DIY Barefoot Sandals with Beaded Lace Applique

Last week I did a review on a whole bunch of beads sent to me by PandaHall. I’m receiving positive feedback on the review, so I’ll think about recommending more products and sharing more coupons I find in the future 🙂

This week I’ll show you how to make a beaded lace applique and DIY barefoot sandals using some of the PandaHall beads. So let’s get started!

Beading technique tutorials mentioned:

Beading in a single line

Filling with sequins

Click here to get more DIY’s from Sparkly Belly!

To make the beaded lace applique, you need:

Beads & sequins of your choice – I’m using clear acrylic beads (affiliate) and silver sequins (affiliate) sponsored by PandaHall (more coupon info at the end of this post), and 1 acrylic rhinestone that I picked up at Michael’s.
Lace applique – if you want to use it for making a foot accessory, pick one that is smaller than the top surface of your foot.
Beading needle or any hand sewing needle that is thin enough to use with your beads.
E6000 for glueing the rhinestone
Matching colour thread – for this, you can use all-purpose thread or beading thread.
Elastic – I’m using about 1cm (1/2in) wide elastic. 1/2m is plenty.

How to make a Beaded Lace Applique & DIY Barefoot Sandals

First, examine your lace applique design and plan where you want your beads and sequins. I like to honour the original design and follow the main lines and frames. For this one, I’m going to follow the stems with beads, and fill the flower petals and leaves with sequins.

So once you have a general plan, go ahead and place the largest pieces. For me, it’s the rhinestone, so I glued on the rhinestone in the middle of the largest flower.

Then for other smaller flowers, I created an accent in the centre with a bead and sequin. Basically, take your threaded needle with a knot, go through the applique from the wrong side, a sequin and a bead and go back into the sequin hole again. That’s it!

If your lace is too thin and a knot of your thread slips through, you can leave some thread on the wrong side, bring the needle back to the wrong side, and tie a knot close to the lace. Cut the excess thread, and start sewing.

Next, I went ahead and traced the stems and some of the leaves with the small round beads. I show this technique in detail in my previous tutorial.

It’s a bit hard to see with clear beads, but in person, it gives dimension and complexity to the applique.

Then I filled the flower petals with the sequins. And I have a tutorial for this technique as well. I tried to keep the outlines of the petals visible on the outside. I really like the clean edges of lace appliques like this.

I went back in with the clear round beads to frame the centre rhinestone. Framing large pieces like rhinestones is a good technique to make your design look more polished. I used the same technique as one I used to trace the stems.

Then I filled other petals and leaves with more sequins, and also added the bead-sequin accents on small leaves.

And the applique is finished! You can definitely use this as it is to add to a dance costume, wedding dress or other formal dress or spice up your daily clothing. 😀

I decided to make a barefoot sandal that I can wear with my dance costume. To do that, I placed the applique on top of my foot, and cut 2 piece of elastic. 1 to go around my toe finger, and the other one that goes around my ankle. It just needs to be snug and it doesn’t have to be very tight.

And just sew the elastic pieces by hand. And that’s it!

I think it’s such a cute and unique accessory to wear with your dance costumes, and also great for beach weddings, any parties and events.

Hope you liked the DIY barefoot sandals with beaded lace applique, and if you make your own beaded lace appliques and/or DIY barefoot sandals, please share your creations on Sparkly Belly’s Facebook group.

If you want to make more dance costuming bits, sign up for my free course, Belly Dance Costume Making 101.

Click here to get more DIY’s from Sparkly Belly!

More PandaHall Coupons

Some of the coupon codes I shared with you last week have already expired. 🙁 BUT since I posted last week’s review, PandaHall provided me with more coupon codes to share with Sparkly Belly readers 😀

Save $2 on your order of $20+ with coupon code: YTBPM2
Save $3 on your order of $30+ with coupon code: YTBPM3
Save $4 on your order of $40+ with coupon code: YTBPM4
Save $5 on your order of $50+ with coupon code: YTBPM5
Save $10 on your order of $100+ with coupon code: YTBPM10
Save $20 on your order of $200+ with coupon code: YTBPM20
Save $40 on your order of $400+ with coupon code: YTBPM40

These are all valid until January 1, 2017 PST.

If you want to check out the beads and sequins I used in this tutorial, you can find them here (affiliate):

Acrylic clear beads here.

Sequins here.

Visit PandaHall 🙂

They have lots more lovely products for pretty good prices. (Read more about their products in my review here.)

So shop smart and be sure to use the above coupon codes 😉

A big thank you to PandaHall for sponsoring the beads and sequins!

Thanks for reading, and keep sparkling!

Want to make more costuming bits yourself?

Sign up for my free course, Belly Dance Costume Making 101!