Last week when my sister was gathering items for her daughter’s first dance class of the season, she realized that her tap shoes were missing their shoelaces (surely the latest victim of their kitten’s playful nature). Because the shoes only had one pair of eyelets for the shoestrings to go through, they needed some VERY short shoelaces. My sister began a quest for short shoelaces that night, visiting every store in town. When she called me to tell me about the problem, I pulled from my memory a handy trick that I had learned about ages ago… you can use elastic hair ties as replacements for shoelaces!
My sister was dubious but eager to have a solution, so she was willing to give it a try. I told her to find some elastic ponytail holders with decorative balls on them (remember how popular they
First you fold the hair tie in half. Then push the folded point through one of the eyelets on the shoe.
Now pull it through the other hole. Then put your finger and thumb through the loop on the point you pulled through the eyelets and open it wide.
Loop it around the decorative balls (or in this case, flowers) which will secure it in place.
If your shoes have more pairs of eyelets, you can add more hair ties. Once the ties are attached, they will stretch enough for your child to get her foot in, but pull tight enough to keep them on her feet. You shouldn’t have to undo the knot each time — just stretch the elastic.
No more shoelaces to fuss with, and they look so cute!
14 comments so far:
When I was young and in dance class, they used to have us attach a bow to a rubber band. You then pulled the rubber band through the hole and looped it around the big bow made of sparkly stiff ribbon.
What an easy and inexpensive solution. Thanks for sharing, Stephanie!
You are a life saver! The ponytail holder for the tap shoes sounds great. I would have never thought about that. Thanks
Hi Gina. Thanks for your comment. Hope you continue to enjoy our site
Oh my gosh, this is exactly what I’m looking for. We have dance class tomorrow and one of the shoelaces is missing! I had NO idea what I was going to do. Thanks so much!!!
Awesome, glad we could help!
Wow! Awesome idea. I was at a couple stores today looking for laces for my daughter’s tap shoes & no luck. Decided to do an internet search & this came up as the very first link. I like this solution better than the laces, because my daughter doesn’t know how to tie her laces yet & this looks cuter too.
Glad we could offer you a suggestion, Rebecca. I’m sure your little dancer will love the pretty “laces”
Thank you!! I spent 30 minutes yesterday trying to finagle a hair elastic into a shoe lace…I was cutting, knotting, and getting frustrated! Your very simple way to do this is brilliant!
So glad we could help, Diana!
This is exactly how we did our tapshoes when we were kids but my mom couldn’t remember HOW! I’ve googled for years and finally I found it! YAY! Thanks for sharing.
Amy, I’m so glad we were able to finally answer your question after all these years. Thanks for saying hi and we hope you enjoy the rest of our site too!
I had to pry the metal part in between the two balls off of the hair tie but it worked! Thanks!
My daughter started her dance class last Thursday
(first time ) shes so excited that when her cousin came over she showed her her tap shoes, I notice today the laces are missing :-/
Thanks for the idea