Patriotic Flip Flops
When I was in college I met a girl who was obsessed with making fabric covered baskets. I thought she was the most talented crafter I had ever met. I spent the year making fabric covered baskets for anyone who wanted one, which was mostly just my mom. One of the details of the fabric covered basket was the braided trim. I had forgotten about braiding ribbon until just recently, so when Laurie and I were talking about 4th of July crafts I knew what I wanted to do. I think these Patriotic Flip Flops turned out adorable and my daughter and I can’t wait to wear them!
How to Make Patriotic Flip Flops
Project Supplies:
- Flip Flops
- Red, White and Blue Grosgrain Ribbon
- Tacky Glue
These flip flops were on sale at Michaels for $1 a pair and were the inspiration for this project. I made one pair for me and one pair for my daughter. The first thing you need to do is figure out how long each braid section needs to be. Braiding ribbon uses a lot of ribbon. The one side of the adult flip flop was 7 inches. For the red and white side I used a piece of 64 inch red ribbon and a piece of 64 inch white ribbon. For the blue section, I used a single 64″ piece of blue ribbon. To estimate how much ribbon you are going to use is a bit of trial and error. A lot depends on how tightly you make the braid and how much give there is to the ribbon itself. As a point of comparison, I used 32″ pieces to made each braid for my daughter’s Patriotic Flip Flops.
You can see I used two colors of ribbon for the red/white side. Here how to do it:
Put the two colors together and find the middle of the ribbon make a loop. Whatever color you want to be on the outside of the braid needs to be on the outside of the loop. It’s important when you are braiding two ribbons that the loop looks like the picture otherwise it won’t turn out right. Holding the loop of the ribbon take the back ribbon and make a loop. Feed that loop through your original loop. Pull the other side snug.
Now repeat for the other side. Make a loop and feed it through the loop made on the other side. Pull it snug.
Continue braiding until you have reached the desired length.
Then cut off the ends and hot glue the ribbon.
Braiding two colors of ribbon is a little more cumbersome then just doing one, but the payoff is huge visually.
Once you have both braid sections you are ready to attach them to the Patriotc Flip Flops.
We used Tacky Glue to attach the braids to the Patriotic Flip Flops.
I made a little red, white and blue pinwheel with remnant ribbon, glued a rhinestone on and ten glued that at the junction of the ribbon. Viola!! Patriotic footwear.
Here are my Patriotic Flip Flops!
And here are the kid’s version of the Patriotic Flip Flops.
