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I live for the outdoors. I rally for adventure. I explore every day. So moving into my new place by the lake was like unicorns and rainbows for me: total fun in the sun.

Unfortunately, when it comes to being barefoot, my naked feet needed a little extra protection walking down the sharp gravel driveway and across the street to the beach. I wanted to be barefoot but I needed some kind of transitional footwear to take the edge off.

 

 

My first material experiment was Tyvek -- the same material used for FedEx and Priority Mail envelopes. They were terrible. I scrapped the idea until the following summer when, after doing a roofing project using a huge sheet of sturdy billboard vinyl as a tarp, I came up with the idea to use billboards to make the shoes. 

 

Billboard vinyl is triple layer fiber-reinforced PVC plastic sheeting. The images of giant roadside advertisements are printed directly on this material and secured to the billboard sign structure. Each sheet is 14x48-feet, weighs about 80-pounds, and often gets thrown away when the advertisement cycle is complete. Every year, the total amount trashed would more than cover the entire state of Massachusetts in a sturdy, impenetrable layer of colorful billboard art.

 

Durable, waterproof, & washable, billboard vinyl became the perfect solution for my footwear problem. Fast forward to today and meet the patent-pending prototype, "paperfeet."

I launched TOMBOLO LLC to make & sell uncommon goods for the collective good. We build both the tangible and intangible innovations that make the world a better place. Our functional gear encourages people to get-outside-and-live while embracing a mindset that champions creative reuse and conscious consumption. Paperfeet are TOMBOLO’s first success in manufacturing good. The shoes are hand-assembled right here in Michigan.