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