ILoveToCreate Teen Crafts: Funkadelic Flip Flops

ILoveToCreate Teen Crafts
Funkadelic Flip Flops
Margot Potter
"Mom crafted, kid approved."

Designing a teen craft project every week presents unique challenges and inevitably fills my mind with a series of questions as I sift through ideas. Is it too old fashioned? Is it too grown up? Is it too weird? Is it too funky? Have I lost my ever loving mind? This week’s project is no exception to the rule. It began with an innocent pair of acid green flip flops. Then I dug up some acid green fun fur I got from my friend Jenny Harada (monster maker extraordinaire.) From there I toyed with a garden/lawn theme...fuzzy pom poms were ceremoniously created and unceremoniously rejected. Daisies were contemplated with extreme seriousness. I mulled extensively over dimensional fabric roses. Then I threw all caution and good taste to the wind and went straight to funky town.

Sometimes you err to the side of Audrey Hepburnville and sometimes you go straight to Lady Gagaland. I think you can guess where I went this week. Are they hideous? Perhaps, yes. Okay probably, yes. Okay, yes. Do I love them anyway? You bet your sweet bippy I do!

I think teens will love them too, my daughter Avalon did. Let your teen modify this project to suit her style. She can glue fun fur, yarn, rick rack, zippers, ribbon or whatever tickles her fancy to the straps. Then layer up a fun focal piece using Liquid Fusion glue and a variety of Tulip Fabric Sprays and let that pedicure shine!

Life is short, why be boring when you can be outrageously fabulous? Why indeed.


Materials
Rubber Flip Flops
Acid Green Long Nap Fun Fur
2 wooden stars
2 open center scalloped foam hearts
2 yellow plastic vintage gum ball machine skulls from Sacred Kitsch Studio
Ranger Archival Ink Jet Black
Inkadinkado 99531 Animal Skins Clear Stamps
Fiskars Clear Stamp Base
Aleene’s Liquid Fusion Glue
Tulip Fabric Spray Paint in Neon Pink, Yellow and Orange
Crafty Chica Little Paint Pack in Yellow and White
Elasticity Clear Stretchy Cord

Tools
Foam or Regular Paint Brush
Fabric Scissors


1. Measure and cut fun fur strips. Jenny showed me a trick for cutting the fun fur, if you keep the point of the scissors in the base of the fur as you cut, you won’t end up with choppy fun fur or what she calls “a bad haircut.”


2. Mix a little white paint into the yellow and paint stars. Allow to dry. Add a spritz of orange fabric spray to the top. Allow to dry. Stamp using archival ink and leopard fur stamp.


3. Use a thick business or 3x5 card to mask off sections of the foam heart and spray with orange fabric spray. Allow to dry.


4. Remove spray nozzle from fabric spray bottle and use the end to flick pink and yellow paint on heart. Allow to dry.


5. Glue layers together, foam heart followed by star set to the right or left for each flip flop and skull on top of star. Allow to dry.


6. Use Elasticity to tie the heart to the flip flop strap. Use a double knot to secure and cut off ends. Glue the heart down to the fun fur on the flip flop strap using Liquid Fusion glue. Allow to dry.

Stay tuned for more fab flip flop ideas for ILoveToCreate this summer!

I Love to Create: He Loves Me! Flip Flip Craft Project

He Loves Me Flip Flops Copyright 2009 Margot Potter

Flip flops are the shoe of choice these days and it's pretty fun and easy to trick out your own pair. The fancier styles at the shoe stores can run upwards of 45.00!

Seriously, folks, it's a rubber shoe. Are you kidding me?!

So...being the crafty kinda gal that I am, I make my own. Here's a daisy themed idea you can take in all sorts of directions depending on the trim and flower you use. This is a great project for these last dog days of summer when the kids are all chanting an endless chorus of, "I'm bored."

(Note: Use the glue outside to ensure proper ventilation. Let the kids design and you take care of the glue.)

Avalon opted for a far less complicated project using googly eyes and mini bow ties! How cute are her shoes?!

Materials
Rubber Flip Flops
1/2" Daisy Trim
2 1 1/2" Fabric Flowers
2 8mm yellow cat's eye glass pillow beads
16 4mm Tulip Glam-It-Up Iron-On Crystals
Aleene's Platinum Bond Super Fabric Glue
Aleene's Platinum Bond Glass and Bead Slick Surfaces Glue
Beadalon Supplemax

Tools
Scissors
Butter knife

1. Glue the trim to your straps using Aleene's Super Fabric Glue. Use a butter knife to shove the trim into the space between the flip flip strap and the shoe bed. Run a thread of glue along the bottom of the trim and press firmly on strap. Allow to dry for 24 hours.


2. While glue is curing, take a multi petal fabric flower apart by removing the stem. Save one of the piston segments and the two largest petal segments.


3. Thread one end of the clear monofilament into the bottom hole in your flower, through the two sections, the piston and your bead and then back through.


4. Tie the flower on the thong portion of your sandal using a Surgeon's knot to secure. Cut off excess monofilament. Center bead so it is flat inside of the flower and be sure to tie the knot tightly enough that the flower remains stable.



5. Since the straps are rubber, I decided not to iron the crystals on. Instead I used Aleene's glue for slick surfaces and put a small dab in the center of every other daisy and firmly pressed each crystal down.

6. Allow glues to dry for 24 hours.

Here's Avalon's Fabulous Design:

Googly Woogly Flip Flops Copyright 2009 Avalon Potter

Flip Out Flip Flop Summer Free Craft Project from The Impatient Crafter Margot Potter

When I was a kid, rubber flip-flops worn anywhere but at the beach or on the boardwalk were considered to be the height of tacky. Somehow we’ve become so utterly casual that rubber flip-flops are everywhere these days. They’re flipping through the office corridors. They’re flopping along the shopping malls. They’re slapping and slopping their way into every location...even in the dead of winter.

Flip. Flop. Slap. Slop.

So...am I okay with that?!

Honestly? On one level I’m horrified and on the other I’m sitting here typing in a pair of rubber flip-flops so who the heck am I to judge?! Besides anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE shoes!

I’ve taken to the DIY Flip-Flop route after sizing up the price points of the upscale variety online and at the mall. When my daughter and I were shopping she mentioned wanting lace-up flip flops and I put on my thinking cap to make it happen. Here’s the 411 on The Goddess Flip-Flops...and stay tuned because this is the first installment in the Flip Out Flip Flop Summer™ Series!

Goddess Flip-Flops
Flip Out Flip Flop Summer™
Copyright 2009 Margot Potter

Tie on these saucy sandals when you want to release your inner Goddess. The laces minimize the flip-flop sound to make them a skootch more office friendly.

Materials
Black Rubber Flip Flops from Old Navy
Pair of long hi-top style shoe laces in light grey
24 black grommets
2 swirl pattern grungeboard by tim holtz™ sheets
2 8mm 5002 crystal AB (001 ab) CRYSTALLIZED™-Swarovski Elements beads
2 20 gauge silver plated head pins
Claudine Hellmuth Studio Line paint in charcoal black
Ranger Adirondack pigment ink pad in snow cap
Inkadinkado Flourish Stamp 96253-P
Claudine Hellmuth Studio Line paint brush
White pen (to mark hole placement)
Hello Kitty® Daisies Bigz™ Die
Aleene's Clear Gel Tacky Glue

Tools
Round nose pliers
Wire cutters
Chain nose pliers
Crop-A-Dile™
Ruler
Sizzix Big Shot Die Cutting Machine
Bead reamer or other drill with 1/16” bit

1. Die cut your grungeboard by tim holtz™ flowers using the Sizzix Big Shot and the Hello Kitty Die. Make two cut sheets.

2. Paint the four smaller flowers black and allow them to dry.

3. Use snow cap pigment ink to stamp flourishes on surface of flowers.

4. Allow to dry.

5. Glue flowers together.

6. Drill a small hole in the center of each flower.

7. Thread each flower with a beaded head pin.

8. Bend pin flush to the back of your flower and cut to approximately ¼”.

9. Use largest part of round nose pliers to create a large loop at the back of each flower.

10. Measure your straps and mark six evenly placed spots for holes on each side. Make the front holes close to the strap fronts and your final hole should rest on the lower side of your foot.

11. Use your Crop-a-Dile on the larger setting to punch out your holes. (You can opt for a hole punch here.)

12. Set your grommets with the Crop-a-Dile. (You can use a grommet setting tool here.)

13. Thread a lace into the underside of the outside of one of your flip flops and lace through the holes until you reach the center.

14. Thread under over, under and over the toe portion of the flip flop criss-crossing the lace into a small x.

15. Continue lacing down the outside of the flip flop until you reach the final hole.

16. Repeat for second flip flop.

17. Open and thread the looped flower into the top lace in the x design at the front of each flip flop. Secure closed.

18. Lace on your new creations and go have some fun already will ya?!

True Craft Confession

The winner of last week's contest is: Julie Otte. Congratulations! Your prize will be on its way to you soon!

Yesterday I fully intended to relax, but instead I took on a project that's been lingering on the side lines of my studio for a while. During the better part of the afternoon I destroyed a metal bobbin case, a needle and an entirely innocent spool of thread. Take that, sewing implements! After many juicy expletives, a flurry of stray threads and wayward straight pins and more than a few temper tantrums...I ended up with two not too shabby curtain panels. They actually turned out to be pretty cute, but when you factor in the time, the broken items and the cost of the gorgeous Alexander Henry fabric (and the original novelty fabric I purchased at Reprodepot that didn't work out when I measured the first set of panels wrong)...well I'd probably have been better off not DIYing this project. My sewing machine has some seriously finicky tension, even my pal Jenny Harada had problems getting it to work properly. So it's not just user error...at least not entirely! I was determined to get these curtains finished no matter how frustrating the effort became and thankfully I persevered. I measured twice and I cut once (okay actually twice because they were a little too long the first time!) I think they pull the kitchen together beautifully. Huzzah!

(It's dark and dreary here today so I wasn't able to get a great pic, but you get the idea! I may double up the panels and sew two more, haven't decided if I'm ready for that yet!)

Now I have to buckle up and get to work on my new book. I had to take on some freelance work last week that got me a little behind schedule, but until mid-August all of my attention is going to be on pumping this book out. Don't even think of asking me for anything else because I've got to put the nose to the old grindstone here.

Stay tuned for the first installment in my 'Flip Out Flip Flop Summer project series'. I've also got some book reviews to share soon. Until then...craft on with your bad selves!

xoxo
Madge