{A Tutorial} Star Spangled Shorts

Last weekend, The Gentleman treated me to a mini shopping spree at Rue 21. I browsed through the store and found a few items I liked and then these shorts caught my eye:

Rue 21 Shorts

But then the price tag of $24.95 caught my eye too, and I turned them down. I've seen enough DIY shorts that there was no way I was going to pay $25 for a pair! So a few days later I went home, gathered the materials I'd need, and got to work.

What you'll need:

• A pair of shorts/pants that fit. (I cut off the legs of some knee-length shorts; you can do the same with a pair of pants.)
• Fabric scissors
• Red, white, and blue acrylic paint
• Glitter to match the paint. I chose not to add glitter to my white paint. 
• Textile medium
• Paintbrushes
• Water to clean the brushes in
• Something on which to put the paint - I used old plastic container lids
• Masking tape
• A piece of cardboard that will fit inside your short's legs
• Star shapes - I used wooden ones but stickers would probably work even better
• Rags for clean-up

Step 1: Roll the legs to the length you'll wear the shorts

Step 2: Using the masking tape, mark off the places you DON'T want paint. I chose to alternate the stripes on the legs to make them look more like a flag.

Step 3: Pour a small amount of textile medium on your paint-palettes.

Step 4: Useing the textile medium's ratio of medium-to-paint (mine was 1:2), pour paint on the palettes.

Step 5: Add Glitter!

Step 6: Mix it all up.

Step 7: Place the cardboard in a pants-leg and paint. Repeat for other leg.

Step 8: Allow paint to dry - I totally cheated by using a hairdryer to speed this up - then remove the tape.

Step 9: Flip the shorts over and then lay out the stars - I only had two to work with. More would be better.

Step 10: Paint! I only painted around the stars, but you could fill the gaps in, if you so choose.

Step 11: Clean up - here's where your rag will come in handy. 

Steps 12-14: My textile medium's instructions were to allow the paint to dry for 24 hours, dry-iron the paint, allow the paint to sit again for 24 hours, and then wash the shorts inside-out. I will do this, but I wanted to go on and sneak a few photos...

Ta-Da!

You could always add rhinestones or more glitter or change the way you paint the shorts. The whole point is to make something you love!

Update: After the paint dried I noticed that it was very scratchy and I was worried that it was going to stay that way. After washing and drying it, however, it has softened and feels just fine. Also, the glitter stayed just fine!