The Craft Room: Giving Old Shoulder Pads a New Life

Hello and Happy Friday Darlings, 

Perhaps you remember this post I did a few weeks back when I wore this comfy little floral dress at Skull Creek.  Well, prior to wearing the dress (which has since been sold and shipped off to a new home), I removed the bulky, rockin to the 80s looking shoulder pads because really, who wants to look like a linebacker?  Anyhow, as the floral print on them was way too lovely to just throw out, I decided to give them a new life and create some "pocket art" for my vintage Calvin Klein jeans shorts that I recently scored for a couple dollars at my local thrift.

What You'll Need:

An old pair of jeans shorts 

bleach

old shoulder pads (preferably with a cute print on them)

scissors, a fabric marker, pins, a needle and thread

Step 1:

Ok, if it were a perfect world, I would not have accidentally deleted my before picture of the shorts along with a host of my other photos of this project, but bear with me as I will explain each step the best that I can.  I am the queen of bone-headed technology related moves like that...hehe.  

Start by bleaching the color out of the jean shorts.  I used 10 parts hot water to 1 part bleach and let the shorts marinate in my mixture for about an hour and a half.  After they had reached the color I desired - which was white with a little blue still running through them - I rinsed them in cold water then threw them in the washing machine (alone), with detergent and washed and dried them as I normally would.

Step 2:

Cut around the edge of your shoulder pad.  Remove the foamy middle and you should be left with an egg shaped piece of fabric.  

Step 3:
Place the fabric face down on where you want it to be on the pocket.  With your fabric marker, trace around the edge of that.  I left about a centimeter or two of extra space so I could fold it under to avoid having the rough edge of my fabric appear once it was sewn on.  Pin the fabric to where it will on the pocket and begin stitching around the edge, removing the pins as you go along.  Of course, if you are a pro - you can skip the pins, but I found this made my job a whole lot easier.  Voila!  You are finished and have totally cute-i-fied you denim shorts.

And did I mention, I made a hair bow from the left over material and bottom of the jean shorts which I cut off to make a better length for me.  

There you have it my dears.  Pretty easy peasy lemon squeezy.  I shall do a post styling up my new shorts very soon.  Today I will be back in Philly to catch a baseball game my hubs and a good friend.  How about your weekend?  I shall see you very soon :)

Love Bunches,