DYED and gone to Heaven!

 Have you seen these cute outfits people put together and then pin on Pinterest? 

Aren't they great? If you were to look at my Pinterest boards you'd think I was a pretty stylish person, but the thing is- I'm not! In reality, if you were to put me in a store and ask me to throw together a cute outfit I would have no idea what to do with myself. I really wish that every time I pinned something on Pinterest it would just magically appear in my closet but apparently it doesn't work that way.

One thing I've really been wanting are some colored jeans. I see them everywhere, and they're so fun and summery! I'm pretty sure even the fashion challenged like myself could pull them off. However I can't justify spending the $$ seeing as by next year I'm sure they'll be out of style. After doing a little research I decided to bust out my old jean collection and make my own!

Find some jeans. Either rummage through your old clothes or check out your local yard sales and thrift stores. I happened to have a few pairs of pants that I never wear because they are too short.  I also found my favorite pair of pants that I haven't worn since I ripped 2 giant holes in the knees- I decided to turn them into shorts

Make 'em skinny. Just do it. I know it can be scary for those of us who carry around a little extra padding but I've learned something over the past few months- Skinny jeans are not just for skinny people. If you pair them with the right top they can be really slimming. Having mommy hips shouldn't stop you from dressing like a rockstar! (That being said, I'll admit I made my sister pose for these pictures because let's be honest- everything looks better on her tiny 17 year old body. ) 

 To re-fashion my old pants I just turned them inside out, put my favorite pair of skinny jeans on top of them, pinned them where they needed to be sewn and ran them through my sewing machine. And just like that I turned OLD jeans into NEW jeans! But I wasn't done yet!

Bleach! I ended up having to bleach my pants 3 times to get them really white. Here are a few tips for you:

*Make sure your bucket is big enough to allow your jeans to move freely.

*Use 3-4 cups of bleach in a gallon of water. 

*You may have to bleach your jeans more than once. Wash them in between each round. 

*All jeans are not created equally. Some will fall apart if left in the bleach too long... I learned this the hard way.

*If you want to save yourself some time and stress- just find yourself some jeans that are white to begin with. :) 

Add some color! I bought my dye at Hobby Lobby with a lovely 40% off coupon. I bought two different brands, one was TULIP- Vert Green, and one was RIT-Rose Pink. I'm loving the pastel look right now. I learned some tricks as I experimented. This is what worked best:

*In your bathtub place two buckets of water, one warm and one cold. Also get a BIG metal pot (or bucket) full of HOT water. 

*Add a cup of salt and your dye to the HOT water. (I used half a bottle of dye and had enough to do 2 pairs of jeans and 2 pairs of shorts... I could have done more but I ran out of things to dye!) 

*Gently put your jeans into the dye. Stir them constantly with a big metal spoon. Watch them closely. I really wanted light colored jeans so I only soaked them for about 3 minutes. If you want them to be bold and bright just let them soak for 15-20 minutes. 

*Put out your jeans and put them in the cold water, swish them around. 

*Pull them out and put them in the hot water, swish them around. You can add some soap to the water if you want. 

*The first time around I just rinsed them out really good and hung them up to dry. Don't do that. They ended up streaky and there was much sadness. Instead throw them in your washing machine on a rinse/spin cycle and then dry them in your dyer on low heat. 

Pull your jeans out of the dyer and do a happy dance!


 Put them on. How cute are you?! Now strut around your house like the rockstar that you are!

NOW for those of you who are totally onboard with the latest trends you know that anything ombre is really "in" right now. And it turns out ombre jeans are REALLY easy to make. 

Follow all the same steps you did for your colored jeans, except you'll need only dip them in the dye as high up as you want the color to go. Then slooooooooooowly pull them up out of the dye. Do the same thing over and over again until you've got them as dark as you want them. 

*Note* We ended up running these through the sewing machine again to make them skinnier. They're even cuter now!

Every time my sister wears her ombre pants people stop her and ask her where on earth she found them. You should see the look on their faces when she tells them she made them!

This week in Old Navy's add, their pastel pants are "on sale" starting at $34.50

My sister and I ended up with 4 pairs of jeans and 2 pairs of shorts for a grand total of $4.97!

Um. That's awesome. 

Just sayin'. :) 

So what are you waiting for? Give it a try! I'll warn you though- It's kind of addicting. I'm thinking I want to dye some lavender like the ones in the Old Navy Ad. I'll let you know how it goes!