Make Old Jeans Into New Shorts: DIY Makeover

Tools and materials:

• Fabric scraps
• Old jeans
• Pins
• Sewing machine
• Tweezers

Sew the fabric 

I took some fabric scraps from an old sewing project and laid them down on the bottom half of my jeans at a diagonal angle. Fold the edges inwards and pin them down. Cut off any excess fabric from the dies and continue pinning around. The only edge that shouldn’t be pinned down is the bottom. Sew to secure. 

Distress the jeans 

Grab some tweezers and pull at the fabric on the bottom (unsewn) edge. This will give a distressed look to the pants. If you need to, use scissors to cut notches. The notches will allow you to get creative with the distressing and keep it from being in a uniform line. Once that’s done, flip the jeans over and distress a little bit across the bottom. 

Tear the pocket - optional

Use some scissors to create a small tear along the front pocket. I then went back in with my tweezers and distressed the small tear. In the end, I regretted this step, because I think the pants would have probably looked better without this detail. But if this is your style, go for it! 

Add embroidery - optional 

For a fun extra detail, I wanted to add a cute little 90’s phrase to the jeans (since they’re vintage style). To do this, I decided to embroider the word ‘as if’ (from Clueless) on the pocket. This is the first time I’ve ever done embroidery so it’s not necessarily the best done, but it was actually surprisingly easy. 

I am so happy with how this turned out. The old jeans makeover was a complete success! I think I gave new life to an old piece and I can’t wait to come up with new ways to style them!