Dull Pants to Sassy Shorts

I am taking a page out of the ReFashionista playbook for this post (if you haven;t read her blog, you should seriously check it out). The other day I was going through my closet to pick out what to wear and I came across these pants.I haven't worn them in a while, probably since before Christmas. Now, they are relatively new and I didn't want to just get rid of them. 

 A derpy picture of me and the just "meh" pants and a weird tan on my feet.

I racked my brain for ideas, and then it hit me. I could make them into shorts! With the hot weather quickly approaching I thought this would be a great re-vamp project. Plus I don't have any shorts that I can wear to work and it is going to be very hot in there during the summer months. Here is the step-by-step process to make quick shorts from pants (sorry for the weird lighting in the first few pictures, the curtains in the room were messing with it a bit). 

1. I tried on my pants and marked where the knees were. I wanted to make my shorts no shorter than 2 inches above the knee so they would be work appropriate.

2. Next I cut the legs off 1/2 and inch below where my knees are. You might want to mark a line on your pants, I just measured across with a ruler and eyeballed it.  

 3. I set aside the legs (I will come back to those in a minute) and surged the bottom of my newly cut shorts to finish the hem. 

 4. Next I measured 1 inch from the hem and pressed it up with the iron.

 press press press

5. Then I folded them up another inch (using the previous fold as a guide) and pressed them again. Tada, the basic shorts are complete! You could also tack the folds down at the side seams if you wish for extra hold, but my pressing was pretty thorough and it didn't seem necessary. If your pants are a heavier material like twill or denim the side tacks might be necessary.   

6. Back to the rest of the old pants, I wanted to make a tie belt out of the excess leg bits. I took my trusty ruler and measured out four 2 inch wide by 18 inch long strips. I kept the original hem on two of the strips.  

 7. Then I pinned the strips together, keeping the two hemmed pieces at either end. I sewed the pieces together. Then I did a tiny 1/4 inch hem on either side, folding it as I sewed at the machine (I am a really lazy sewer sometimes). 

And the finished result, I was left with a cute pair of work appropriate shorts! 

 What I Wore:
Shirt; Thrifted (Value Village)
Shorts + belt: Mark's Work Warehouse, refashioned by yours truly
Shoes: Thrifted (Talize)

I am definitely much happier with these as shorts. There was just something not quite right about them as pants. I have another pair in blue, but I have worn those much more as pants so I think I will leave them as is for right now. I actually wore this to work on the weekend (minus the shoes, I had more work appropriate ones on) and it was super comfortable and great for the hot weather. I am looking forward to getting more wear out of these over the course of the season.