Has your old rubber slippers seen better days? Is that pair of sneakers due for retirement? We all have outstanding footwear that have served our feet and carried our body weight for miles and miles on dirt roads, asphalt, and all kinds of surfaces. For a time re-soling is a good solution, but there comes a point that re-soled footwear is anything but comfortable. Before you toss them in the trash though, consider these tips to reuse old footwear:
Cut out rubber slippers/shoes and use them as padding for legs of tables and chairs.
Everybody knows the telltale marks left on the floor by a sliding heavy piece of furniture. Not only these are eye sores, they can be hard to remove as well. You can use the rubber from old slippers and shoes to pad the legs of chairs, tables, beds, drawers, cabinets, and almost any heavy furniture that is a danger to your flawless floor. Sketch the size and shape of the area to be padded, cut out pieces of rubber with equal thickness, and stick them to the legs of the furniture. Rugby does the job pretty well and the rubber is unlikely to come off.
Send old shoes to Nike Reuse-A-Shoe.
Nike’s got an impressive plan for your old shoe. The shoe is torn apart into three parts: rubber, foam, and fabric. These are mass grinded to become mixture of athletic surfaces. The rubber becomes the surface of running tracks, the foam becomes the surface of tennis courts, and the fabric becomes the padding of basketball courts. For information on where and how to send them your old shoes, visit Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe’s site.
Make doorstops and/or bookends.
Fill the inside of the old shoe with plaster or cement and paint the outside according to the design of your choice. You can use them as doorstops or really unique bookends. These can also be used as weights for indoor and outdoor use. Just don’t leave them in the shoe rack or someone will get an unexpected surprise.
Use boots as flower containers.
A flower growing out of a boot is always a poetic symbol of beauty and crudeness juxtaposed. Fill the inside of the boot with soil, organic fillers, and dirt. Plant a flower or a flower seed and grow accordingly. Make sure the water drains properly so the plant won’t drown and that it gets enough sunlight. If you can, make clumps of flowers grow out of your old boot and leave a stronger impression on visitors who see them.
Create artworks out of old shoes and slippers.
Transform your shoe into a toy animal. The shoe’s shape is great for the body of an animal – let your imagination make the rest. Look up several art class tips on how to design your toy animal out of a shoe.
There’s no limit on what you can do with a pair of worn-out footwear. Let your imagination run free with your old sneakers and flip-flops. Additionally, there are great ideas on the web on how to reuse them. Tutu’s, anyone?
Photo Credit: Some rights reserved by steffenz on Flickr.
