28 April 2028

I got these leather boots from eBay for about £20, they were in Used condition, albeit in-store display shoes which meant no damage from rain or general outside wear, the current condition of these shoes (pictured below) is probably my fault, as I don't recall these shoes looking that bad when I got them in the post. I wore these shoes during the very rainy British weather (and in some instances, I neglected to soak off the water with a cloth after arriving home) which no doubt caused the creases and leather to get even worse.

Step 0: Making our own Shoe Tree

The first step to fixing these creases is getting a shoe tree, this way the shoe shape is maintained for when we start the process. However, I couldn't find shoe trees that work with boots (since the shaft would prevent the shoe tree from entering). For this reason, I went to my local train station and took four copies of their free newspaper. The internet recommends the newspapers to be black and white, but I'm not too bothered about that. I used a scissor to gullotine the spine off since it contained staples and I want the pages to be individually seperated anyway.

The best way I found to fill up these shoes to make sure every space is taken up is by taking one page, crumpling it, and then opening it back up and putting it in the shoe, then using an empty pen, I use the pen to tuck the page further in. It's worth pointing out your shoes are a hotspot for bacteria, so use a pen that you won't be needing for any other purposes.

This was my first time and it was somewhat difficult, so maybe it would've been best if I had taken out the laces so I'd have more room push the paper in (besides, we have to take the shoe laces out anyway for the next step), but for now we've achieved the objective. Anyway, I left it overnight since it was already late at night and decided to start Step 1 (the actual process) tomorrow morning.

I got this nice denim jacket from AliExpress for about £10, and I like it albeit I'd prefer if the inner pockets were a bit higher but other than that, it's really good. There is one improvement I'd like to make, and that is adding a zip to the inside pocket. A simple sewing operation.

I got this Casio-inspired watch from AliExpress for £2, and it works fine, the time is consistent and the night vision light works adequtely. Without the original on hand, I'm not sure what exactly is lacking or inferior, but one thing that I'm not happy with is the strap, which is understanbly very cheap quality. With the actual mechanics of the watch suiting my needs, I decided to replace the strap with something more premium.