Enigmatic Craftage: Duct Tape Flip Flops

Warm weather is coming ever closer. I can feel it. When spring is in the air what better way to celebrate than liberating those toes with a brand new pair of Flip Flops. Duct Tape Flip Flops to be exact. Duct tape comes in so many cool colors and patterns now how can you resist. So go grab a roll or two and lets get started!

Here's what you need:

Duct tape in the color or pattern of your choice (I made a blue pair but I feel I flames version being created sometime in the near future ;)

cardboard (I used a pizza box you may need more than one depending on how messy the bottom of the pizza box is and how big your feet are)

scissors, at least 2 pair (you DO NOT want to cut cardboard with your fabric scissors!)

a leg from a pair of jeans (or some other fabric it's up to you but the denim makes great frayed straps)

pencil

small paint brush

exacto knife

fabric mod podge

Ok now we are ready to roll. First trace your tooties onto the cardboard with a pencil.

Cut each out slightly outside the lines you just marked then check for size. You should have a small border of cardboard all the way around you foot.

Not the best picture but trust me there is a border all the way around my foot.

Now take the two pieces that you just cut out and cut out two more for each foot.

You should have six pieces three for each flip flop.


Here are the pieces for Lefty!

Now grab your duct tape and scissors. My scissors are non-stick, which helps but is not necessary.

Non-stick scissors work great on Duct Tape.

Now take two of your cardboard pieces for your left foot and tape together. Cardboard sammich!
Like so:

small rolls of duct tape all over then stack

Repeat for right foot.

Ok now we are ready to cover the sole of the shoe. Flip your cardboard so the bottom of the shoe is up.

Don't worry if your pieces don't match exactly we will deal with that later.

Starting in the center cover the entire bottom, overlapping slightly on to the top of the sole.

Covered bottom

overlapped slightly onto the top

Repeat with other sole.

Now we can deal with the top.

I have made duct tape flip flops before and I always used all duct tape to cover the cardboard but that always seemed to make my feet sweat and besides

Duct Tape + Hot = STICKY! Not a good feeling especially when you get dirt or sand embedded in the sticky, ewww! So I decide to cover mine with denim. Hey who doesn't have at least a couple jean legs laying around somewhere, just begging to serve a purpose? Right? So here we go!

Lay your final piece of cardboard for the left flip flop on top of a single layer of denim. Like I said mine is from a pair of jeans.

Please ignore the grease stain. Remember it was a pizza box.

Now cut around the cardboard leaving about a half-inch border of fabric around the outside.

Notice both the fabric and cardboard are right side up.

Now we cover the cardboard with the fabric using.....

MOD PODGE! YEAH!

Using your paint brush cover the entire surface of the cardboard. Like so:

Now my fabric is wrong side up, cuz we're gonna make another sammich!

Now carefully flip your cardboard over onto your fabric. This gets a bit sticky but it was easier for me to do it this way than to place the fabric on top. Whatever works for you. Just make sure to smooth the top so there are no wrinkles before moving on to the next step

Now make little snips in the fabric around the outside of the toe and heel area. Like this:

View of the toe snips. It will help when we start to glue.

Now starting at either the toe or the heel paint glue on the fabric and fold it up around the cardboard.

Continue all the way around until all the overhang fabric is glued down.

Sorry I didn't realize you could see then end of my paint brush in the corner there.

Now we need to make straps. Grab that jean leg again and snip and rip two strips (one for each flip-flop) about an inch wide and around a foot long. Like these:

Now take one of these and snip and rip down the center of the strap leaving about and inch attached at one end. It should look like this:

Now we need to mark the sole for strap placement. I used a pen so you could see the marks but you should probably use the pencil so it won't stay forever. Make one mark between your first two toes and one on each side of your foot about 2/3 of the way back from your toes or you can use a pair of flip-flops that fit you well to determine placement. Like so:

When you have your places marked you will need to carefully cut a slit at each mark with your exacto knife.

cut from fabric side toward bottom

Make sure it goes all the way through. Sorry its a bit blurry.

First poke the wide end of the strap through the toe hole using the back of the exacto knife. Be careful the sharp side will be up.

To make it easier to poke through I folded the wide area in half.

Flatten what you have pulled through on the back side then glue and tape down. Making sure to let the glue dry before taping it down.

flattened down

Yeah Mod Podge!

taped and secured!

Repeat the poking procedure with the side straps then try on the flip flop to see how far you want your straps cinched down to make your flip flop fit. Then tie the straps together on the back side and cut off the excess.

Glue and tape as before.

Guess what its sammich time again. We need to layer the two sole pieces so make little tape roles again and sandwich the two piece together. Relax we're almost done!

Looks like a flip flop right? Not quite we need to finish off the outside edge to make it look neat. Cut a strip of tape long enough to go around the entire outside of the flip flop with a slight overlap. Place the tape around the shoe with the majority sticking out at the bottom.

bottom

top

Now smush (Yes, that is a technical term, thank you for noticing!) the tape down around the top and bottom. Be as neat as possible on the top side but go messy on the bottom, trust me it will help with traction.