Cardboard Air Jordan 1s Mids That Glow in the Dark

So, Air Jordan 1s. A shoe originating in 1985, making its mark in modern day fashion, arguably becoming one of the most influential lifestyle shoes to ever exist. With hundreds of colorways and designs, the Air Jordan 1s have always been made out of leather, or nubuck, or some other expensive, hard to get material. However, today I'm going to be making it out of cardboard. That's right, the same cardboard you could get for free at a Costco. The same cardboard you have tons of after unboxing that new TV. So why not join me in making this creative home-made Air Jordan one. One more thing about these cardboard shoes is that they also let of a vibrant glow when in the dark (using glow in the dark paint I got off amazon).

For this project you will need:

• Cardboard - Only use thick cardboard for the sole. Other than that, The shoe is supposed to have a sleek, thin look, so use single wall carboard, or any other thin carboard you can find.
• Hot glue - You're going to need a lot of this got glue if you want your Jordan's to be firm.
• Super glue - For gluing the tiny details that the shoe has. I'll be using some gorilla glue.
• A pencil - For tracing.
• Shoe laces - to lace the shoe.
• A picture of the Air Jordan 1s - Just so you have an idea of how the shoe is supposed to look. If you don't have a printer, you can just reference the photo off of the PDF at the bottom of the step.
• Paint (optional) - By this I mean just normal paint, as in not glow in the dark. This is optional because some might want their shoe to be the color of the cardboard they're using.
• Glow in the dark paint - This is a big part of the project, and it makes the shoe look so much better, so I do recommend getting this paint. This is the link to where I got glow in the dark paint.
• Scissors - To cut the cardboard.
• A knife - To cut the cardboard and the paper smoothly.
• Non corrugated cardboard (optional) - This is mainly just for the vamp, eye stays, and swoosh signs, because using normal cardboard is too thick for them
• The template of the shoe I made - This is the template I added in for the pieces I used to make my shoe. I'm a size 10 US, so if you prefer to use my template instead, go ahead. However, please note that the way you make your shoe and the way I made my shoe can differ in many ways, so feel free to adjust my template if using it. You can find these templates at the bottom of the step.
• A Ruler - For drawing and cutting.

The first step in making these cardboard Jordans, is to trace your foot. There are 3 main ways that I found that made the shoe look the best:

The first way to get a foot template is to just trace another shoe. The best shoes to trace are the ones with the flat bottoms, because they are easier to draw a pencil around. The bottom of the shoes should obviously resemble the bottom of the Jordan ones, having a broad toe area, (not pointy) and a ankle area big enough to house the back of your foot. It should also have a good amount of room for your toes You can also look at a picture like this for reference.

The second way is to just trace your actual foot. This is probably the hardest way to get a foot template because you need to get the measurements of your foot to be very exact to get a good shape. I really recommend you use this step if you really can't find a good shoe to trace. The best way to do this is to trace your foot all the way around as best as you can, then once your done, mark the top of your foot, the bottom of your foot, and the sides of your foot, then look at a picture like this and make a template from there. Make sure you draw the template in correlation to the measurements of your foot. This method is really to taste, so you can mess around with it until you get a good result.

The third way is to use my template. As I stated before, I am a size 10 US, so if you think you can fit that, then feel free to use the templates.

These are the ways I thought would give the best template, but please feel free to try other methods that you think can yield a good result as well. Of all the steps in this Instructable, this is probably the step that dictates how your shoe will turn out, so do what you think is best!

The next step is to use to put the foot template onto cardboard.

First, trace the foot template on to a sheet of cardboard. Make sure the cardboard is clear of any extra printings or labels. In other words, make sure the cardboard just is just plain, brown cardboard on the front and the back (this should also apply to every other cardboard tracing you do). DO NOT CUT THE CARDBOARD YET.

Now, make another outline on the cardboard surrounding the previous outline from the template. make sure this out line is at least 2 centimeters bigger than the first tracing, because you're going to need to make indents in the second outline later.

Next, cut out the tracing, but cut it out using the outer outline, not the inner one.

Once that is cut out, start cutting triangular indents around the edges of the carboard. Make sure not to cut through the Inner tracing, just cut through enough so that the indent meets the inner tracing.

When your done, you should have a cardboard outline of your foot with tabs surrounding it. The next step is to fold the tabs around cardboard up. The tabs shouldn't be too hard to fold, but if they are, just use your knife to crease them, so they can fold easier.

Now, we're starting build up on the shoe. The first thing you need to do is get midsole onto cardboard. For this, you can use:

• The Template - Trace the sole from the template onto cardboard.
• The Reference (Method One) - You can draw your own sole by looking at the reference, and then edit the sole so the front is flat and not curved up, then make it long enough to wrap around the cardboard shoe bottom.
• The Reference (Method Two) - Cut out the mid sole from the reference and put it on carboard, then edit the mid sole so the front is flat and not curved up, then make it long enough to wrap around the cardboard foot sole.

You should have to strips of midsole, one for the left of the shoe, one for the right.

Once you have your midsoles on cardboard, this is where the tabs on the sole come in to play. Hot glue the sole onto onto the tabs on the shoe bottom.

To put the sole onto shoe bottom, put hot glue on a few of the tabs, then carefully wrap the sole around the shoe bottom until all of it it is glued on.

The the midsoles should wrap around the cardboard shoe bottom together and meet end to end. If they don't, feel free to glue in another piece of cardboard to fill in the gap.

Now its time to build the toe and the mud guard, the front of the shoe that will be housing your toe.

First, get the toe onto cardboard. One way to do this is to use the template you can do this by:

• Cutting out the template
• Tracing the template on to carboard
• Make any adjustments that need to be made to make the shoe look good.

You can also make the toe of the shoe yourself by:

• Drawing it on a sheet of paper (I recommend looking at a reference or the template).
• Tracing the template on to carboard
• Make any adjustments that need to be made to make the shoe look good.

Now, glue the toe onto the shoe as seen in the picture and make sure to use the least amount of glue as possible so glue isn't too visible in the design of the shoe

Next, make the mudguard, which is that little shape of the end of each toe. Just like the toe, you can use the template to get the mudguard onto cardboard, or you can draw one yourself using a reference or the template.

One you have 2 mud guards (one for the left, one for the right), glue them onto the shoe as seen in the picture.

Now we're starting on the back of the shoe. First, get the foxing of the shoe on to carboard. The foxing is the shape at the very back and bottom of the shoe. You can do this by the usual methods:

• Use the Template - Cut out the template, then trace it on the carboard.
• Look at a Reference or the Template - Draw your own template on paper using a reference or the template, then trace that template on the cardboard.

Once you have a carboard cut out of the foxing, curve it out, and then glue it to the shoe. Make sure it is glued on as symmetrical as possible.

Now, its time the make the quarter of the the shoe, the part of the shoe connecting the foxing to the toe. Start out by getting the quarter onto cardboard using 1 of the 2 methods listed above. Make two quarters, one for the left of the shoe, one for the right. Next, glue them on as shown in the picture. If your using the template. be carful when your gluing them on: you'll realize that the ends of the quarters don't meet up at the back of the shoe. This is because I wanted to room to adjust the quarters, because of people's different ankle sizes. to fix this:

• Cut out a piece of carboard about the same width as the gap between the two quarters
• Glue it on
• Trim it down between so it lines up of the ends of the quarters.

Now that you have your foxing and quarters glued on, it's time to make the overlay, the of the shoe. To get the over lay onto carboard, use one of the usual methods listed in previous steps.

When you have the cardboard overlay, glue it on to the shoe. Make sure to glue it on symmetrically, so that when looking at the top of the shoe, the two sides of the over lay are even to each other.

Make sure not to glue the overlay too high, because there still needs to be room left for the collar. Also, the space between the quarter and the overlay shouldn't be too big.

Next, we make the collar of the shoe, the very top of the shoe that goes behind the over lay.

First, get the collar onto carboard. Do this by using the template methods from previous steps.

Also, make sure not to glue the collar too high, or your shoe will look too tall. Make sure that when looking at the back, there is only about an inch between the top of the over lay and the top of the collar.

Then, once you have the collar, glue it on to the shoe behind the over lay. Make sure each end of the collar lines up with the each end of the over lay as seen in the picture.

Now, create the vamp of the shoe, the piece of carboard that goes on top of the toe

Start by getting the vamp onto non-corrugated carboard. Do this by using the template or drawing your own from a reference.

NOTE: Whether your using the template or drawing from reference, you should know that the dotted line on the template means you should fold on that line. but the solid line means you should cut that line.

Once you have your vamp, start gluing it onto to the shoe. This is where the tabs on the template come in to help. You should have a total on 9 tabs on the template

First, bend the tabs on the vamp. Don't make a crisp fold, just bend the softly.

Next, only glue the front tabs onto the toe. At this point, you should already have your vamp lined up in the way that you want it to be. If not, take it off and restart on gluing it on! The vamp took me multiple tries to glue on until I got it at the right shape for my shoe.

Then, glue the rest of the tabs sides on. Make sure to keep the glue as hidden as possible. Next, glue the rest of the vamp on your vamp should be on securely now.

The next step is optional: you can put holes in your vamp, just like the real Jordan 1s. This is an optional step because the shoe can still look good with out it. I did try to add them, but in the end I chose not to, and I didn't include them on the vamp template, but you can use a reference to copy of if you'd like.

Now its time to make the eye stays of the shoe. This is the part of the shoe that houses the laces.

As usual, get the eye stays on by either cardboard, or non corrugated cardboard. Do this by drawing from reference or using a template.

For the eye stays, the template is really just a guideline. When putting them on cardboard, you can crop them to be long or short enough to fit your shoe.

Now, glue your eye stays on as seen in the picture.

Please note that on each side, one end of an eye stay should go behind an the a flap of the over lay, and the other end should go behind the mudguard.

Next we have to do the signature swoosh of the Air Jordan 1.

First, get the swoosh onto non-corrugated cardboard by using the template or drawing from a reference.

Notice how there is only one swoosh on the template. You are supposed to make two and glue there ends together at the back of the shoe.

Next, glue the swooshes onto the shoe. Make sure you are positioning the swoosh right when gluing it on, and that the ends of both swooshes are even with each other. Of the swooshes. you can look at at a reference to help with this.

After that, you can add the little square that goes at the back of the shoe on the swooshes, as seen in the picture. I didn't include these in the template, because they are so easy to do there isn't any point in adding them.

Next thing we're going to do, is make the tongue of the shoe. For this part of the shoe, there are actually two pieces that when glued together make the tongue.

First, get piece one of the tongue onto cardboard. This is the lower part of the tongue that gets glued to the vamp. Get the tongue by making your own template or using mine.

Next, you need to get piece two of the shoe on carboard. This is the piece of carboard that gets glued to the top of piece one. Once piece two is on cardboard, glue it to piece one as shown in the pictures.

Now, glue the tongue to the shoe. Make sure it is well adjusted and it isn't too low or high, but level with the top of the shoe. Now, you can move on to the laces.

After making the tongue, start on the laces. What you need to do first is mark out the holes that the laces are going to go through on the shoe. You can look at the picture above for reference. Then, poke holes through the marks.

Once your done with that, feed the laces through the shoe as shown in the picture above. Once the laces look legit, move on to the next step.

Finally, the painting of the shoe. Obviously, this is the most fun part. On this step, you can color your shoe what ever color you want. But If you are using the glow in the dark paint, here are some tips that I found that made the paint on shoe look the best:

• Apply the paint onto the parts of the shoe that you want to paint on. If your using the paint I'm using, you'll notice that the paint is really thin, and one coat of it doesn't even show up on the materials. Because of this, every time I did one coat, I had to wait for it to dry before I did another coat. Each time you do another coat, the paint will get thinker and thicker. You can keep doing this until you've painted the area solidly.
• To make your shoe glow in the dark, leave it outside for at least 40 minutes on the sun. After that, the shoe should glow in a dark room for about an hour.
• Also, I found that the end product is better when you cover parts of the shoe that you aren't painting with paper or masking tape. This way, other parts of the shoe won't be painted accidentally.

In the end, I decided to add some logos to the shoe. You don't have to do this, but I figured it would make it look better. I also decided not to add this to the template.

First I added the "Nike Air" logo that goes on the tongue. I started out by pasting a transparent Nike Air logo on a google doc. Then, I put a blue background behind it. After I printed it out, I cut out a rectangular logo, and then I glued it to the tongue of the shoe as shown in the picture.

Now its time to make the Jordan Emblem that goes on the side of the overlay. Just like the Nike Air logo, I put a Jordan logo on the google doc, gave it a blue background, printed it, and then cut it out. After that, I glued it to the overlay, finishing the shoe.

After that, I left my shoe out in the sun to charge for 40 minutes, and then took them into a dark room to see the glow, as you can see from the picture above, the glow in the dark paint worked exactly how it was supposed to. The glow is uneven in some places, but I think it adds to the look of the shoe.

Also, if you want logos on your shoe but you can't print them out, you can always draw them from a reference.

After you do finish the logos, that's pretty much the end of the shoe. If there is anything else you think would make the shoe look nicer, please give your opinions in the comments below. Thanks for making my first instructable with me. I'll see you next time!