OOTD home made ombre shorts 5/8/2012

As I'm quite nifty with a sewing machine and feel I can turn my hand to most things, I decided to turn an old pair of ('boyfriend') ASOS jeans into some ombre denim shorts.

I chose boys jeans as they make better shorts as they usually have straight legs, making them easier to turn up (and then they don't dig into your leg) plus I like a looser fitting jean. So I cut them longer than I wanted them and turned them up twice and held them in place with a few stitches.

Next then ombre. So I took some ordinary household bleach (I think I bought mine in Home and Bargains for about 50p) and poured quite a lot into my washing up bowl and diluted it with a small amount of water. I then wet my shorts so that they were soaking wet. (I did this in the bath).   I then put my plastic gloves on (just the ones from hair dye kits) and dipped my shorts into the bleach/water solution. I dipped them as far as I wanted the lightest part of the shorts to be. I left the shorts dipped in the bleach for about an hour, (I would keep checking for the colour you want). As the jeans were wet already this allows the bleach to travel up the jeans, giving an ombre effect.

Once the desired colour has been achieved I then used my shower to rinse all the bleach from the jeans. These were then left to dry. It is then best to machine wash the jeans, just remove any excess bleach or dye to prevent it from transferring. 

I was rather pleased with the results and wore them in an outfit.

So I teamed my newly ombred shorts with a Topshop red checked shirt, Topshop silver and jade collar tips, Primark plaited brown belt, black tights and a pair of black creepers (not shown). 

This, believe it or not is a summer outfit!! (yes the weather is this rubbish in Liverpool) Let's pray for good weather so I can wear these bad boys without tights and a white vest!!

x x