DIY: How to Stretch Leather Boots to fit your calves

This is an optional way, a very easy way: you can do it yourself and  stretch your boots. (I bought these beautiful boots at Victoria Secret in size 7.5 and unfortunately they did not list calf size, but it is hard to find boots with big, yet not clunky fitting calves if your not a size 2, and especially in the smaller sizes of shoes.) Now these are leather boots, and I have not had this "stretching" experience with other kinds of boot materials. Although, I should note that materials that make up boots and shoes Gap/Target do seem to stretch pretty easily when worn. Meaning I can wear them in pretty easily. So if you try this with your boots that are not leather, or double lined like these, carefully observe each day to see that it is going the way you want.   

This shows you how far up the zipper got before I stretched them. Again not sure what size they are, I might guess 14 or 16 inches. And then I might say my calf is 18...again if this didn't work as well as it did, I might have been forced to measure and take better notice. And you are welcome to do that with yours.

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This is a regular kids 8 1/2 inch playground ball. I happen to have two around. I deflated them and inserted them in down to where the zipper. You could use a basketball, soccer ball, volley ball or anything that is bigger than your boot, your trying to stretch. You will also need a bike or ball pump with a ball needle. I show both here, but obviously it was easier to use the bike pump.

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Here I show the balls inserted in the boots. These boots are double lined leather and have a heavy metal zipper, I was almost scared when I opened them because I didn't think anything would stretch them. And I didn't want to buy an ugly extender, and I did not want to mess with the integrity of the look of these. And by searching the internet, from frozen overnight to extenders, I did not find anything that I felt comfortable with.  

 This shows me actually pumping up the ball to help stretch out the boots.

  This is both of them, just showing how it looked and how I left them for about a week. I kept checking them to make sure that the seems were secure, that the zipper was fine, that the color and the textures were not compromised. 

This is how you let the air out. If you are not familiar with air pumps and needles, etc. I let the air out and then removed the balls and below is what the boots looked like after the stretching. As you can see they do not look stretched and the seems are all fine. If they don't fit right away, you can always put them back in. I intended on pumping in air every other day, like two pumps. But I didn't get a chance to, and then ended up just fine. 

Its hard to tell but this is my leg in the boots!! They both fit of course, but I just had to show you them zipped all the way up. I didn't have to do any weird freezing thing and risk getting wet, besides who had room in their freezer for these boots? And I don't have to ruin these boots with a funky extender or weird alteration. I wish you luck and hope this helps you. Again be careful and enjoy!