DIY Upcycled Blue Jean Apron

I love finding a new purpose for my favorite pair of jeans that I can no longer wear.   I have several pairs of jeans that I cut the legs off, and decided I could use them to create an apron for my big girl.  I have several for my toddler to wear, but none that fit my pre-teen.  So I thought why don?t I use all this denim fabric to create her an age appropriate apron.  Once I began she asked me what I was doing so I told her I was making her an apron.  I didn’t want to spend a lot of time binding the edges so I decided to have fun with my design.

Materials:

• Jeans
• Scissors
• Sewing Machine 
• Acrylic paint
• Fabric medium
• Binding, ribbon or drawstrings
• Ribbon

Step 1:
Cut off the legs of an old pair of blue jeans.  Then decide if you want to cut on the seam like I did or cut the middle of a seam to have rough edges all around the apron.

Step 2:
I used one of my handmade aprons as a template to cut the arm holes out.  Remember the arm holes are not typical of ordinary arm holes.  The bottom of the curves is designed to add your binding/ribbon/etc to tie around the waist.

Step 3:
Decide what you will be using for your ties.  I used zebra print ribbon.  Now you just pin them where you plan to sew, and make sure you sew them several times to secure them.

Step 4:
For the strap that goes around the neck I used the same ribbon.  I pinned it in place and sewed it several times to secure it as well.  I used it again to cover the rough edges at the top of the apron.  Just sew along the top and bottom of the ribbon.

Step 5:
Now the fun begins . . . my daughter is crazy about MUSTACHE’s, and monograms so I decided I would paint half of it and leave the other half.  My grandmother just bought us a mustache cookie cutter and I used it as a stencil for the apron.  I used a dry erase washable marker to trace with (later if anything is still showing it will wash out).  I also used a plastic cup to trace a circle on the opposite side to paint my daughter’s initial in it.

Step 6:
Now all you have to do is paint your design anyway you want.  Just make sure to mix in your fabric medium or all your hard work will wash away in time.