Braided Fabric Flip Flop Refashion

I am a summer girl at heart.  I love the newness of spring when flowers are budding and grass is greening and I love the crisp air of fall and the leaves turning colors, but my heart is happiest in the dead of summer when the sun is shining and the breeze is blowing.  This is probably why at the ripe old age of 18 I packed up all my things and moved to Hawaii to go to school.  I spent two years living the island life and one of the things that stuck with me long after I moved back to the mainland was my love of flip flops.  There have been a lot of times in my adult life where I was told that I needed to stop wearing flip flops and instead purchase some “grown up” sandals, and I have, but there is still a special place in my heart for a good old fashioned flip flop.  Now as much as I love flip flops, what I don’t love is the hard plastic straps that they come with!  I refashioned a pair of flip flops a few years ago and they have FINALLY reached the end of their life, so I decided to make a new pair and I’m here to show you just how easy this can be!

The first thing you need is a pair of flip flops that fit.  I picked up this pair at Dollar Tree, and they had pretty much one in every color, so I am thinking that I *might* need to go back and pick up a few more so that I always have a pair to wear!  Once I got them home I cut off those annoying plastic straps.  This is as simple and pushing gently on the strap until the stopper moves off the sole enough to slip a pair of scissors in and cut it off.  Do that for all the rubber stoppers and you are left with a naked flip flop sole. Now comes the fun part!

I happened to have a bunch of leftover strips of yellow, black and white fabric from a jelly roll I bought for some other project so I used a couple of those.  You will ultimately need six strips of fabric 1″ wide by 12″ long.  I used my rotary blade to cut my jelly roll strips into thirds, but you can use whatever you have on hand.  This is a great project for scrap busting!  Now don’t get too hung up on having all your strips be the same color or pattern, I think these turn out best when you mix and match you fabrics!  Once you have your strips cut, you’ll want to roll the ends together so that you can thread them through the top hole on your flip flop sole.  You’ll want to pull them far enough through to be able to tie a single knot on the end.  Make sure you pull your fabric really tight so that your knot gets as compact as possible.  Then cut the ends off so that your knot fits into to recess on the bottom of the sole.  Once you have your strips fed though and knotted you are going to split them into three groups of two.  Start by tightly braiding your fabric strips until you have about an inch of braiding.

Now you are going to split those six strips of fabric into two groups of three.  I always start with the outside three, but it doesn’t really matter.  Tightly braid those three strips until they reach the hole on the outside of your flip flop and feed them through.  You want to make them a little tighter than you think, because the fabric has some give and will stretch out as you wear them.  Tie a double knot on the bottom of your flip flop where the fabric come through and again make sure you pull it really tight.  Then cut off the loose ends and sort of stuff the knot into the recessed hole.  Repeat the same process on the other side and then again on the other flip flop.  If you are worried about the fabric slipping through the holes you can add some hot glue to the hole and attach your knot to that for some extra security!

Now slip those bad boys on your feet and enjoy how lightweight and comfortable they are!  Have you ever refashioned a pair of flip flops?  How did you do it?  Share your ideas in the comments below!