How to decorate felt boots?

It is customary to call felt boots a kind of boots made of warm felt material. Valenki can be hard and represent an independent product or soft, designed for special shoes, for example, rubber boots or galoshes.

Felted boots are made from sheep's wool using a special felting technique, which ultimately results in a dense, frost-resistant product. It should be noted that the high thermal insulation of these shoes is due to the functional properties of sheep wool.

An interesting fact is that brand new felt boots with not yet rubberized, unformed sole are not divided into right and left. They are shoes with a semicircular foot, which still needs to be demolished, since the sole can only be hemmed and decorated with worn-out boots.

Nowadays, felt boots are practically not used in everyday life; they are popular only among children and the elderly, since young people prefer more fashionable and modern shoe models.

It is in order to breathe a second life into this product and return the felt boots to their former popularity, it is worth resorting to decorating them, using a variety of improvised or specialized means that can be purchased at any store with handicraft goods.

Valenki got their origin from the felt boots of the ancient Pima tribe, whose members were the nomads of Eurasia. According to some sources, the history of this shoe has a rather long duration, one and a half thousand years.

In pre-revolutionary times, the production of felt boots took place exclusively in the Tver, Nizhny Novgorod, Kostroma and Kazan provinces, in the counties separately designated for this act.

And from the middle of the eighteenth century, all felting craft was concentrated in the Yaroslavl province, since it was there that the Romanov breed of sheep began to be bred on an industrial scale. This location was quite advantageous in terms of transportation of raw materials and associated financial costs, which in this case were practically absent.

For example, decorating felt boots with rhinestones will look very unusual, since small and large stones of iridescent, flashy colors and restrained felt boots came to our world from almost different eras, so few people can think of combining them.

But, nevertheless, felt boots, decorated with large and small rhinestones, look very good and even glamorous, depending on the composition created by rhinestones.

Valenki can be embroidered with decorative small beads, from the beads of which even whole images are created, and not just patterns of the same type. You can also embroider boots with different colored sequins, which will give these shoes a more modern look.

When it comes to embroidery on felt boots, ordinary floss threads can be used to create various applications, or you can resort to a more creative method by embroidering a pattern on felt boots using satin ribbons.

Boots can be decorated in various ways using fur. For example, a narrow fur edging can be sewn along the top edge of the product. Or, on the outer sides of the felt boots, flowers and other ornaments made of fur patches are often attached.

The decoration of felt boots with felt follows the same principle as the manufacture of the shoes themselves - the technique of wet or dry felting is used, and the resulting application is then sewn onto the product.

To give a more feminine look to simple felt boots, you can use all kinds of beads and lace. And for especially creative girls who know the art of drawing, there is an unusual way - to decorate boots with hair dye.

Children love a variety of colorful clothes and shoes, because no matter how in childhood they enjoy bright colors and unusual products, which, as they grow up, fade into the background more and more.

To please your baby, you can decorate felt boots with the image of an animal, such as a cat or a bear. If possible, it is better to make the image of the animal separately, using the felting technique, and then attach it to the felt boots. If there are no relevant materials or skills, you can simply paint the animal with specialized paints or simple hair dyes.

Girls also love images of flowers, butterflies, stars and various snowflakes, which can be made by decorating felt boots using embroidery with threads, beads, small beads, sequins or ribbons of different widths.

Since little women of fashion love various bows, you can sew them from ribbons, lace or any other beautiful fabric, and then attach them to shoes, complementing them with small precious stones, large rhinestones or beads of different sizes.

You can build a small square cap on a felt boot and paint the product, disguising it as the shoes of some of the fabulous heroines, for example, Little Red Riding Hood. Any girl will be delighted with such felt boots!

• White felt boots with rubberized soles are decorated with a print depicting French sweets. Simple jeans of a skinny model and a thin peach-colored sheepskin coat with graceful patterns in oriental style are perfect for such pretty felt boots.

• Light gray felt boots with a large embroidered red flower and a green stem are perfect for an outfit in the best traditions of a rustic style. A long brown skirt, a sand-colored sheepskin coat with fur ruffles on the sleeves and a white shawl with a floral print are what you need for this look.

Cropped felt boots with decorative felted balls that fold into a pattern will look great with white tights decorated with a floral print. As outerwear, a coat embroidered in the best traditions of the Russian folk style is quite suitable, and among hats it is better to opt for a boyarka fur hat.

• Oversized white felt boots are decorated with numerous details made using the felting technique. White tights, a white mini-length woolen dress, as well as a warm knitted jacket made of thick yarn will perfectly fit into this look, and a high felt hat will become an unusual finishing element.

• Light felt boots with embroidery in the form of bright flowers with green leaves look very good in combination with a white skirt with a "sun" cut, a cropped white jacket with down and a black strap at the waist. A voluminous scarf and mittens with a print in the form of bright small flowers are a beautiful finishing detail of the look.