How To Dress Up Your Denim With Fancy Pockets

 Hey guys! I have a no sew project today to dress up an old, worn out pair of jeans or shorts. This is a great way to turn last year’s jeans into something fresh and new for the upcoming school year, or a fun way to add a bit of life to a pair that has seen better days.

There’s absolutely no sewing involved, all you need is a pair of pants, some fabric, fabric glue, scissors and a seam ripper. I think overall this project took under 15 minutes, including all of the seam ripping. The only time consuming part is letting the glue dry. 

To begin this project, take your seam ripper, and remove one of the back pockets. Be careful as to not rip the shorts while you’re doing this! If you want, you could remove both pockets, but I really like the look of one plain pocket and one fancy one.

Using the ripped off pocket as a guide, trace the pocket (including the folded under hem onto the fabric you’re using. You really only need a small scrap of fabric for this project. I dug into my scrap bin for this one. Make sure you add a seam allowance to the top of the pocket since you probably won’t be able to unfold that edge.

Carefully cut out the pocket you’ve just traced.

Using your fabric glue, fold down all of the edges so that you have a finished pocket without any fraying or unraveling. Just add a line of glue, fold down and press securely. Once it’s finished, you’ll want to let the pocket dry for about 5-10 minutes before you put it onto the shorts. It doesn’t need to be completely dry to move on, but you don’t want it to be runny anymore.

After you’ve waited about 5-10 minutes, go ahead and put it on the shorts. There will probably be a color difference from where the pocket was, due to fading from light , so just use that as guide to line up the pocket. Using your fabric glue, go around both sides and the bottom and press firmly. Don’t forget to leave the top open so you can actually use your pocket!

This definitely needs to sit for at least a couple of hours, or preferably overnight before you wear these out, and I’d suggest a full 24 hours before washing them. However once they’re completely dry, feel free to throw them in the wash and wear them as you would any other pants. Except, you know, cuter.

If you dress up a pair of your shorts, I DEFINITELY want to see them! Send me a picture on either twitter or instagram; I’m @techni_moments on both.

And as always, there’s a video here if you’re more into that kind of tutorial :)

Good luck!