Summer shoes quick fix

I love to buy shoes. There, I've said it. My name is Teresa and I love to buy shoes. What I don't like at all is to buy pretty shoes, wear them half a dozen times and then discover they are damaged and can't be used anymore.

Sadly, this is what happened with a pair of summer shoes I got last year. Before the end of the summer one of the straps was broken and the other was half way there too. I was really, really angry because the shoes were comfortable and looked good on my feet. Not to mention that they were practically new. 

So I saved them, thinking that maybe I could maybe fix them. If I failed, the loss was minimal since I couldn't wear the shoes with the broken straps anyway, so there was no harm in trying. So last weekend I finally went down to work. 

Basically, I decided to replace the original straps with ribbon. Luckily I had in my stash a gray ribbon in almost the same shade as the shoes. The fist thing I did was open the seams that were securing the straps using a seam ripper: 

Then I measured how long I wanted the ribbons to be and cut two pieces for each shoe. I inserted the edge of the ribbon in the opening and sewed the whole thing shut: 

I've used my sewing machine for a lot of things, but shoes were a first...

Here's how the seams look on the inside (I went back and forth a couple of times, to make sure the ribbons were really secure):

And here's how it looks on the outside: because the exterior fabric is canvas-like, you can't really see the new seams, which is a bonus:

The finished product: 

Although it felt weird to take a picture of my own feet, especially since  had stockings on and I had no patience to remove them just for the photo shoot, here's how the shoes look when worn: 

All in all, I'm happy with the result. I'm not sure how long my "new" shoes are going to last, but I'm hoping they will at least hold until the end of next summer!

Happy Tuesday,