How to Decorate Sandals with Fabric for Homecoming

Decorate your sandals with fabric in your team's colors.

Add a fabric rose or fabric-covered buttons to your sandals for special occasions. Cover a large button with print fabric in your school colors and attach it to your flip-flops for the homecoming game. You can also cover small buttons in different colors and place them along the side strap of your flat sandals. Make a fabric rose to match your dress and add it to your high-heeled sandals for the homecoming dance.

Things You'll Need

• Button forms
• Fabric
• Scissors
• Beading wire
• Wire cutter
• Sewing machine (optional)
• Thread
• Needle

Instructions

Fabric-Covered Buttons

1. Cover one large or five or six small button forms with fabric according to the directions on the button package.

2. Thread an 8-inch length of beading wire through the shank of the button.

3. Place the button on the desired location on the sandal. A single large button looks appropriate in the center of the toes. Make a design of three small buttons in a row along one side of the toe. A line of five buttons can be added along a side strap.

4. Wrap the loose ends of the beading wire around the strap of the sandal to hold the button in place.

5. Add additional buttons as desired.

Fabric Rose

1. Fold a 4-inch-wide, 8-inch-long rectangle of fabric in half lengthwise, with the patterned side of the fabric on the inside.

2. Sew a straight seam 1/2 inch away from both of the short edges. Sew this by hand; alternatively, you can use a sewing machine. Turn the fabric strip patterned-side out. This gives you a finished edge on both ends of the strip.

3. Lay the strip on a table with the fold on the right side. Roll the strip up, starting with the bottom end and rolling to the top. This is your fabric rose.

4. Hand-sew the raw edges on the bottom of the rose tightly together. Stitch 1/2 inch from the bottom edge, sewing from one side of the rose all the way through to the other. Pull the stitches tight to gather the bottom of the rose closely together. This will cause the top of the rose to "bloom" slightly.

5. Sew the center of an 8-inch piece of beading wire to the bottom of the rose.

6. Use the wire to attach the rose to the center of the toe of the sandal by wrapping the wire around the sandal strap.

Tips & Warnings

• You can wire fabric roses or buttons to shoe clips instead of putting them directly on the shoes. The metal clips that hold gauze bandages in place can be folded in half and used as shoe clips.