EDMONTON — Heather Kyle’s boots were once made for walking. Now they’re turned into purses.
Kyle has spent the last five years turning previously worn boots into funky purses.
She cuts off the bottoms, turns the leather inside out, adds decorative touches and sends them away to be stitched back up. Then comes the hard part of wrestling the hard, stiff leather back the right way.
“It’s not like turning a sock inside out,” said Kyle at her booth at the Heritage Ranch Rodeo artisan room at Farm air International.
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Kyle scours thrift shops for boots as well as straps and conchos off old purses to reuse for her boot purses.
“It’s a real scavenger hunt for me when I go into a thrift shop,” said Kyle.
“The stitching speaks to me. When I see the stitching, I know what I’m going to do with the boot.… Red boots are hard to find. Women must be having too much fun with their red boots and are not giving them away.”
When she finds pink boots, she adds a silver breast cancer ribbon concho and makes them available for breast cancer fundraisers.
Kyle got started when she saw a boot purse in a shop in Winnipeg . After making herself a purse from her own boot collection, everytime she went out, someone wanted to buy it.
“I got a little carried away,” said Kyle, who sells her Swanky Shanks cowboy boot purses at rodeos and high end artisan shows and from her garage “bootique.”
Her clients wear western gear year round or want novelty bags for rodeo or stampede events. Some people turn their father or husband’s old boots into purses as keepsakes.
Kyle hopes to start a western consignment and thrift shop with all her western finds of western dishes, boots, furniture and clothing.
“I’m a thrift store maniac.”
