studded pocket diy

his is

a DIY

I did many years ago, as I mentioned in yesterday's outfit post.  When I lived in Anchorage I frequently went to an amazing leather, bead and stone shop that had tons of amazing findings and pieces for DIY projects, including studs, so I was always doing a DIY with studs, making jewelry, or other little accessories.  I haven't yet found a good local resource for studs here in Tacoma, but nowadays there are lots of online shops where you can buy studs, so I grabbed mine from etsy.  

These shredded jeans

from

Lulu's

were the perfect base for adding studs.  I've wanted a pair of shredded jeans for a while, but I never found quite the right pair, but I'm loving these ones!

What you'll need: 

1/2 inch studs

 (appx 50-60)

Seam ripper or xacto knife

Jeans

 or Jean shorts

First, take half the pocket off.  You could remove the whole pocket and stud the entire pocket area, but I like how the studs sort of "peek-a-boo" out from the pocket flap.  Remove the outside vertical seam of the pocket using a seam ripper or an exacto knife.  I had a rivet at the top corner of my jeans that I had to remove also, so you might need a pair of needle nose pliers to get that out if you have one.  If you want to leave the flap loose you can leave it, or you can iron the fold to keep it laying flat, or you can throw a stitch in the loose corner to keep it down, which is what I did.

Then, start placing your studs!  You might want to lay some out to measure how many columns/rows you'll fit in before installing them.  Depending on how big/small your pocket is, you may need more or less studs than I used.  The prongs on my studs were easy to push through the denim, so you probably won't need to pre-cut the holes for the prongs to go through, but if you do, just use your xacto knife.  Press the stud prongs through the denim and flip to the inside to press the prongs down.  My prongs were pretty stiff so I needed to use a flathead screwdriver to push the prongs down, but in the past I've had studs that were easier to bend and I could just do it with my fingers.  

Keep adding studs, installing one at a time, to your rows and columns until you've filled the triangle.  I put my studs a little under the fold of the pocket, so they come out from under the pocket fold.

I've seen a similar DIY done with

front pockets

(minus removing half the pocket), which is also cute!

There you go!  It shouldn't take too long, maybe 45 minutes to an hour, hour and a half.  It took a little longer than I anticipated, just because my stud prongs were stiff and harder to push down than I thought they'd be.  My fingers were a little sore by the end!  But I'm stoked with how they turned out!  Maybe I'll have to do a pair of shorts for the summertime too!