3 Simple Ways To Update The Clothes You Already Own

I love clothes. But who doesn’t right?

If you looked in my closet you’d probably say I have more than enough clothes….and that may or may not be true. I am a quantity person, not a quality person….though the last 2 1/2 years of marriage to my quality over quantity husband is teaching me to value quality things as well.

Anyway, like I said I like clothes. Sometimes I get tired of the clothes that I have and get an itch to buy something new. My wallet doesn’t necessarily always agree with that itch, so I improvise (or go to nearest outdoor market to my house that’s only open on Monday’s and buy a few shirts for $0.30 each….I end up keeping one of them and giving the others away to friends).

Many people are good with their brains….I generally find myself better with my hands. Don’t get me wrong, I graduated from university with honors but only because I just wanted to finish and I was genuinely interested in what I was studying.

Back to clothes. Here are three easy ways to update pieces of clothing that you already own but are either went out of style, you’re tired of, or you never wore it more than once after you bought it (let’s be honest….we all do it…it looked SO cute…but it’s just not YOU).

1. An old t-shirt in the back of your closet to a great workout shirt. All it takes in a pair of scissors to cut off the sleeves and make large arm holes that are more conducive and less restrictive for working out.
   

   Awesome wolf t-shirt from a beach trip about 5 years ago.

   

   SO much better for working out than sleeves that leave you with wet pits.

    

2. DIY Distressed Denim. These jeans were my favorite jeans for about a year and a half. After that they were faded rather than a rich dark indigo and the fit had stretched out a bit from the perfect skinny ankle jeans they once were. So why not roll with it? I threw some bleach on them and took a cheese grater to a few places…they went from my favorite, to not worn for 6 months, back to my top 2 list.  Check out Merrick’s Art for a great denim distressing tutorial.
   

   Don’t mind my dog literally biting my hand.

   

   I love how the bleach missed a few places and left some of the original darker denim.

   

   Don’t worry if you try it out and it’s not perfect. It’s UNIQUE.

3. A dress turned skirt. I bought this dress at the fore mentioned market for $1.50 and thought I would LOVE it, until I put it on and it was just too big. I was hoping for the  effortless breezy look….but that’s not what I got until I chopped off the top and made it into this skirt.. All it took was a piece of 1 1/2 wide elastic, scissors and a straight stick (can be done by hand or much faster with a sewing machine. Hems are the bain of my existence when it comes to sewing, I can never seem to get them just right (aka straight), so it was so nice that all I had to do was cut an put in an elastic band…the hem was the original one of the dress.
   

   Simple but elegant.

   

   

   Again….dog begging for attention…except two of them.

 

These are simple changes you can make to the clothes that you already own to update them and put them back into your regular wear rotation. What do you do when you get bored with your closet? I would love to test out your ideas….just ask my husband….I’m always complaining about my wardrobe. I know that I’m not alone…but there are small changes that make the world of difference!

Enjoy!