DIY cheap cut-off shorts

I love shorts during the summer. Not skirts.

Skirts are fun for church and getting fancy for things, but let's face it... 

My legs are too short and my feet hardly hit the ground. Therefore,

I don't like sitting like a lady. It is very difficult for me.

You can ask my mom. We had a lot of battles at the kitchen table. :)

Shorts are actually really cheap and easy to make. Well, at least the cut-off kind. Here are the end results of my latest cut-off pair:

I love them!

Okay. Here's what you do. Take a pair of loose-ish pants that you think would look good as cut-offs. 

I wouldn't recommend using skinny jeans, it just doesn't come out looking that good as shorts.

If you don't already own any boot-cut pants you want to cut, then D.I. is a great place to look. Most of their pants are only 6 dollars. I found this pair after only searching for a few minutes:

 They're cute, but they were way too huge as pants.

Plus, I wanted some white shorts to mix and match with.

Okay. After finding a pair of pants, don't get too attached to them as pants because you're about to cut them in half. This is a must. 

Next, lay out your pants on the ground or on the bed. Then grab a pair of shorts you already own as your model. (Any length) I already own a pair of roll-up shorts from gap, so I just unrolled those and used them as my guide. Lay the shorts on top of the pants and use a pencil or tailor's chalk to draw a line where you want them to be cut but only do it on ONE PANT LEG.  (I'll explain why this important later.)

Once you have drawn a line on one of the pant legs, cut it carefully. Now, the most important thing with cut-offs, is making sure that the pant-legs are even. So what I do, is I fold over the pant leg that I just cut and place it on top of the other pant leg. Then I DRAW A NEW LINE. That way, they are a lot more even than if you just tried cutting them both separately. 

After you have finished cutting both pant legs, put them on and fold them how you like. If they are too long, just cut off another sliver. Once they are the perfect length and you have folded them the way you like, take them off and iron them. That way the fold stays. For jeans, I don't need to sew anything at the hem because I like when they fray. But for pairs you don't want to fray very much, I would recommend sewing a stitch across the bottom. 

There are many ways to make cut-offs, but this is just how I do it. This is how they turned out:

(one of the folds is coming unfolded, because I hadn't ironed it yet.)

Here are some other cut-offs I have made:

I'm excited to add white to my collection and I think I will start looking for other colors next time I hit the D.I.