A pair of luxury slippers are on my Christmas wish-list, but as the colder weather sets in, I need something to tide me over. Not wanting to splash out on my dream pair, I decided that an easy DIY option was the best the short-term solution. This simple hack was achieved using a pair of basic slippers I’ve had kicking around (boom boom) in the bottom of my wardrobe for months (if not years), and some iron-on fabric patches which I think I must have got in a goody bag from an event somewhere.
Above you can see the slippers as they were before – boring, not-very-me, plain ballet slippers from Next. I can’t actually remember if I paid £8 for them, or if I actually got them in a sale at some point, but they were definitely cheap ‘n’ cheerful, and crying out for a shot of personality.
Here’s my easy DIY slipper hack:
- Use a stitch ripper (or sharp embroidery scissors) to remove the existing bow (not to my taste at all!).
- Pin on the patches to find the perfect arrangement. As my patches were quite large this ended up meaning less is more – two on each of the toes, and two on the outside of the heels.
- Stitch in place (I decided that trying to iron them was far too much of a challenge!).
- Thread an embroidery needle with black embroidery floss and go crazy with a few easy stitches to fill the spaces between the patches. For me this mainly meant running stitch, back stitch and straight stitch (which is what I used to make the stars) but that’s because my embroidery skills are very basic! You could try anything you fancy.
And there it is, a bright and fun pair of slippers to keep my toes nice and toasty. Nice one.
My iron-on patches were just ones I happened to have lying around, but there are some great options out there if you want to buy them specially for this project. Some of my faves include OH NO Rachio (I have the ‘bloom where you are planted’ on my work rucksack, and reckon it’d look awesome on the toes of some slippers). Tea, coffee and biscuit lovers – get your fix (and then fix them to your slippers) with Nikki McWilliams’ not-to-be-missed patches. And for an awesome range, including alphabet patches to personalise your footwear, check out long-time favourite of mine, Jennie Maizels.
Very Creative Idea and not an expensive way to DIY