American Flag Shorts

As some of you may know I am extremely obsessed with Ke$ha (I seriously know every single word to every single song)!!!  Well earlier this summer I got tickets to go see her Warrior tour! I was so excited and I knew I had to come up the perfect outfit.  I knew I was going to need a classic band shirt, something with an American flag on it, and of course tons of GLITTER!!!!!!  Shortly after I decided that I was going to make some American flag jean shorts.  In my head it was going to be a super simple project that I could make in one day, but I didn’t end up being quite as easy as I originally thought it would be.

I knew that I wanted to start with a pair of jeans so that I could cut them to the length that I wanted them.  I didn’t want to pay a ton of money for a brand new pair of jeans that I was going to destroy, so I went to my local thrift shop and found the perfect pair.

The capris I found at the thrift store. 

Once I got home it was time to cut my jeans!  I had my sister draw lines around my legs a little longer than I wanted them to be.  Once I finished cutting them I hand stitched a seem around the bottom a little above where I cut them, so that when I washed them they would fray a little bit. 

My shorts once they were cut and sewed.

 After I finished sewing them it was time to bleach them! I filled my bathtub with about ¾ bleach and ¼ water.  Once I got it all mixed up I put my shorts in the tub too.  I left my shorts in for a few hours because I wanted them to be really light, almost white.

My shorts bleaching in the tub.

Once my shorts were finally done bleaching I rung them out a little bit then I washed and dried them.  

After they were done bleaching.

Once they were completely dry it was time to paint them!  Before I painted them I made the stripes on one leg with painters tape and cut stars out of the tape to put on the other leg.  

All taped up and ready to be painted!

Once I had all the stars and stripes on them it was finally time to paint them!!  I painted the front side and let it dry for four hours then I flipped them over and did the other side.

All painted!!

Once they were completely dry (I waited about a day) I decided that since they were for the Ke$ha concert they needed at least a little glitter on them.  I didn’t want to cover my whole shorts in glitter so I came up with the perfect idea, I just did the pocket edges and the belt loops.  Once all the glitter dried I thought it would pretty cool if I put some gold studs around the front pockets. 

All finished!!!!

My sister and I all ready to go see Ke$ha!!

I absolutely love the way they turned out! At the concert I got tons of compliments of them, but my favorite one of all was when I got asked (multiple times) where I bought my shorts!  Be looking for a post about the Ke$ha concert in the next few days!