Slides are literally the most comfortable shoes that exist, am I right? But they can be a bit boring and maybe a little too casual to wear out. So I decided to try to embellish my slide sandals to make them a little more glam! And it was super easy! And don’t they just look adorable?

If you want to try this out with your slides, I’ve got a full tutorial below. And if you do try it, I would love for you to tag me on instagram or add a photo to the comments so I can see what you made!

*This post contains affiliate links to Amazon for some of the products I used in this DIY. This means if you purchase through my link, I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps to support my blog and help me to keep making content, and of course, I only link to products I actually use and love!

What you need:

Steps:

  1. Make a card stock flower cutout as your pattern to cut flowers from your leather
  2. Cut a flower from the leather
  3. Use rivet hole punch to punch a hole in the shoe
  4. Use rivet hole punch to punch a hole in the flower
  5. Place the flower on the shoe, lining up the holes, and insert the front rivet
  6. Snap the back rivet onto the front from the inside of the shoe
  7. Sandwich the rivet between the anvil and the setting tool
  8. Hammer the setting tool to secure the rivet
  9. Repeat to add as many flowers as you want!

Instructions:

First, I printed out a flower outline that I found online in the size I wanted my leather flowers to be.

Then, I cut the flower out loosely; just to get rid of the excess paper, and taped it to a piece of card stock (you could use thin cardboard too). You could also draw the design if you want.

Then I just cut out the shape of my flower from the card stock. This will be my guide for cutting the leather so every flower looks the same.

Next, I grabbed a piece of my leather (I used scraps from an old project) and taped my cardstock flower to the leather.

Then I just cut around the cardstock and I ended up with a cute leather flower!

Now we need to attach the flower to the slide. To attach the flowers I used Dritz rivets and rivet tool. I’ve linked them on Amazon to make things easy for you, but you can also find them at your local craft store.

First, I put a flat piece of wood inside the shoe so that when I hammered a hole in the shoe it didn’t go through to the bottom of the shoe. I used these from Walmart. When I first practiced using the rivet hole punch on some scrap fabric I tried using cardboard behind the fabric instead of wood… and ended up with a hole in my cutting mat… so whatever you use just make sure it’s sturdy!

Next, grab the hole puncher from the rivet tool kit.

Now place the sharp end of the hole punch against the shoe where you want the center of your first flower to be placed.

Then use a hammer to hit the end of the hole punch to make a hole in the shoe… you’ll have to hit HARD and it might take more than one hit, my husband had to help me with this at first because I wasn’t hammering it hard enough to make a hole.

Next, I used the same method to punch a hole in the center of my leather flower. I made sure to lay the flower on the wood slat before punching the hole.

Now grab a front and a back rivet piece. The front is the longer piece on the right.

Hold the flower on the shoe, lining up the holes, and press the front rivet piece through the holes from top to bottom.

Next, snap the back rivet piece onto the front rivet from the inside of the shoe. It should snap into place easily, but will be a bit loose.

Now to secure the rivet in place, grab the other two pieces from the rivet attaching tool kit. These are the anvil (small round piece) and the setting tool (long cylinder).

Next, take the anvil and place the curved side against the rivet back (inside the shoe).

Then place the curved side of the setting tool against the rivet front, sandwiching the rivet between the two pieces.

Hold this in place while hammering the end of the setting tool to secure the rivet. Once you’ve hammered it hard enough, the rivet will be tight and secure.

Now just repeat this process until your slides are covered with as many flowers as you want!

 

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