Everywhere you look recently there are painted and embellished jeans or cargos for your wearing pleasure. Jcrew has these , JBrand and Siwy had style for years, and I recently fell in love with these from Preserve. Then I looked at the price and realized that I could easily do this myself, for a fraction of the cost.
Fair Warning: I am not crafty, if you are and like to plan and test paint, etc, my method may drive you crazy. I’m more of a “decide to craft and wing it” person–and yes, this does mean there are unfinished projects here (sidebar, if anyone wants to finish the t-shirt quilt I started from old college shirts the project is all yours). But back to jeans. I know I’m not the most artistic, but looking at the pictures on Preserve I thought I could make due with pain splatters and “flowers”. I ordered Vintage Levis from Etsy, I already had paint and brushes, and this took about an hour of painting time and 8 hrs each side of drying time.
I decided on a color palette (gold and navy) and just began to get paint on the jean. I knew kind of where I wanted my “Flowers” so I sketched out those, then just added as I went along. I added paint splatters, and once I liked the front I let it dry. I decided that I only wanted one big flower on the back–so that was easy.
All in all I think the painting took less than an hour and the drying took about overnight for each side. I’ve loved wearing them–and have gotten so many compliments!
Hope this inspires you to do a pair–we can wear them together! xo RA
Details:
Jeans: Etsy
Shoes: Brian Atwood, old, similar here
Shirt: Jcrew