Stylish in Suburbia: Tickle Me Elmo

Monday, July 5, 2010

Tickle Me Elmo

What if none of the titles had anything to do with the posts? Because I was going to title this post "Bleached Cut-Offs DIY" or something self-explanatory along those lines, but that's just lame. LAME-O. Real titles are for shoobies. Just for kicks and giggles, from now on, or at least until I forget, they shall be instead whatever the first thing that pops into my head is. Ay, Matey, Me likey.

Anyways. As you might have inferred from my shoobie title that I didn't use this post is about a DIY. In fact, this is my favorite DIY pretty much ever in the history of the world. I'm so proud of it. What is it, you ask? Well, I'll tell you.

Denim cut-offs. Soaked in a vat of bleach. Read 'em and weap. Or go make your own. Either way.

How I did it: first, I acquired size 14 boys Levis from my brother (broseph? bropheliac? brohelms?, Tobe (or the Great To Be... that's a God joke. Gotta love Christian humor. It's so alienating. And not really funny at all) because he just basically outgrew half his wardrobe. Then I cut off the legs, leaving a bit extra to play with. Next, I filled a two gallon bucket (one of those empty kitty litter ones that we have 8 thousand of--oh the joy of cats) with about one part water, one part bleach until the shorts were completely submerged but still kind of scrunched up. I've never bleached demin before, and I expected it all to fade evenly in a couple of minutes. In actuality, Levis apparently have a pretty good colorfast-ness, and I ended up leaving them in the bucket overnight. In the morning, when I removed them, they were the most awesome marbled pattern ever ever ever. Then, after a quick but too quick tribal dance of celebration, I rinsed out the bleach and let them dry. I cut off the extra fabric at the bottom to perfect the hem, making it pretty darn short on the hip but still long enough on the inseam to be decent. This made the pockets stick out a bit, which used to be a look I hated fiercely, but with high waisted shorts it doesn't bother me--it looks less trashy and more grunge-hipster, I think.