead of your scissors to do the cutting in the areas mentioned in the tutorial below.

Small decorations. In her photos, she shows using a small pull chain. This type of chain can be found at any hardware store that sells it by the foot or yard. It will be cheaper than trying to buy enough to put together to weave through the holes in the boots. There are also other small decorations like buttons and yarn or yarn with clothes pins.

You don't have to stop with the items I mentioned that she used to decorate her boots. You can use things on hand or that fit your personality.

What to do with the left over rubber from the boots?

In the tutorial, she shows a few rubber tops she made for pins for shawls. You don't have to stop with that. You could make similar rubber objects for hair pins, hats, mobiles, window decor, and yard art.

For those who like to make wooden yard art, my dad use to make wooden wiener dogs with the long floppy ears and would need rubber similar to this for the ears. Then there are whirly-gigs one could make using the left over rubber from the boots.

Where to find the black gumboots?

I have mostly seen these types of rain boots at farm and home stores like Orschlins and Atwoods in Kansas. I have seen them a few times at Wal-Mart.'¨'¨The prices vary from store to store and town to town. Also, depending on how often they are in stock depends on the stores. I would suggest going to a local farm store like the ones I mentioned to be able to find them in stock year round. These types of stores will also have a variety of sizes.

Tutorial: Gumboots to Pixie Puddlers

This is a tutorial on how to make fairy looking rain boots from black shin high black boots. The boots used in this tutorial are the black ones with the orange soles often seen by those who work in areas where there is quite a bit of water.

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