Cowboy Boot Craft for Kids

Check out this cool cowboy boot craft I made!  

I'm really happy with how it turned out. I'm surprised how much it looks like leather; it's actually chipboard colored with Stabilo's Woody 3-in-1 Multi-Talented Pencils (affilate link here and below). Yes, they're actually called Multi-Talented Pencils. 

As it turns out, one of their talents is mimicking leather!

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Cowboy Boot Craft

Materials:

• chipboard
• Stabilo Woody 3 in 1
• paintbrush
• scissors
• brown fine liner

Steps: 

Make yourself a template of a cowboy boot on scratch paper (or print and use mine). 

Cut out the boot and trace it onto a piece of chipboard. Draw in the sole, heel, and pull strap. (I had to look that up. Miraculously, googling "grabber at the top of a cowboy boot" worked.)

Now decorate your book. You can draw freehand. If you want symmetrical decorations, like I did, I recommend cutting out a shape from a piece of folded scrap paper, then tracing that. 

Now paint the book using the Stabilo Woody 3 in 1 (brown, black, and gold). I held the pencil in my right hand and a paintbrush in my left. Dip the paintbrush in water, then rub it over the tip of the pencil to get pigment. Then start filling in the boot.  

Since this was my first time working with the Stabilos, I wasn't as consistent about how much pigment I put on the brush. Ultimately, it didn't matter. I just added extra layers until I was happy with the colors.  

When the boot was completely dry, I cut it out. Then I used the brown pen to add stitching. That made a big difference in making it look more realistic.

While making this project, I was thinking of the many cowboy-related places we've seen on our travels, like the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum and Stockyards City in Oklahoma, works by Cowboy Artist Charles M. Russell in Montana, the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame, and the Fort Worth Stockyards National Historic District, just to name a few. I love that a simple craft like this can take me right back to places I loved to visit.