Handmade Jibbitz for Crocs are popping up on Instagram - The Verge

She repurposed materials she already had lying around — foam she uses to make headbands, fake cherries, and seashells — and ended up designing charms that make the Crocs look like a wearable sundae.

It’s the Jibbitz accessories, though, that make the shoes pop, and Crocs says revenue from selling the charms doubled last quarter.

“A lot of the people who shop with me can’t really afford an $800 pair of shoes, but they can afford something that’s a $40 set per shoe that they can put on that makes what they’re wearing feel really expensive and special,” Maddocks says.

“I feel like that’s part of why they’re doing really well.”.

“I get so many compliments from all walks of life in them, especially because people can hear me walking up and they’ll turn around and look at my shoes and they’re like, ‘Oh my god, I love those.’”.

She considers her Jibbitz a niche product, really only for people who are willing to make noise with beaded pom-poms and draw even more attention to their Crocs.

“I have a few orders, and I’ve definitely had several friends reach out to me and be like, ‘Oh my god, I just bought my first pair of Crocs I’m obsessed,’ so I feel like they’re not my most popular product, but it’s definitely piqued some interest, and I think it’s a fun novelty thing to make for me,” she says.

“The plan is to … create jewelry for the shoes and then elevate this very casual, utilitarian shoe into something that’s almost like high fashion, and really sparkly and fancy and pretty,” she says.

“They’re objectively ugly shoes, they’re shapeless, have holes in them, etc., so it’s taking something that’s like a potato and shining it up.”

She orders the shoes from China, charms from various places online, rhinestones from Amazon, and puts it all together to make the shoes sparkle