From pants to shorts!

It is definitely summer time in Texas! 

I had been seeing some extremely cute lace shorts tutorials online, and they looked really simple! At the fabric store I bought 1/4 of a yard of crafters lace (like $3) and went to work! I had some pants that were given to me that were just right in the waist but were too short to be worn as pants.

So I cut then off with plenty of material to roll up because I wanted my shorts to have a thick cuff. When I tried then on with the cuffs it made my shorts way too tight around my legs. 

So after brainstorming a bit, I decided to add more material to each side my shorts. So I took extra jeans that I had from the legs of my jeans and cut strips that were just as long as my shorts without the cuff. Then I added some lace on top of the jeans.

I sewed the lace on both sides of the strip. I also made the strips smaller at the top and gradually get bigger at the bottom. I figured I would need extra material for the cuff. I made two of these, one for each side of my jeans.

After I made 2 strips, I ripped the seams out of both sides of my jeans. When I got to the waistband I just cut right through it. Now your jeans will look somewhat like a diaper.

Then I sewed both of my strips to the sides of my shorts, wrong sides together so the seams are on the inside of the jeans.

I tried them on and, of course, the waist was a little too big. That was an easy fix, I just took in the top part of the lace strips on both sides and now they fit great! Then I added my cuffs and sewed them straight across and TADA! They are so cute!

My new favorite shorts :)

Then I really wanted to add lace to the back pockets, which was the whole intention of this project anyway. So I place the lace over the pockets and cut out the shape of the pocket. For the top part of the pocket, I had to hand-stitch the lace to the pocket so that I would not sew the pockets shut. For the sides I used to sewing machine. Super easy project and so cute!

Not perfect but I love them!

The only tip I have for this project is be really careful when you are sewing the strips onto the side because the material is so thick! I bent my first needle on this project. When I did it I got so discouraged that I put it away for the night. Maybe I was pouting just a smidge....Oh well...I got back on it the next day and finished. :) My favorite part about them is that I have never seen jeans like this anywhere and that they are original. :) Oh and they were practically free. 

I kept it as a keep sake :)

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial! Thanks for reading!