All my creative energy had been bottled up inside me for so long until I finally got around to doing a long awaited DIY painted jeans project yesterday! So so simple I'm not sure why I didn't think of it earlier, but I guess it's true that the best ideas are the ones you leave brewing for a while.
I bought these jeans from Primark when I was in London in February. I'm sure most people know about the craziness of Primark and how you just don't bother trying to line up for the change rooms, so it's all a bit of a lucky dip sizing-wise. Thankfully these jeans were a perfect fit, although for £11 it wouldn't be much of a loss if they didn't!
Materials:
Any odd pair of jeans (light colours work best)
Acrylic paints
Textile medium (I used Chromacryl)
Paint brushes (various sizes)
Instructions:
No prep required, but if you are using brand new jeans it's probably a good idea to put them through the wash first to get any excess dyes out.
Lay your jeans flat on a surface with newspaper or a drop sheet underneath, slot extra newspaper inside the legs so the paint doesn't seep through either side.
Mix up your acrylic colours with textile medium in separate disposable tubs/bowls (the medium should come with instructions, mine said to use 2:1 parts paint to medium).
If you plan on using light colours or not covering the entire fabric with paint put down a thin base coat in white or any background colour you like.
Then, go nuts! But not too nuts, you should try and just stick to a few complimentary colours and have a theme going (mine was inspired by lush tropical rainforests). It's really easy to go overboard with the paint so step back every now and then to think about your work (sorry if I sound like your 8th grade art teacher!).
If you're not very artistically confident and are lucky enough to know an abstract painter, get them involved! But I'm pretty sure anybody can whip around a paintbrush as I've done, so don't be afraid.
Hang the jeans up to dry. When the paint's completely dry iron the jeans under a tea towel or scrap fabric on the hottest setting to set the paint. Hand wash them in cool water to make sure the paint doesn't run (if it does though, there's basically nothing you can do except try and set the paint with the iron again). If you're paint runs it means you haven't used enough textile medium, so my advice would be to try and wash it all out and start from scratch unfortunately.
