Tag Archives: art

How to Decorate Flip Flops

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If you have a pair of old, slightly used or even brand new flip flops you can personalize them by decorating. It is one way to revive an old shoe so it looks new. Plus decorating flip-flops can also be a lot of fun. You can also decorate them to suit the color of a dress or make them so that they are more suitable to your personal style.

There are several ways to decorate flip flops. One of the easiest ways is with ribbons. You simply roll them around the straps of the flip flop. The ribbon makes your straps gleam. If you have a really plain pair one way to gussy it up is to simply add a big bow. A big flower or plastic butterfly also looks good on a thong. Yet another idea is to glue a great big gem on the Y shape that separates the big toe from the rest of the toe.

You can also add bling. You can buy plastic gems and the string the gems on a cord. You then glue the garland of gems on top of the strap of the flip flop. You can also glue the gems on separately but they tend to stay on longer if you do it this way.

You can also buy threads strung with sequins. These can just be glued directly on thongs as well.

It is also quite easy just to paint the flip flops. You can paint designs on them with paint or you can draw on them with marker. Metallic marker looks especially nice. Neon marker looks nice if you want to add polka-dots to some thongs.

You can paint images on thongs to match any theme. You can paint butterflies, hearts, volleyballs, hamburgers, your business or anything you like on flip flops. Brides can paint the date of their wedding on them. You can also give thongs away as party favors.\

You can also decorate your feathered flip flops with feathers. You can even make the look like birds. Paint the bird’s countenance on the upper sole and strap feathers on the tong straps.
There is a fad in California for painting portraits on Flip Flops. You paint your face on the upper soles and your name on the straps.

If you are having a party with a bunch of kids (particularly teenage girls) this is a great project to keep them busy while they are socializing.

How To Decorate Crafts With Safety Pins

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Safety pin crafts are simple, easy and fun to do. All you need to do to create pretty pins and bracelets is slip some seed beads onto ordinary safety pins. Teenage girls love to swap safety pin jewelry as expressions of friendship and they also make great gifts for anyone who likes to wear a brooch.

Experienced creators of safety pin crafts recommend coating the outside of safety pins with varnish or a sealer before you start to keep them from tarnishing. Brass pins need to be sprayed with an acrylic sealer to avoid rusting.

While making these beautiful objects, safety pin jewelry experts also closing the heads of pins each time you slip a bead on a pin so that you don’t lose track of your pattern. You can work freehand or from a pattern. If you are using your own pattern, keep in mind that you can mix up large and small safety pins in one design and that small pins can be slid along the bar of a larger safety pin. If you start out using a very large safety pin it saves you the necessity of using a pin backing or jump rings to hold the overall design together.

Safety pins come in different sizes. When constructing safety pin crafts it might be valuable to know just how many seed beads each safety pin will hold. A safety pin that is 7/8 of an inch long will hold eight seed beads. A safety pin that is 1 1/16 inches long typically holds ten seed beads.

It is also important to consider that a safety pin that is more than 1 1/16 inches long is usually too wide to hold seed beads. It will hold larger beads or buttons to create even different styles of safety pin crafts. A safety pin of this size however will hold up to 10 beaded safety pins. A safety pin that is 1 3/4 inches long will hold up to 12 beaded safety pins and you can slide up to fourteen beaded safety pins on a safety pin that is two inches long.

One trend in making safety pin crafts is using black safety pins instead of the usual brass, silver or gold safety pins. If you are interested in making safety pin jewelry using black safety pins, you can order gunmetal black ones in different sizes from Richard the Thread, Dept. SN, 8320 Melrose Ave., No. 201, West Hollywood, CA 90069.
You can purchase seed beads for safety pin jewelry at craft stores. The sizes of the holes in seed beads greatly vary from bead to bead. It is usual to buy a batch of seed beads only to discover that you have to discard some because they won’t slide onto the safety pin. As a rule of thumb, buy more seed beads than you think you will actually need for your safety pin crafts.