Pants Upcycled to Pencil Skirt and Slouch Purse

A few months ago, I went shopping and found a pair of Capri pants that were gorgeous (see below). I loved the brocade fabric in silver and black. Unfortunately the tag was 18 and would be much larger than I wore. I bought them anyway because they were on clearance for less than $5 and I figured I could try my hand at alterations and take them in. I brought them home and set them aside for a couple of months without touching them. Then a couple of weeks ago, I pull it out to get to work and noticed that my size 18 were actually size 8.

Thanks to this wonderful tutorial by La Vie DIY, I was able to quickly turn my fail purchase into something gorgeous that I can wear. The following are pictures showing my steps. 

Flipped the pants inside out and ripped out the seams along the inseam of the pants. 

Once the seams were ripped, I fold the pants with the sides together making a front and back seat curve easy to cut. 

Here is the cut.

I used a pencil skirt I already owned to determine my length. 

I was surprise to pull the skirt all the way up once I sewed up the sides. But the bottom was too tight to walk. 

I used pieces of a stretch leather fabric to add side panels to make it a bit easier to walk. 

Instead rectangular side panels, I cut a triangle out of the sides of the skirt. Sorry I forgot to take a picture. 

This is after I sewed in the panels.

Here's me trying it on. 

Another view. 

Here's the skirt hung up.  

With the left over fabric from the bottom of the pants, I made a slouch purse with magnetic snaps. 

Final view. 

Long Tee upcycled to Peplum Top

I'm a part time couponer and some deals are just too good not to share. A couple of weeks ago as I was shopping for my mother's day gift, I went to JCP and they had a deal where if you bought $75 worth gift cards, you'd get back $15 to spend in the store. I did two separate transactions and got 2 $15 gift cards to use the Monday after Mother's day.

I went to JCP last Thursday and headed straight for the clearance racks. I've been wanting to try upcycling, but still a little ehh about using items from the thrift shops and the deal I got was better than any garage sale or thrift shop.

With two transactions totally just over the $15 required, I left the store with all of the above for $1.95 after the in-store coupons. The 4 long tees (2 red, 1 black, 1 white) were each $1.97. The measuring cup was the most expensive item @ 9.99. The green tee and the pants were both 6.97. I split the sale and paid $0.99 and $0.96. Okay now to the actual project. I was inspired by a few tutorials through Pinterest, but Love Megan was probably closer to what I did. I, however used 2 long sleeved shirts. They were both XL and loose fitting.

Sorry for the red on red. I first put on the shirt and marked out where I wanted the waist to hit me. Then I put it back on the dummy to pin and check out the shape.

Back in my craft I had to shorten the sleeves to get it similar to the inspiration piece. 

I folded the shirt in half and cut it at the mark I'd made earlier. Since I wasn't using a fitted tee to make my peplum, I had to add some darts to the front. Sorry I skipped that picture. I added two to the front and after the top was completed and still felt too loose, I took in the side seams with my serger. 

I cut out the bottom of the second shirt and and used one whole pieced and half of the second shirt (so I had 3 panels of the lower half of the shirts to use for my flare portion of the shirt.

Using my serger, I joined the seams so that I had one wide tube.

I hand threaded my elastic bobbing, set my stitches to the longest straight stitch and gathered the fabric.

I pinned the right sides of the top of the shirt to the right side of the bottom skirt by putting shirt right side out into the skirt tube (keeping the skirt wrong side out). I then pinned , but didn't really make too much of an effort to match the seams. Finally I used the serger to (4 threads stretch setting) to join the two pieces.

Hear is the joined peplum inside out as I marked out where to take in the sides some more.

The picture on the left (although hard to tell) had not yet had the side seams reduced. The image on the right has a smaller seam.

The entire project took about 90 minutes to complete and I was able to wear my top the next morning.