When your favorite pair of jeans springs a hole, you don’t want to send them to the landfill. You can either patch them, decide that the hole makes them look cooler or recycle those jeans into something else. Even if you’re not even close to Martha Stewart, you can create recycled-denim crafts that are as practical as they are beautiful.
Features
Denim is an incredibly durable fabric, which makes it a prime candidate for recycling into other crafts. It’s casual, so you won’t want to create crafts for your formal living room, but it can work well in other rooms of the house, such as the kitchen, the home office or the bedroom. Denim comes in a variety of colors, but it’s typically a shade of blue. However, you can dye the fabric if you are not happy with its current color.
Types
You can recycle your denim into just about anything. You can still use it for clothing, by creating a skirt or a pair of shorts. You can also use it to make pillows for the home, quilts, bags, place mats or potholders. Some people like to keep the pockets intact and use them to create an organizer, storing things in the pockets.
Considerations
It’s very difficult to find two different pairs of jeans that are exactly the same color, especially if you’ve been wearing them for a while. Even jeans that you bought at the same time and were originally the same color will fade differently from use and washing. Many people enjoy these subtle differences in color, and you should design your craft so that it plays up to this rather than expecting a uniform look.
Potential
If you become good at creating recycled-denim crafts, you can use them to start your own business. Sell the crafts online, in craft stores or at craft fairs. You can purchase used denim cheaply from thrift stores or ask for donations from friends and family when their jeans start to fall apart. The cheap source of fabric could make for higher profit margins, depending on how much you charge and how long it takes you to make the craft.
Warning
Denim is a very thick fabric, and it can be difficult for your sewing machine to sew through several layers of the fabric. Use a sewing machine needle that is specifically made for sewing denim, rather than a general sewing needle. Regular needles can easily break when sewing denim.
Photo Credit
- denim background image by Adam Borkowski from Fotolia.com
