Back to School Make-Overs for Last Year’s Clothes

Teenagers can be ruthless when it comes to ridiculing each other, whether it’s about clothing, haircuts, or the boy you’re dating. Although some teenagers take for granted that they’ll be getting all new clothes and shoes each year, when school starts, others aren’t so fortunate. Those less fortunate worry about being ridiculed by showing up wearing last year’s outfits, but that’s not necessary. If your budget is a little low when it comes to purchasing new school clothes, consider doing a make-over on some of your clothing from last year. You can easily make clothes look completely different and no one will notice they’re last year’s.

Items of clothing with a plain look, such as denim, are much easier to rework than, say, a plaid skirt that’s multi-colored. With denim skirts or jeans, something simple like adding a printed pocket or two can make the skirt or jeans look completely different. If the jeans or skirt already have distinctive decorations, you can sometimes remove them and replace them with something new and different. For example, if you have a pair of jeans from last year, and they have brocade ribbon around the bottom, remove it and add a ribbon with a different pattern. Use the new ribbon to outline the pockets, too, for a convincing new pair of jeans.

Solid-colored tees can get a make-over in many different ways. There’s iron-on transfers, fabric paints, and sew-on appliques for starters. You can also use spray-on tie-dye solution that’s inexpensive and simple to do. Or, just take a pocket from an existing shirt and sew it on to the plain tee shirt. The shirt will look completely different than it did last year.

Lace pieces can be cut out in any number of shapes, then stitched onto jeans, purses, shirts, jackets, and other clothing items. A simple piece of lace can make an outfit look much different than last year. The same goes for printed fabrics with scenes such as wolves, celestial designs, or even cartoon characters. Cut pieces of the cloth and use fabric glue to attach the fabric to jeans, skirts, shirts or purses. Now use fabric paint to outline the cloth pieces and give them dimension.

Sew buttons on where there previously were none, add a placket by cutting a piece of different fabric and sewing it down the center of a shirt, or cut the shirt off shorter than it was previously and stitch a different type of fabric on where the old piece was.

Make-over clothing by using fabric glue to add rhinestones, fabric, flat buttons, appliques, ribbon, bows, and more. Use stencils to make designs of your choice, in ink or paint, to various outfits.

Other ideas include cutting jeans off to make shorts or skirts, making long sleeve garments short sleeved, cutting knee-length skirts into short skirts with a bottom ruffle, adding a different color of sleeves to existing garments, or just using glitter paints to give last year’s outfits a new brilliance. You can do a simple design of glitter around the collar, or add glitter stripes to an entire shirt.

Machines that are made to install rhinestones and studs into clothing are a big help when it comes to giving clothing a make-over. Add silver or gold studs to the bottom side seam of jeans, make a butterfly design with the studs onto the pocket area of a shirt or dress, or make your own designs with the versatile machine.

No one has to know you’re wearing last year’s clothing if you take a little time to make the items look as different as possible. You’ll be surprised at what you can pull off by using just a few craft items. Look around at a craft store or sewing department for even more ideas.