Seeing Hearts

Ever since I saw this DIY on A Beautiful Mess, I've been wanting to make some too.  After scoring a pair of skinny jeans at the consignment store ($5!!!), I picked up some acrylic paint and textil medium (to combine with the acrylic and turn it into fabric paint).  Instead of contact paper, I used freezer paper to make stencils.  I ironed them into position (shiny side down), and slipped a square of cardboard inside each leg behind the stencils to make sure the paint didn't bleed through.



I sponged the red on in layers, allowing it to dry for anywhere from 10minutes to 1 hour in-between, until it was bright enough for what I had in mind -- this took from the afternoon until the evening.  (I had the jeans slung over my ironing board near the kitchen, so as I went about doing whatever else needed to be done, I kept going back to it to apply another coat of color whenever I'd think of it.)

This morning, the paint was completely dry, so I peeled off the stencils and used a fine-tipped brush to add a white running stitch (going over them twice to make them really pop against the red).  Because let's be real -- stitches make an already cute project just that much cuter.


A few minutes later, and I was playing dress-up in my new favorite pair of jeans.

Mixing plaid and stripes and hearts -- so wrong, but so right.  Or just so wrong.  Depending.  AND I LOVE IT!


As you can see, I chose to paint the hearts on the thighs instead of knee-patches, because I was worried about decreasing the flexibility of the jeans and would hate it if the hearts stuck out awkwardly or cracked after wearing for an hour or two.

Now that I think about it, I definitely should have painted a pair of Lavella's jeans too, because that's what she's going to ask for as soon as she sees these.

Flannel shirt and striped cami: Old Navy, skinny jeans: consignment find, wedge sneakers: Target