10 cool ways to upcycle old jeans

By Sanghmitra Rajat Kumar Jan 23, 2017 2381 Views

The toughest fabric in your wardrobe can outlast everything – and throwing it away would therefore be a bad idea. It’ll get buried in a trash landfill adding to air pollution. Either give it away to someone needy, OR get creative and up cycle it!

We’ve put together a list of 10 super fun ways to re-use old jeans:

Soft Coin Pouches: Loose change in your bag is important, but painful. Make yourself a small change /coin wallet. Cut two pocket areas from denims and superimpose them onto each other. Now sew them together from three sides along with adding a zipper to the top. That’s it; your coin pouch is ready.
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Denim Utility Baskets: Create soft baskets from old denims and keep them around in different areas of your home for different uses. For this you’d need to use the leg part of the denim. Cut it open and sew a bright printed fabric onto the inside of the leg. Stitch it back up and sew one end of the leg at the bottom. Fold over at the top so as to be able to see the inside print of the fabric. Click here for instructions for DIY.
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Wine Bag: With the holiday season round the corner, what better way to wrap that bottle of wine than a gift bag that is made using old denim. With rough use, denims tend to get softer making them versatile. You need the legs from your old denim to create these. For detailed instructions, click here.
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Placemats: Make yourself an uber cool set of placemats using old denims. All you need is your old denim and some sewing skills. Basic hand sewing would also work/ alternatively you could look at using adhesives. Made from up cycled denims, these can include cute pockets to tuck away the cutlery too. For detailed DIY instructions, click here.
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Coasters: Cut out seams from the legs of old jeans and use them to create gorgeous looking coasters. All you need to do is tightly roll the seam into a spiral and keep gluing it on the inside to ensure it sticks well. Try and create a 3.5” spiral. If you do have a cork lying at home, cut it out and stick that to the bottom of your spiral seam coaster. This one’s just an addition; the coaster is good to be used without it too. If this seems too complicated to you, just cut them up into nice squares and decorate the edges with lace, sequins, colorful buttons or anything else you fancy!
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Workstation organizer: If you’re going to upcyle, try and make the most of every part of the denim – in this case, we’d use the pockets. To create a hanging version of the organizer, you need denim pockets, an old pair of jeans (use the same ones from which the pockets are being ripped off). Cut open the denim legs and sew them together to get a flat piece of rectangular denim fabric (See image for reference). On this sew the various pockets. Ta da! Your organiser is ready. An alternate to this could be to use any waste fabric lying at home as the base of the organiser. Another option is sticking the pockets onto a wooden panel.
Sunglasses Cum Phone Case: Sunglasses are expensive, and they’re delicate. If you want to make them last, you have to keep them away from harm. Use your old denims to make a soft case that is gentle on the inside, but sturdy on the outside. Click here to know the step-by-step details.
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Cozy Mug Wrap: Cut up a thick part of the denim to a size to wrap up your mug. Choose any area of the denim. Attach a button to one end and a loop to the other/ sew on a velcro.
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Kitchen hot pots and pans holder: Denim great for holding hot pots and pans in the kitchen. The pocket is ideal for this, as you can also slip your hand in easily hold pots and pans. Read he re on how to make one.

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10. Denim Quilt/Throw: This one utilizes practically every part of your jeans. Just cut it out into square pieces (the size etc entirely depends on you) and patch them together. Sew them to each other and then using a plain fabric, sew the back. Choose a size of quilt/throw as per requirement. For instructions, click here.