How to Upcycle your clothes

Upcycling your used clothes is a great way to bring old clothes back to life, stop waste, and express your ideas. If you’re looking for a way to change your wardrobe, make it more unique and vintage, or to claim a statement, upcycling gives you so many transformations to make your old clothes more stylish. Upcycling your clothes also is fun and there are so many fun projects you can do. Sometimes when you’re upcycle clothing, it can be a hit or a miss. It might not turn out the way you want it to but that’s okay especially in the beginning of getting into upcycling your clothes. It takes practice and lots of creativity. Here are ways you can transform your wardrobe with these upcycling ideas. Learn how to give your old clothes a new look with these easy diys!

Go through your closet

You’re going to want to go through all your clothes, maybe make a pile of what you don’t wear anymore and what you do wear. When going through your clothes look for pieces that have potential like any interesting fabrics or patterns. Even if they have any flaws like holes and stains these still have character and can be great to upcycle. The pile of clothes you don’t wear, you can do a makeover with them. Think about what you want to upcycle them to be. You can make it a new piece of clothing, add something to it, or use the clothing item fabric for a different use. Have a good and clear vision to help you with the process of upcycling.

Enhance your clothes

My favorite way to upcycle is to enhance your clothes. This can be by adding patches, sewing something on it, adding embroidery, or even adding beads. An example I did last week was when I thrifted a plain blue denim jacket. I liked how it fit on me but I already have denim jackets so I decided I would make it more unique. My friend had some cool vintage patches so I sewed them on. It’s now one of my favorite pieces that have character and bring out my style and it adds more to my wardrobe. You could even do this with jeans:

My friend the other day had a plain black hoodie that had been sitting in her closet forever. She added a diamond cross to it and is actually wearing it now. Simple things like this can really make a difference for your old clothes and bring them back to life.

Change your clothes to make them more unique

Another popular upcycling tip is to alternate the style of a clothing item. This can be anything from shortening a skirt to turning jeans into shorts. If you know the basics to sewing you can easily make these changes for your clothes. For example, if you have a tank top but it’s too long and didn’t like where it sits above your jeans. Don’t be scared to cut it to wear you want it to sit. Or you can twist a long skirt to make it more of a mid skirt. If you don’t have any sewing abilities, go ahead and take a sewing class or watch a quick youtube video if you want. Sewing is an easy skill to learn and can help a lot with upcycling your clothes.

Use unique fabric to make something else

Using fabric in a different way is another very creative way to upcycle your clothes. This is useful for fabrics that are damaged and worn out but still have potential. You can use the fabric to make certain accessories like scarves, headbands, or bags. Example, You can take an old flannel and cut it out and sew a loop to turn it into a cool scarf. You can also make a bag by

using fabric from a pair of jeans. Not only does this give your clothes a new life but it also gives you unique handmade objects.

Combine clothes

You can combine clothings together to make something new. This is a very fun and experimental way for you to try different styles of clothes. Example, you can sew the top of a dress to the bottom of a different dress to make a whole different dress. Or you can combine different shirts to make one shirt with different colors and fun patterns. This will help you to get creative with your projects for upcycling.

Some more ideas on how to upcycle your clothes

There’s so many different ways to upcycle your clothing so here’s more ideas for you. You can add laces and trims to your clothing pieces like at the end of your sleeves or around the neckline of a shirt. If you’re into sweater mittens you can make them out of an old sweater of yours. If you have any older clothing fabrics laying around you can make them into jewelry like necklaces, headband, and bracelets. It might seem weird but you can make them into something really cool and unique. Bleaching your clothes is another really cool way to upcycle your clothes. It’s also a fun project and you can bleach some cool designs adding a lot more potential to an old item. Here are examples of some of those upcycled clothing projects so you

can get some ideas:

Upcycling your clothes is a good way to reduce waste and refresh your clothing. By upcycling you express your ideas and your style. Enhancing your clothes and changing the style, changing the fabric, and combining your clothes, will not only give your clothes new life but transform them to something unique, something that says you. It’s a great way to show your creativity and adds so much potential to your closet. Upcycling your old clothes allows you to express yourself and show your personal style. So go ahead and gather your old clothes or any basic pieces and get creative! Don’t be scared to try something new and start upcycling!