Designer Painted Jeans at Home

Kids are creatively impressionable, they see, they absorb and desire to recreate. Let me explain. I have unintentionally started a fashion trend in my area. I am not the neatest or cleanest painter; I glob, I drop; I wear it everywhere. Sometimes I have streaks of green across my forehead or black smudges on my nose. I often go to town with extra paint on my clothes, especially if I am in the middle of work. My pants and jeans are the most noticeably painted, because I often use them to clean my brushes during the painting process.

The other day I went to pick my athletically gifted children (something I am sure they got from their father the former football star) up from co-ed volleyball practice. I was wearing my painted jeans. My kids have grown so accustomed to seeing me this way that they don't even wince anymore. The following day, my daughter's teammate cornered her. She had seen my jeans, and loved them. In fact, she had gone home and recreated my jeans onto her pants. Soon afterwards, I was informed that several of the other high schoolers were also painting their jeans. Perhaps I should send apology notes to all of the parents who bought their kids school clothes only to have them painted. But, I am actually really excited to see how many kids have such an imagination and artistic eye. No thank-you notes are necessary.

Painted Jeans

Materials:

Blue jeans
Acrylic paint, various colors
Styrofoam plate
Color wheel
Paint brushes, various sizes
Stencils
Tape

Directions:

Lay your blue jeans onto a flat surface. Make sure that any object that should not be painted is moved out of the area. This is especially important when working with kids. An outside workspace may be the most feasible one. No matter how careful someone is paint is likely to end up on something that it shouldn't.

Place your desired paint colors onto a Styrofoam plate palette. Place the colors far from each other. This will leave room for paint mixing to create the ultimate personalized shades. *Hint: Add just a tiny bit of a color's opposite on the color wheel to create a brilliant, eye-popping shade of color. For example, a tiny dab of red added to green makes a brilliant dark green. Be aware that if you add to much red you will create brown.

If using a stencil, tape the stencil onto the pants. This will prevent the stencil from sliding during the painting process. Add paint to the stenciled areas in thin layers, this will prevent paint from slipping under the stencil edges.

Paint free-style by dropping small amounts of paint onto your jeans, or painting lines across them. Add geometric shapes or interesting patterns.

Twilight Options:

I have two daughters, both huge Twilight fans. Yes, it is okay I started it. I gave them the books and am extremely happy they are so addicted to reading. Stephanie Meyer is a great writer. I give her gigantic kudos for making my children avid readers. With that said, my daughters are dying to make their painted jeans into Twilight jeans. You can do it too.

Find Twilight images, stencils and fonts. Paint the words, "Team Edward" or "Team Jacob" onto one pants leg. Remember that the words need to be legible when standing.

Example:

T
E
A
M

E
D
W
A
R
D

*Hint: Don't paint the words on the pocket area. Find the center point of your jeans. Count how many words you are using, for "Team Edward," there are ten. Select the two center letters (E, D) and paint them on the pants just off center of the jeans halfway mark. Next, paint the other letters. Your slogan should be centered on the jeans leg.

Add decorative stencils to your jeans.