With my mind stuck on printed pants and an awesome tutorial bookmarked for the longest time, I finally got to work on my DIY polka dot jeans after seeing very similar pairs show up at not one, but two retailers recently. I'm a sucker for the siren song of 'everybody's doing it', it would seem. So, the polka dot denim trend is still going strong and lucky for me, I had a pair of jeans just waiting for a makeover. And now that the weather has started to turn chilly, I can actually wear them.
In the end, I'm really quite happy with them. Sure, my technique could have been a little better (again, so not a crafty person), but ultimately, I got a new pair of pants with jeans that were likely headed for the donation bin as it was. I'm considering taking them one step further and adding some distressing, you know, to break up the cuteness of the print, but I hesitate ruining them after all this work. Also still a little apprehensive about how loud they are, I'm pairing them with understated neutrals for now, but who knows, one day I might even work up to putting them with stripes. I know - crazy talk, I tell ya.
So now you think you want to make your own? Well, it's not hard, I promise. Since Andrea Fairservice (guest posting for Breanna Rose) already created such a fantastic tutorial - and I'm not about to take credit for someone else's creative genius - I'll let you refer to her for the step-by-step. I did a test run with a pair of very old cut-offs a couple months back and actually liked the way my spots turned out on those even better. Unfortunately, the pair was so old, they ripped gloriously down the crotch on my third wear, so I deemed it time to take it to the next level and make a full-on jeans pair.
The toughest parts, I found, are punching out all those perfectly spaced holes in all those templates (they get saturated and warped very quickly, so be prepared to have several on hand) and then mastering just the right amount of paint on the sponge so as not to smoosh it out under your carefully-made template (again, another crafty fail for me - please ignore my imperfect, goopy spots!). But really, the hardest part is having the patience for them to dry so you can wear them. I had the added pain in the butt of cutting my own 8-1/2 x 11" (21-1/2 x 28 cm) sheets for the templates, as I could only find vellum in large rolls here in Germany. For those of you in the states, you have the advantage of a super-crafty culture and very well-stocked art supply stores. Where this project was concerned, I was lucky to even find what I needed.
Let me know how they work out if you make these for yourself. Hope you enjoy yours as much I do mine!
Also, a huge thanks to my hubby for photographing my first-ever outfit shoot. It was a learning experience, but it can only get better from here! Honey, if you promise to always use the natural light, I promise to stop making such retarded faces.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and comments. I love hearing from you!
That said, Sole Satisfaction is a space free from hate, drama and spam. If that's all you're bringin', please take it elsewhere.