Make Beaded Sandals -v2.0-

Back in the day (okay, 2 years ago, but that is pretty far back for internet years) my sister was nice enough to model for a sandal beading tutorial. Since then, I've realized that most of my photos from two years ago were, to put it nicely... sub par. As the internet advances, so do the photography skills of thousands of bloggers out there. In the spirit of keeping up (and justifying the expense of the camera I'm still paying off), I've decided to re-do a lot of the photos here on the site.

This is a lot of work, but the good news is that I get to go craft store shopping! revisit a lot of old projects. The beaded flip flop project was one I enjoyed because this is such an easy way to soup-up a pair of really plain flip flops. Behold my dollar store flip flops:

Yep, a total of $1.00. Not a bad design, really. They are clearly cheaply made, but the circles make them a fun pair of beachy flips, not without potential.

Doctoring a pair of sandals takes an ounce of patience. It can be done in about an hour and the tying pattern is easy to get the hang of. This can be done with flip-flops or any pair of sandals that involve strips of plastic or leather thongs. You can even apply the same method to trick out gladiator sandals with an array of beads.

I used glass beads scavenged off of a thrift store lampshade, bringing my total expense to about $2.50 for this project (The lampshade was actually $3.00, but I only used about half the beads on it. That's a lot of beads for $3.00... score!) The glass beads are heavy and fragile, but I think they add more glitter than plastic.

You are left with a pair of sandals that look designer, but cost a smattering of pennies. No making fun of my silly balloon toes!

• View the Tutorial: Beaded Sandals
• Did you make one? Upload a photo.