This summer we ran into a dilemma at our house. This dilemma arose when my lovely pooch took a liking to the straps on flip-flops. We haven't caught her eating the bottom for some reason, only the top. However when one has a face like this:
how can I not forgive her!
Anyway, she's gone through 2 pairs of my sister's flip-flops, a pair from 2 different friends of mine (luckily they were somewhat old pairs) and one of mine. Now we wouldn't have a problem if people remembered to put their shoes up on the shelf since she is only about 14" tall...
THEN! As I've been browsing the link parties for the past few weeks I've noticed several tutorials about altering and embelishing flip-flops so keeping in mind the general technique I saw I created my own pair from the chewed up version. .
These are what I started with:
(Please pardon the very used look of the flip-flops, I figured I'd try this out on on old broken pair first so that I could see how it'll turn out)
Cut the straps of the flip-flops.
STEP 2:
Decide what fabric you would like to use and cut strips of it according to desired width. I had started out planning to braid the strips so I only cut 1' strips. I cut 12 strips total (6/shoe) because the fabric I had to work with wasn't very long.
STEP 3:
Because my strips were not very long I took two strips and sewed them together at one end to create 6 (3/shoe) long strips of fabric.
Step 4:
Taking the three strips together tie them in a knot in the middle of the strips.
Step 5:
Either thread the long ends through the front hole in the flip-flop from the back towards the front. You can also do it slightly more dangerously quickly by pushing the knot through the hole from the top of the flip-flop. I did this with a scissors. Like I said if you do it the way I did there is the potential for danger, do not have any fingers or parts of hands/body covering the hole from behind when that pointed object pushes the knot through.
Step 6:
You will then have 6 strips of fabric coming through the hole. About an inch away from the sole tie them all into another knot.
Step 7:
This was the point where I was going to braid but I tried to and the braid really wouldn't show up that well so I decided to just tie 2 more knots right above the first one.
Step 8:
I then split the strap so there were 3 fabric strands on each side. I tied a knot in each of the sides and again pushed the knot through each side hole. You can stop here and make it like a traditional flip-flop style however I really don't like them flipping and flopping on my feed so I wound the fabric about 3 times around each side strap, and tied a knot at the top to keep the winding in place.
You can now wrap the straps around the back of your foot and tie into a knot and trim. You can also leave them long and tie around your ankle.
Using a little bit of imagination and planning I plan to experiment some more with different styles so keep tuned for more (better looking) flip-flop tutorials!
Thanks for stopping!
Linking up:
These are just great! I've been seeing a bunch of flip flop redos out there but haven't tried it yet. I think I've got a pair with uncomfortable straps. Thanks for sharing. Definitely going to try this now!
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