Shop Your Closet + DIY: High waisted denim shorts

When you are on a tight budget, the best place to shop is actually your own closet!

Yes, you read that correctly! :D

This is especially true if you have a rather vast closet like mine.

Bring out that old denim shorts or that old top you forgot you owned! Either wear those long-forgotten treasures the way you found them or get those pair of scissors and do a little DIY magic!

Last summer, I brought out my old white beach cover up, my Aunt's hand-me-down striped pedal pushers and two old denim high waisted mom jeans.

I decided to make the jeans into distressed high waisted shorts so I did a little online research on how to distress denim. I found this YouTube video particularly helpful.

After preparing the tools I needed for the DIY (a pair of scissors, tweezers, a whole lot of patience and a laptop playing episodes from Criminal Minds Season 4), I proceeded to do what I could with my long-forgotten closet treasures.

I made the white beach cover up into a cropped top by (as Jenn Im from YouTube would say) "hacking" them off. Then I made the striped pedal pushers into shorts. I do not own a sewing machine so I did the hem entirely by hand. (Yes, that's right! BY HAND! XD Just imagine how many episodes from Criminal Minds THAT took me to do! XD) Then because it was summer, I decided to make the denim mom jeans into high waisted distressed shorts.

Excess fabric were kept for later use. And it turned out that I actually needed them! XD

I distressed one of the shorts too high so I used fabric from the beach cover up to make the shorts wearable (and not too skimpy).

I also tried half-bleaching the other distressed shorts but failed because the bleach seeped to the other side.

#EPICFAIL

Because of this, I ended up making patchwork shorts to cover up my mess using the excess fabric from the beach cover up and the pedal pushers. I have to admit that the patchwork shorts turned out rather nicely.

What I appreciated most about my DIYed patchwork shorts are the intricate details and its one-of-a-kind design. (It's one of those "I can't believe I actually made that" kind of thing. :P)

Everything was sewn lovingly by my hand! (Excuse the body part cameo on the lower right.) I still can't get over the fact that I was able to do this kind of thing!

Here's a photo of the patchwork shorts when worn.

Sent by an online buyer on Instagram

It took some time to finish the DIY projects but I was very pleased with the results. Just for the record, all these DIYed pieces were made Summer 2013.

Wearing my DIYed distressed shorts and my SimonesClosetShop lace cape as a scarf!

What do you think of my DIYs? Did you like them? What are your thoughts?

I hope I was able to inspire someone to shop their own closet and do some DIYs as well! It's really fun, I promise! :D

Please link to me any of your own DIYs and I would gladly check them out! ^_^  Thank you so much for reading and have a great thrifty day! :)

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