Today I’ve got a new DIY for you, and it is an easy spring/summer DIY to revamp some tired old flip flops by adding ribbon and beads! I don’t put up blog posts about all of my DIY projects, but since the actual DIY for this one was so easy and quick, and I really like how they came out, I went a little crazy with the beauty shots and I wanted to share all of the photos. Keep reading to see the DIY video and check out more behind the scenes tidbits about making the flip flops!
I tried out some new color effects in this video, and I may have gone slightly overboard since it was midnight and I was exhausted when I was doing it, but I really wanted the video and photos to feel really fun and summer-y. Let me know what you think!
Putting together all of the shoes was a long light of sewing and gluing, since there were 6 shoes to do in total. I can definitely say – my back was so sore the next day! But I got through about half a season of Parenthood, so that’s a plus. Will Hattie’s parents ever let her date Alex? I’m on the edge of my seat!
I took so many photos that I wanted to make a few Pinterest-friendly collages to encourage people to share the DIY. Like this photo on Instagram here, and feel free to Pin it from this blog post!
The shots of me wearing the shoes ended up being the ones I used most, even though they were the hardest to shoot since I was alone in my apartment and trying to focus on my own feet and pretty much imitating a contortionist taking some of the photos. I only wish I had a second person to photograph some of the poses I was trying out!
Although, any photoshoot that lets me lounge around on the couch with my feet up on the coffee table isn’t so bad!
I actually have quite a few shoe DIYs in the works. First there were the subtle rainbow sneakers I posted on my channel a few weeks ago, and then I have two more shoe DIYs that I’m working on for HGTV Handmade!
Time for the closeups! You guys know I love my macro lens.
I got these large flower beads off of a broken Forever21 bracelet that I bought at a discount, and I think I finally just used up the last of them. Definitely got to head back to the F21 sale rack soon for more craft supplies ;)
Wrapping all of this ribbon was definitely a process, but I think it also felt a bit longer than it actually was since it was the last pair that I made and it was late. When I was working on them, I had my video lighting setup turned on so I could see what I was doing, which cast this weird blue light over the apartment, rather than the yellow light we’re all used to. It was definitely an adventure.
I love these spike beads so much (as I’m sure you know by now if you’ve seen almost any of my other DIYs), and I think they look so good against the teal!
I think the teal ones are my favorite of the bunch. When I was shooting them though, I was wearing teal pants, and I used a teal blanket as the background, and my nails were painted teal, so maybe teal is just my new favorite color.
Funny that they ended up at the end of the post, but these white flip flops were actually the first ones I made! I originally made them with these neon spike beads, but after doing one side, I thought they looked just a little tacky, so I ripped them off and tried again with neutral colored spikes, jewels, and pearls, and I think they came out so cute.
As I kept saying in the video, I love these for a casual beach wedding, or just any other summertime party. Just a pro-tip, you might want to size up on the flip flops if you’re going to using a thick ribbon that overlaps quite a bit. I’m usually a size 8, but I could only find 8s in white and had to get 9s in teal and black. And once I got the ribbon on there, these white ones ended up just a bit tight while the other two fit fine.
Another fun fact, the pearls I wanted to use originally and that I showed in the closeup of all the beads I was planning to sew onto the shoes are not the ones I ended up using. The holes going through the beads ended up being way too small for even my smallest needle, so I almost gave up on using pearls…UNTIL I remembered I had a large bag of random white beads, and it turns out that mixed in with those were enough pearl beads with larger bead holes so that I could still carry out my vision of the flip flops. Having mountains and mountains of craft supplies pays off!
So that was the DIY Flip Flops video! Tell me in the comments or on social media which one was your favorite. You can check out the video right here if you didn’t watch it at the start of the post. And don’t forget I have a new PO box now! You can get the address in my last blog post. Thanks so much for reading, and I will leave you with my DIY playlist, featuring hours and hours of even more DIY videos and ideas. Hope you all have a great weekend!
