American Flag Shorts DIY

UPDATE: This post originally ran on June 13th 2012, but with the 4th of July just around the corner we wanted to bring it back!American flag shorts are always a big fashion trend this time of year, as the 4th of July approaches – but it seems the Americana trend is even bigger than ever right now with the stars and stripes making their way into shirts, shoes, bags and more. I knew it was time for an American flag shorts DIY!

For this project I used the Free People 5 pocket denim cutoffs.

What you need: painters tape, fabric stencil spray paint, some foam brushes, star stencil and a piece of scrap cardboard. I got all of the above supplies at AC Moore, or you could find them at your local craft store.

I recommend testing out the paint on some scrap fabric to be sure you’re happy with the colors you selected – luckily I was. I liked how the white paint had a faded look to it and the red was nice and vibrant.

This DIY project really isn’t very difficult, but the trickiest part was the star stencil. You want to make sure the stencil is as flat on the denim as possible – to do this I put some double sided tape on the back to help adhere it to the shorts before I sprayed. The foam brushes also came in really handy to help spread the paint evenly.

The first star!:

Another tip – use a tiny paintbrush to help touch up the stars. I pretty much just eyeballed the placement of the stars, I wasn’t too concerned about them being perfectly aligned. I like slight imperfections.

For the stripes, I went back and forth a little bit on whether I wanted them to be vertical or horizontal. I chose vertical, and I like how they turned out 🙂

Using the painters tape, simply make thick stripes from top to bottom, leaving open the areas that will be painted red. Spray away!