DIY acid washed denim and some shameless self promotion. ...

After two days of eyeing this great vintage Levi's jacket that was too pricey for my pocketbook I had to make a decision: Either suck it up and buy the damn thing already or attepmt to acid wash a thrifted jacket at home. 

I took a quick trip to the corner thrift store and here's what happened....

Supplies: 

1. Plastic bucket 

(This isn't neccessary for acid washing but it was so cute and I am using it for dip bleaching and dyeing other denim stuff. Look out for those posts in the next few days...)

2-4. Spray bottle, bleach, and cheap-o kitchen gloves

5. Jacket 

Also make sure to do this outside and maybe not on a windy day... 

The jacket I found was a pretty dark wash which is actually great for acid washing since you get that nice contrast of dark and bleached out denim shades. 

OK. So you've got supplies and your denim. 

Now onto the DIY.

1. Wet your denim and ring it out really well.

2. The hard part. This step took me about 2 hours to do because hey, I'm no expert. I laid the jacket on the ground (or you could use a towel, newspaper, whatever. Either way it gets washed post bleaching.) 

I filled a spray bottle with full concentrate bleach and began by just misting the whole jacket evenly, front and back. Step away for about 20 minutes, repeat. 

Then I alternated spraying the jacket evenly with mist, letting rest for 20 mins, then spraying by only gently squeezing the trigger and letting out bigger droplets of bleach. I did this many, many times but making sure that each time I left the jacket alone for about 15-20 mins before repeating. I think doing this in full sunshine probably helped out too! 

Here is an in progress photo. It's definitely a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race sort of DIY. 

 Eventually (1-2 hours) you'll end up with a jacket that looks like this: 

I wanted my jacket to be a more subtle acid wash. The front is a lot less speckled than the back and sleeves. If you want somethig more speckeled I would suggest doing less even misting and more gentle sqeezing. (Hopefully you'll get what I mean by this... it's hard to explain with words.)

Once you feel like the jacket is bleached to your liking just throw it in the washer and dryer and you're done! I'd recommend doing a couple of denim things at a time since since you'll already have the set up and everything. Plus I feel so guilty just throwing one thing in the wash + dry. 

 Here's a close up of the under pockets which I decided not to bleach. Check out how dark this sucker was to start with! This is the reason the acid washing was such a loooong process. If you find a lighter wash denim then you won't have to do as many sessions of spraying. 

The back. See what I mean about teh speckling?

Now you've got a great blank canvas to decorate with pins, brooches, patches, and studs! I put some of the new handmade brooches that are coming soon to my Etsy shop on here just to give you some styling ideas. 

Have fun, get crazy, let go! Don't try to control the bleach and just have fun with it.