Upcycling old jeans

 So, for many years I've been an avid blog follower, and I have learnt such a lot from other people sharing their tips and ideas so freely. Now it seems I have entered the world of having a blog of my own, so if you are reading this, thank you, and please forgive any mistakes I make as I learn!!

After a spring clean of our wardrobes, I suddenly ended up with 5 pairs of old jeans in my craft room - they'll come in useful one day I thought! As my new year's resolution for 2015 is to use things up (all those half empty lotion and potion bottles are gradually reducing in the bathroom too), I decided that my entry for the March 2015 ClarityStamp Challenge would involve those discarded jeans.

Firstly I removed the back patch pockets, and stamped out a little scene using an Archival black ink pad, and a range of Clarity Stamps using the embroidered lines on the pocket as features of the design. I then cut off the bottom of one of the legs, and made the bag shape by stitching the cut edge, and just cutting drawstring holes into the original hem of the jeans and threading through a ribbon.

Finally I restitched the pockets onto one side of the bag - in retrospect I should had done that first before making the bag, but c'est la vie!


I tried to leave some frayed bits of denim sticking out of the seams in places, just to add a bit of character to the final bag, and I put a little sunburst stamp on the inner pocket peeping out - might go back and add a flock of birds above the houses too before I use it as a gift bag.

I won't tell you about all the cursing when I was trying to get the tension right on my sewing machine - I think I unpicked it half a dozen times,
and
I won't tell you how much I wished I had just used a fabric glue to stick on the pocket edges - that only occurred to me after the event!,
and
I won't tell you how I could hear my mum shouting at me not to break the needle on the machine as it hit the little rivet in the top of the pocket - even though I live in the Highlands of Scotland and she lives in Essex!!!

What I will tell you is that the bag holds 3 bottles of beer perfectly, and will make a fab gift bag for a man in your life....

Thanks for visiting, Susan x