jean jacket Archives - Suzanne Carillo

I’m not sure why I suddenly became obsessed with making my own DIY embroidered jeans. Who knows where these weird creative urges come from? They are artistic seizures which dominate my brain until I’m forced into submission to actualize the piece and then quickly move onto my next compulsion.

I picked up some jeans from the thrift store for $7 to play with. Never buy jeans from a retail store people! There are SO MANY great jeans to be had at thrift stores! Why not save your money and save the planet?

DIY Embroidered Jeans

You can see the progress on the first leg I altered here.

I decided I want to chop a few inches off the jeans and make them into my version of a frayed kick flare (aka the fastest way to make your legs look 3″ shorter).

Bad decision. It probably would have been okay if these were high waisted jeans, but they aren’t. At all. I should have left the length. It makes my legs look like stubs.

I do like the embroidery which was fun to do and learn. I started out using an embroidery hoop but found it too difficult to position on the jeans and gave up. I had a vintage embroidery hoop. I’m sure a newer one would have been easier to use. It was easier to embroider with the hoop, but I still managed okay without.

I followed these instructions for the French knots and these for the flowers. There are loads of easy-to-follow instructions for hand embroidery online.

My embroidery wasn’t perfect, but I wanted them to look like they were altered by hand so I was pleased with the end result.

I paired the jeans with my DIY vintage brooch jean jacket and stomped around like I was a famous rock star for the day.

I am crossing my fingers that these jeans will look better with my high wedge nude sandals for summer.

I still want to find a pair of dark denim high waisted jeans thrifting and DIY a raw hem kick flare without any embroidery. Just for the heck of it. I want to see if a short curvy almost-50-something can work that look or not. I may fail, but I like a style challenge.

Did you ever think high waisted jeans would come back in style?

If that isn’t proof you can wear whatever the heck you want I don’t know what is. I’ve always found high waisted jeans to be super unflattering. They make my butt look like it is 2 feet long and goes halfway up my back. I guess that is what they mean when they say, “Baby got back.”

Linking up with Visible Monday I Will Wear What I Like, Turning Heads Tuesday, 52 Pick-me-up, Throw Back Thursday

What can you do with a bunch of old brooches? Repurpose and reuse!

I’m a sucker for a fun, crafty project. Especially one that is so easy you can finish it in ten minutes.

It all started with this sweet leather skirt. An immaculate midi pencil skirt in butter soft black leather that I thrifted about three weeks ago for…get this…$10!

Here is the back view of the skirt…I’m building up the suspense of the DIY reveal!

When I went to style this skirt I reached for my jean jacket worn as a top. It the reverse of the standard black leather jacket and jeans.

It was okay but there was a little je ne sais quoi missing.

I could have reached for a scarf, or one of my fancy necklaces, but I really wanted to add something to the jacket itself without reaching for my sewing machine or paints, both of which would have been permanent additions.

That’s when my vintage brooch collection called out to me. Styling vintage in a contemporary way is a little pet project of mine. I love showing people that “old” is good.

(Just like me!)

Vintage brooches on a modern jean jacket is thinking outside the box. Or as the insanely creative Melanie would say, “Wait! There’s a box?”

Since this vintage brooch DIY isn’t permanent I can add or remove brooches as I like.

It turns a ho hum jean jacket into a statement and conversation piece. I picked up a few more brooches to add to this today. Ideally I’d like that whole shoulder area covered in vintage brooches.

My vintage brooch collection was a little sparse as I’d already used up a big selection of my stash on this DIY clutch.

I may have been subliminally inspired by by Constantinos pinned jean jacket. The wonderfully creative Mis Papelicos also had a similar idea here. I think Mis Papelicos and I are creatively connected somehow. We often create similar DIYs at the same time even though she lives on the other side of the world.

How To: Vintage Brooch DIY Jean Jacket

Accumulate a nice little selection of vintage brooches.
Thrift stores, estate sales, flea markets and vintage shops are the best places to find vintage brooches.
Move them around on the jacket until you find the layout you like best.
Pin them on and voilà you’re done baby!