Customizable Flip Flops
By kristinabjornbak | Category: Home Crafts, It Worked 4 Me | Posted Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Summer is here again and everywhere I look I see the (roughly) same pair of inexpensive plastic and rubber sandals. You can find them at different stores, often for under $3 in a wide range of colors. Who wouldn’t want to have some?
Well, me. I don’t like them. Not that I’m opposed to color or flip flops, but the plastic/rubber thong part (the part that goes between your toes and up over your feet) grabs at my skin and cuts me. I have the scars to prove it. Fabric uppers aren’t so bad, but are often much more expensive. On a whim this year, I bought a pair of the cheap flip flops to the tune of $1.98, and got to work making them something cute and wearable. You can, too! Here’s how:
Materials:
- Cheap thong flip flops
- Knife or sturdy scissors
- Grosgrain ribbon or strips of fabric
- Hot glue
Step 1: Remove the thong upper.
Turn the flip flop over and find the bump/knot/nut that is securing the thong upper in place. Use a craft knife or a pair of sturdy scissors to cut the thong free. Remove thong part and discard.
Step 2: Make the toe loop.
Make a small loop with ribbon or fabric. Make sure it’s long enough that about two inches stick up, plus enough to make a knot on the underside. Thread the ends through the toe hole, but don’t tie yet.
Step 3: Thread the ribbon.
Estimate how long a piece of ribbon or fabric you will need. Add a bit to that because you will be knotting the underside and you may have measured wrong. You can cut off the excess later. Tie a knot in one end of the ribbon. Thread the other end through one of the side holes, going from the underside up, so that the knot is on the bottom. Give your knot a test tug. If it pulls through, the knot is too small. Because of this, I added a small bit of extra scrap ribbon to the ends to give the knots more bulk without them being too big.
Thread the unknotted end through the toe loop and down through the other side hole. Do a test fit on your foot to see how much of the ribbon you’ll need to pull through.
Step 4: Place your knots.
After you do a test fit, you’ll want to knot the ribbon/fabric on the underside of the shoe to hold it in place. Do a final test fit to make sure it fits correctly.
Step 5: Add your glue.
On the underside, pull the knots slightly so the that the cavity under it is exposed. Fill the cavity with hot glue and pull the knots back into place. Trim off any excess fabric or ribbon on the underside.
Step 5: Secure the scrap
If you used an extra bit of scrap to beef up your knots, you’ll need to secure that those on the top. Just a bit of hot glue between the main layer and the scrap will do it.
Slip on and enjoy!
As a final note, to give credit where credit is due, I did see the wonderful Key West Flip Flop tutorial over at The Mother Huddle. Although what I made was completely different, I did learn the knot and hot glue trick from there, so a big thanks to her!
Kristina is a stay-at-home mom of two boys. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English and spends her down time sewing, baking, doing crafts with her children, and experimenting with recipes with her husband.
Walking Safety
By kristinabjornbak | Category: It Worked 4 Me | Posted Wednesday, June 15, 2011
The nice weather makes a perfect time to take the family out for walks. We walk quite often in my family, but until recently, my idea of walking safety was merely making sure the kids don’t run too far ahead and don’t go in the street.
One day as we were taking our kids for a walk, my husband called our 6-year-old back to us after he ran ahead. He told him that it was because there could be cars backing down their driveways and not see him. I’m embarrassed to say that I never even considered that a possibility. Never occurred to me.
But let me say, I’m so glad he brought it up! A short time later while I was walking our 6-year-old to school, a woman talking on the phone backed down her driveway without looking! If I had not seen her, or if our son had been just a few feet in front of me, she would have hit him.
It’s a fine line we as parents have to walk between teaching our children to act with safety in mind without making them afraid of the world. However, I do think it is worth the time to explain to your children that it is important to stay with you while walking past driveways, especially since you are taller and more likely to be seen. Or, if they are of the age that they go on their own on bike rides or to their friends’ houses, that they watch for cars backing. So many children are being taught by their parents that cars will stop if they see them, but that doesn’t really apply if the driver never sees them.
I hope this walking safety tip works for you!
Kristina is a stay-at-home mom of two boys. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English and spends her down time sewing, baking, doing crafts with her children, and experimenting with recipes with her husband.
Rice Pattern Weights
By kristinabjornbak | Category: Home Crafts, It Worked 4 Me | Posted Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Our house isn’t big enough to grant me a permanent sewing space. As a result, I rely on a folding table and various boxes and tubs to store and move my sewing stash. This has never been a big problem except for the fact that my patterns and fabrics often shift or slide off my folding sewing table, despite my best effort to weigh them down by strategically placing my sewing box or scissors on top.
Enter the wonderfully low-tech rice pattern weights. This idea has been around for some time and is super easy. There are two ways you can make these, and they take only minutes.
One, the prettier option, is to use your fabric scraps. Cut two of the same shape of your choice, pin right sides together, sew (leaving a space to turn it right side in), turn right side in, fill with rice, sew the hole shut. Note, don’t overfill, and make sure there is no rice where your needle will puncture the fabric when you sew it shut or you risk breaking your needle. If you have trouble keeping the rice away from the needle, hand stitch the hole closed. Done. Wasn’t that easy?
But say you are in the middle of a project and you need some weights ASAP and can’t be bothered to sew some. Well then, go to your kitchen and pull out a few snack-sized zip closure plastic bags (or any sealable small container) and fill with rice. There you have it.
Now your patterns and fabrics won’t continuously hit the floor!
Kristina is a stay-at-home mom of two boys. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English and spends her down time sewing, baking, doing crafts with her children, and experimenting with recipes with her husband.
Plan To Eat: A meal planning review & giveaway
By mom4life | Category: It Worked 4 Me, Recipes & Kitchen Tips | Posted Sunday, May 22, 2011
Eating is necessary, planning for it is optional.
However, over the years I have discovered (or been reminded-again and again) how helpful it is when I take the time to plan out our meals for the week. As silly as it may sound, I can recall the first time this idea of planning meals ahead of time occurred to me. I was newly married with no kids and standing in the middle of a friend’s beautifully retro themed kitchen. Neatly attached to her antique fridge door was a little handwritten note indicating what she planned to make for dinner each day of the week. I stood looking at that list in wonder and amazement as the realization that I could have control over our dinner plans began to take root in my mind.
Since that day, I have worked to implement dinner planning into my routine with varying levels of success. The frustration point for me is that there are so many steps involved in the process:
Too big for the high chair, not big enough for the chair: enter mylittleseat
By mom4life | Category: It Worked 4 Me, Mom 4 Life Product Feedback, The Journey of Motherhood | Posted Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Growing up is a big job. So many things to learn and do. So many new things to try. . .
Quinten is so over his high chair, he is almost two years old after all and the high chair is just too babish. On to the big boy chairs!
Oh wait, hold on there big boy, not so fast. Remember how you fell off the big boy chair and cried and cried? Lets make both mama and big boy happy by using a mylittleseat travel high chair!
I love this product. Not only is it super compact and easy to take with me to grandma’s house but it is machine washable and can be assembled and disassembled from the chair in a flash. The extra bonus is that after our kids have all outgrown the need for it, I can store it for just a fraction of the space a regular high chair would take up and have it on hand for friends with younger kids who come over for dinner.
Safe, portable, washable and affordable: great features if you ask me!
We just got our latest shipment of mylittleseats in and now have a bunch of brand new fabrics, come check them out!
