You Pinspire Me
Several weeks ago now, we attended Blissdom Canada, a blogging & social media conference. Target Canada was our super awesome wardrobe sponsor & kept us clothed for all of the many events. One of the events that I shopped for was the Throw Back Thursday party (sponsored by Kahlua) – can I just say, what an awesome theme for a party? (Especially a party that takes place on a Thursday night. They really put their thinking caps on for that one!) Some people chose to dress as they would have in the 80’s, while others of us just dressed as he 80’s in general. I did not wear lipstick or side-ponies or off-the-shoulder shirts in the 80’s, but it’s WAY more fun than high-waisted pink cords with bold knitted sweaters…
Anyhow, I found a great shirt on the clearance rack at Target, but I wanted to wear the acid-wash jeans, too. I found some that looked amazing on the rack at Target, but I’ll be honest – for something I’m only going to wear once, I don’t want to pay full price. Then, I had a thought… there were a lot of girls who managed to be fashionable in the 80’s without getting much of an allowance from their parents – there MUST be a DIY method to get acid-wash jeans!
Google, of course, provided me with the answer: Yes. You can absolutely make your own acid-wash jeans at home with a few simple tools:
Now, I was hoping for jeans that were a little more mottled and a little less uniformly white, but that can be done by using a bit of a weaker bleach solution and / or scrunching parts of the jeans together with rubber bands before soaking in the bleach.
- 1 pair of dark jeans
- 10 cups Bleach
- 8 cups Water
- Stock Pot or Large Pail
- Hose
- Rubber Gloves (or Milk Bags)
- If you're going for a mottled look, scrunch up the jeans in a few places & secure with a rubber band.
- Make the bleach solution in the stock pot or pail in a well-ventilated area (preferably outside).
- Don your rubber gloves (or milk bags, like me, if you're in a pinch!) and carefully submerge your jeans into the pot, waist band first. Make sure the jeans are as covered as possible.
- Set a timer for 35 minutes.
- When the timer goes, put your gloves on again and carefully pull the pants up out of the bleach and then set them back in again, this time with the legs in first.
- Set the timer for 15 minutes.
- When the timer goes, take the jeans out, lay them out on the driveway, and hose them down with water. Turn over & rinse again.
- Bring the jeans inside & wash on a cold cycle without detergent.
- You may want to launder again (this time with detergent) before wearing because you'll find that you might smell a bit like a swimming pool. 🙂
- Pull out your grubby clothes to wear while doing this chore - you don't want to get bleach stains all over your good yoga pants!
- PLEASE be careful when pouring the bleach - I've had bleach splash into my eye before - it hurts like the dickens AND requires some ER time.
- If your pants aren't dark enough, keep them in the solution for another 10 minutes at a time.
And… just because it was such a fun party, here are some pics of the event. Thanks to Anna Epp Photography for some of these photos!
Hanging out with Laura from My Life in the Sun
Jenn vanOosten
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You 2 were adorable. p.s I also thing whoever came up with the #TBT idea should get a bloody medal. GENIUS.
Aww, thanks, Kyla! There are too few events to dress up for in my life. 🙂
Seriously LOVED those jeans! 🙂