Destroying Denim DIY ideas for old jeans and more

At a visit to the Levi Store on Union Square in San Francisco, we discovered there custom jeans shop downstairs. You can pay them to destroy or distress a pair of jeans that you buy there at the shop from $50 on up plus the costs of the decorations. One square inch of distressing with a patch behind it is $20!! They only do squares and rectangles too. We decided to start doing our own and show our readers how in the process.
First we took some old jeans of Audrey's and washed them in a bleach load with about a 30 minute soak to lighten them. We next cut them off and dyed them in Teal RIT powered dye in the washing machine. Adding half a cup of table salt helps hold the color. We laid them out flat to dry and decide on our design. You can see they are still obviously denim but with an aqua undertone and the fraying on the legs is aqua colored.

We went through our scraps for matching fabrics and decided on a star and moon design theme. Using a blue wash out marker, I traced the star on one leg of the shorts on the top.

I cut out a square of fabric for the lining and laid it out over the star to make sure it was the correct size with about an inch to spare all the way around. This piece of fabric must be basted to the BACK of the shorts but sewn through the top.

When you are done, stitch by machine or by hand on the pattern you drew on the front. It really depends on what you want it to look like or if the location is difficult to get under your needle on a sewing machine, I recommend you hand stitch it with embroidery floss or a contrasting color.

Now to cut out the design so that the applique or patch fabric will show, you must reach in from under the top and hold the piece of patched fabric out a little and carefully cut a slit into the design center on the front. After that you can use a sharp pair of scissors and carefully trim the shape leaving about 1/4 inch of fabric around the stitching. This will naturally fray when washed but the patch will remain.

Wash out the blue marker lines and now you can paint or add other embellishments. Audrey wanted a little sparkly paint in blue tones.We used Jaquard fabric paints in teal and blue. We added a light line around each shape and a few dots of color. The finished product was heat set with an iron. The front pockets got just a small line of paint along the seems.

We also painted in the decorative stitching lines on the back pockets and added one more moon. I had to had stitch this moon because there was no way it was going on my machine. I also had to cut and sew right through part of the paint but the Jaquard paints are very pliable.

The moon on the back added a little interest and pulled the look together without too much destressing of the shorts.

Her finished jeans shorts are just the right length for her and paired up well with her striped aqua tights and arm warmers purchased on www.welovecolors.com. Our favorite sock shop.

Today's favorite blog on Upcycling

The Creative Princess if full of awesome ideas. This creative gal makes everything and anything from a repurposed item and her results are so wonderful. I am blown away by her talent. The amount of money and waste avoided is amazing.

As I look around my house at all the stuff my kids have collected...I feel kind of guilty. I am renewing my efforts to be more thrifty and to repurpose many items in my house. We have been cleaning like crazy for my sister in laws visit this week. (I know, why do we do that?) I found a bunch of old cloth napkins and dyed them to use for dinner. I even cut up some old towels bound for Goodwill by my dh and dyed them purple and now they are kitchen rags. I was dying a skirt purple to make for a friend and so I just threw in the new rags. They look very colorful.

I found another blog I just love:



I guess working full time, I got out of the loop.I wish I had started bloging a long time ago. It is a great outlet and the ideas that are being shared are fantastic. I love the internet. I love knowing other mom's are staying home. I even love my horrible employer for putting me out of work on WC this past six months and allowing me to remember how much I love being home with my kids.

Goodwill finds and Fun Etsy shop from Ireland

Audrey and I found some awesome things at Goodwill's dress and skirt sale last week. Her way of putting them together is always unique. Her arm warmers in the first photo are just some argyle knee socks cut off for arm covers. The skirt was featured in a previous post. Her red dress is actually a child's dress from goodwill and we just extended the straps and she added a vintage red cashmere cardigan,one of our best finds. (it was her big sisters!left at the bottom of the closet)

Her striped socks came from www.welovecolors.com, the best place to get colorful stockings,gloves and tights.

She also got some upcycled gloves from an etsy seller in Ireland. She is on Etsy, and called Sprial gypsy. http://www.etsy.com/people/spiralgypsy?ref=ls_profile

We found several denim skirts to destroy and put in our etsy shop:

Next post will be instructions on destroying denim and adding the under appliqued details like the stars and leaves in these skirts.

We are hoping to get a spot on Heartsy.me and applied today. You can go on and register and vote for our shop if you are interested in helping us. Thank you.
Another one of our items got on to Etsy Lush,

More blogging mom's! I am so excited.

Today I got another email about a mum who blogs!

She has a huge list of upcycled projects and is leaps and bounds a head of me.


I added my listing another linky party. I guess you can sponsor your own but I can hardly figure out how to join these blogs or add my own post let alone create a party.
Yesterday found me a little fed up on Etsy. I had listed several items for a $1 but the rule was that the person had to like us on Facebook, join the blog and leave a comment on the blog for the give away. It totally failed!! The person who bought it doesn't have a FB and did not know what twitter was or anything and I felt really depressed about it. I just want to get some other people to read my blog, look at our shop,etc...I see things selling like crazy on etsy that have no creativity involved. I mean really, how does someone sell thousands of clip art images glued to a tile pendant? Yet Audrey just had her first sale of one of her art pendants with her original water colour artwork enclosed in a glass dome. ????

Before I went to work at the library in 2003, I spent hours working on sewing for the craft shows. I did American Girl doll clothes at that time with little jewelry in miniature and all the cute shoes. I did pretty well for about five years but as a busy mother with four children, it was so much work. I wish Etsy had been around at that time!! Going to work full time made all that sewing impossible. Now I am almost 50 and finding it hard to get that energy going!! I need some inspiration.

These link parties are getting me excited and I have found several blogs with really great ideas on them too.

Jess will be over today for more fun and sewing. She wore her finished skirt to school last week. I will get a photo.
Audrey created a River Otter card for our shop on esty.

Finding more blogging mom's!!

I am really excited today, I subscribed to google's upcycling blogs so that I would get an email when someone else was blogging about repurposing or upcycling items. I got a gem with yesterday's email.


It was so exciting to get a message back from Karmima today with a link to her other blog and that lead me to something called "Link Parties". I went to two of those a posted a link to my instructions for the sock dolls. Now, I have two more followers in my blog. A total of four but HOORAY! It's a start and it has been fun looking at the other blogs and getting ideas. Hopefully making some friends too.
Here is another new blog I joined:




And this one has 1000 followers!!! I am so proud of these women and feel like I have so much to learn to make my blog more interesting. I have spent so much time trying to attract attention on etsy and neglected blogging!

I think I might be getting too old for this but I am going to try. I am 49 and a half!!! It can't be too late to learn and I am not asking my kids to help me. They just roll their eyes anyway.


I added two items on etsy for almost free and no postage to try to build up fans on Facebook and this blog. So I will see how it goes.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/81657121/kawaii-mini-notecards-special-intro-sale

Energizing our Etsy Shop, Finding the Fun in selling

Today I have been working on my SEO:Search Engine Optimization. I still don't know much but it means I got onto lots of web sites and put in our etsy shop, this blog, my facebook page and more so that more people will notice our sweet little shop.

We are so excited that Audrey got featured on Etsylush.com. It is a juried site, separate from Etsy. You submit listings and if the photography and item featured is good enough, they might pick you.

I also spent hours making Carl a pirate vest and shirt for a party tonight. He told me YESTERDAY that it was today. I had been waiting to know the date and wanted to make him a coat too but no such luck. He did get a nice vest and shirt. I loved the idea of using the chains connected to the silver buttons.

Besides getting on EtsyLush.com, we have site now on Handmade Spark with a mini-shop.

Etsy Give Away for September, Join Now

Join my blog and get the bi-weekly feeds to be part of the Etsy Monthly Give Aways.
Here's how:
1. Join the blog.
2. Look at our Etsy shop: Sew4fun114 and tell us your favorite item in this posting.
That's it! This month we are giving away an Autumn Bracelet.
Our Gallery of Esty Listings. You can also get a look on Etsylush.com