When you go through your kids’ clothes, deciding what to keep, what to donate and what is destined for the trash bin — stop yourself from sending those old ripped-up jeans to the landfill. Denim can be used for a lot of different recycling projects. Here we’ll use unwanted jeans to decorate a fun and trendy picture frame.
Note: The jeans we used were dyed with Rit clothing dye to get the colors we wanted. But because you will not be washing these pieces of denim any longer, painting the fabric with regular acrylic craft paint is a totally acceptable alternative. Simply paint the denim in colors of your choice, allow it to dry, then cut the shapes from the colored denim as described below.
Materials needed:
Plain wooden frame
Dark blue acrylic craft paint
Old blue jeans
Clothing dye or colorful acrylic paints
Scissors
Hot glue gun
Directions:
1. Paint the frame with dark blue craft paint; set it aside to dry.
2. Cut green denim into thin strips of varying lengths for flower stems. Glue them to the frame, using three different heights of stems on each side of the frame.
3. Cut flower petals from different colors of denim, cutting them in the shape of a teardrop, six per flower. Glue the petals together to form each flower.
4. Cut circles from the colored denim for the centers of the flowers. Glue the circles to the centers, then glue the flowers to the stems.
Amanda Formaro is a professional crafter; find more projects at her website, craftsbyamanda.com.
