How To Do-It-Yourself

Bleached Jeans

I was imagining the perfect pair of stylish “acid wash” jeans while getting ready to start my project. I gathered an empty squirt bottle, bleach and an old pair of blue denims. The ‘70s fashion recently came back in style, and I thought I’d make my own.

I gave it a shot and completely failed, but I’ll still take you through it for kicks, and because it was super fun to try: I filled the bottle with bleach and began squirting at the blue denim. I anticipated the splotches of white to appear after I began squirting the jeans randomly, but they never did. I was starting to get frustrated from the bad outcome so I began to get really into my work and started aggressively squirting the bleach. I carefully planned where I wanted the spots to be and strategically aimed the squirt bottle’s spout.

After the now-damp jeans had not changed color, I became slightly frustrated and began squirting even more aggressively, hoping it would make a difference. It didn’t.

I re-read the Pinterest directions and wondered what went wrong but couldn’t find an answer to my questions.

The jeans stayed mostly the same as they were before except the shade of blue was lightened a little bit. The pair of pants were also darkened from the liquid chemicals.

I waited until they dried and tried again, but the results were the same. I laid the jeans out to dry and realized the bleach was everywhere. I had gone a little crazy with the squirting and bleached the sleeve of my t-shirt.

Overall this project was super fun even though I didn’t get anything from it. I might add that it wasn’t too terribly difficult to squeeze a spray bottle and it finished in about 10 minutes.

Materials

empty squirt bottle, old jeans, bleach

Procedure

1. Lay jeans down flat

2. Pour bleach into empty squirt bottle

3. Spray jeans in the areas desired

4. Leave out to dry

T-Shirt Cover Up

Tearing apart an oversized East T-shirt for a swimsuit cover-up surprisingly wasn’t the worst idea I’ve ever had. In order to create the razorback-inspired look, I grabbed a pencil, scissors, a needle, thread and fabric glue.

I began by marking the places where I would cut. I mostly free-handed it which made it more fun and allowed me to get creative. I only marked one side of the T-shirt with cut lines to allow symmetry. The dashed cut lines that I made went along the collar, under the sleeve and directly down the sleeve, making it sleeveless. I went on with the cutting portion of the project, being careful not to completely destroy everything I was trying to accomplish.

I made the long-sleeve T-shirt into a tank top with a razorback by cutting the sleeves and the neckline off first. I made sure the Lancer logo was still visible.

Wanting the design to be a little more unique than what I had found online, I decided to braid the razorback portion. I stitched the end of the braid lightly to keep it together which only required me to poke the fabric a few times with the needle, not as complicated as it sounds. I then applied about a puddle of fabric glue to secure it further. When the main construction of it was finished, it gave the illusion of a girly bro-tank. All it needed now were the final details to make it more clean cut.

I turned the cover-up inside out and hemmed the straps by folding the fabric in and gluing down the edges. I tried it on and adjusted until it fit perfectly. I found that the straps coming over my shoulders seemed to look too thick, so I took them off and slimmed them down, creating more of a tank top.

The finished swimsuit cover-up didn’t look half bad. The only major problems were the frayed edges, along the straps, which I quickly fixed with some globs of fabric glue.

Materials

scissors, pencil, ruler, fabric glue and a needle and thread

Procedure
1. Lay shirt down on flat surface

2. Mark cutting lines

3. Cut on lines

4. Flip cut out pieces of fabric and place on the other side of the shirt for symmetry

5. Trace over lines

6. Cut

7.  Cut out desired razorback

8. Divide razorback into three equal pieces and cut

9. Pull on pieces to stretch out fabric and braid tightly

10. Secure braid with stitch

11. Glue braid to the shirt

12. Cut straps to correct width

13. Try on

14. Cut any other pieces that need in order for the right fit

Scrapbook
A plain three-ring binder and some paper is all you need for this DIY, nothing too fancy. I aimed for a scrapbook that could hold memories of my beloved high school years. I started inserting plastic page protector sleeves into the rings until I felt there were enough pages to hold the pictures. I filled them with decorative paper to give it a cheerier look.

I backed the pictures with plain paper, cut a little bigger than the pictures themselves. I used markers to add fun borders and captions to the pages.

Once I put everything together with a lot of glue and tape, it started to take shape. I put in the pictures, then added small details like stickers and glitter glue, giving it a homemade and personalized l
ok. My completed memoriam of freshman year only took around thirty minutes to complete and was in no way troubling to make.

Materials

plain binder (any color), page protectors, stickers, decorative paper, scissors, markers, glue, tape, regular paper and any other crafty materials

Procedure

1. Start putting page protectors into the binder

2. Fill protectors with paper

3. Personalize

4. Add pictures

5. Decorate more