Shoe Strap or Belt Hole Tutorial

Oh no the shoes strap (or belt) doesn’t fit right! it’s too tight or loose and you need more holes, but put that needle or nail away. Today I thought I’d do a mini tutorial about how to put more holes in the way I learnt in footwear classes in college. Unfortunately we measured incorrectly for the ankle strap and its too big, but thanks to my lessons I know an easy way to get a more professional look then using a needle.

What you will need

1. a heavy duty hollow punch tool for leather (I measured the ankle strap holes and chose 1.5mm which worked great, but you should measure the holes on your shoe/belt) as pictured I purchased mine on ebay very cheaply here
2. A ruler! for measuring the holes and the distance between them
3. A pen or pencil marking tool
4. mallet or hammer
5.work surface or scrap wood you do not mind getting dents on.

And here’s how to do it~!

1. Try on the shoe/belt and mark on the reverse/wrong side where you need the extra holes for it to fit. Then take off the shoe/belt.
2. Using the ruler measure how far the holes are apart and note this down so you can make your new holes spaced apart the same (Mine was 5mm).

3.  Remembering that measurement mark on the wrong side of your shoe/belt with your pen or pencil in middle (like the already existing holes) spacing them out until you reach your mark you put on earlier to show where it fits (if like mine the fit mark is in the middle just do another hole after it )

4. Go to your work surface or get your scrap wood. As you can see the punch leaves dents even if you are light and careful!

5. Place your shoe/belt down on the surface/ scrap wood so you can easily see the markings you made. (sorry for the shadow, I needed the light on so I could see the markings) you can push down with the hole punch tool so that it leaves a little impression which will let you check that its in the right position. Don’t worry too much about making it perfect and equal~!

6. Hammer time! But don’t worry its very easy. Hold the hole punch further down and steady it, hammer the tip of the tool with some force. Don’t worry you can remove it and check if you’ve gone all the way through if your nervous but I found it needed some force. Once you punched the hole remove the leather cut out from your tool and move on to the next one until finished.

 

And walla! all complete~ don’t worry about any bumps around the holes you just put in they will go away with wear. It might be intimidating to do but in my opinion it gives a much better looking result~! I thought this would be helpful for cosplay as well as general things. Ask away if I wasn’t clear in anything in the comments, I hope this helps

Blog Soon x
Amy

An Tai Na shoes review

Hi cuties, hope you are all enjoying the summer, we just got back from a holiday so sorry for not posting for a while >< . Now some of you might of noticed we ordered some lolita shoes that fit with Hime very well. These were one of the first things I ordered when building my wardrobe as it became very clear I had no shoes suitable at all~!
We both chose An Tai Na for it’s custom sizing, but when our lolita friend came in wearing them at a photo shoot we were convinced to order since they looked so lovely! Ordering from An Tai Na may look a little confusing with all the customizing and it being a Taoboa shop, but don’t worry, we’ll do a mini guide at the end of the review ^^
Now onto the shoes!

This is how the shoes were packaged once I got of all the plastic wrapping all over the box (forget to photograph it haha!) The box is a little worn and bent but that doesn’t matter! The lid had my details on it so I didn’t take a photograph but it was reassuring to see all the details. I love that each shoe has its own little bag to keep it safe! I chose EMS by the way ^^ it took 3 weeks for my shoes to be made and shipped over which I think is good. They forgot to email me that my shoes were on the way but it made it a nice surprise!

The first shoes we ordered are the white bunny heels~! they jumped right out at us when we were looking at all the different shoes and we just had to get them! Of course like all the shoes they are colour customizable so you can choose whatever you like ^^. We chose white to get a more magical look.
Our shoes are customised: White, 4.5cm heel height and are for a shoe size of  27cm ( uk 8 maybe 8 1/2)

The shoes are very detailed and look even cuter in person! The shoe has had a lot of work into such as the mock lace trim around the shoe which is scalloped and even has little hearts dotted about. The ankle strap matches too and has a large heart buckle on it <3 The fluff ball and the bunny bow are detachable on shoe clips so you can dress down the shoe (and not worry about damaging anything!) over all the shoe is comfortable to wear and feels very secure, I don’t feel like anything will break on them. I love the little heel and the heel height was actually recommended to me as better for my shoe size, which I appreciate their consideration.

One warning about these shoes is that they turned out to be real fur, so please take this into mind when ordering them.

Over all Review

Design: 5/5
Comfort: 5/5
Quality 4/5 (a few threads but brilliant for the price)
Price: 5/5 $38 US dollars!

The second shoes we got were the Pink Crown heels ~! These are my staple Hime shoes now. I picked these to be pink but once again there is many different colour options which you can see on the product page as well!
Our shoes are customised: Light Pink, 4.5cm heel height and are for the same shoe size ^^

When you see the shoe unpacked the crown looks floppy but no fear, when worn  it looks a lot nicer. the crown has cute studs to represent jewels on it too. I chose this shoe as it’s slightly more wearable then the bunny ones and goes with a lot more ^^. I chose the crown shoes as crowns are a frequent symbol in Hime fashion. Unlike the other shoes these have a more round front which gives a different feel.

Once again the quality of the shoes are great and very comfy, I think I might wear these more than my bunny shoes since I can see them going with more of my wardrobe ^^

Over all Review

Design: 5/5
Comfort: 5/5
Quality 4/5 (not as many threads on this one though)
Price: 5/5 $38 US dollars again~!

So there the shoes I bought ^^ I just bought another pair of a lolita sales comm which I can’t wait to arrive. Their flats and black, had to be sensible this time~! I would definitely recommend buying An Tai Na as they are great quality, very customizable, do a big size range ( even foot sizes bigger than a uk 8) and Have great customer service.

buying guide

For my buying experience I went on their TaoBao store and searched for the shoes I wanted. You can search by heel height which is easy to spot without translating it. You could also translate it for more specific results, but for me I just went through them all as you can change heel height on the shoes.

Once you have found the shoes you want, you can then email their English speaking customer service person, she has very good English and was great at answering my questions. I pasted the urls of the shoes into the email and specified any customising I wanted such as heel height etc.

She’ll then email back asking for your foot size and country. Measuring your foot size is quite easy and if your worried you can ask questions to the customer service.

After this it is just confirming your order details and choosing your shipping, they confirmed the price very early on as well and have multiple shipping options. I chose EMS which for two shoes to England cost around £50, they didn’t email me my shipping code but my order was in the stated time so I have no complaints there ^^.

I hope you found this review useful ^^ An Tai Na shoes for other j fashions as well so check them out! they have some pretty cool platforms and lolita boots which I might look at next

Blog soon
Amy and Clairey xx