Painting fabric, however, does offer a lot of versatility. You can paint on just about any fabric with regular acrylic paint, but if you use fabric paint or add textile medium to acrylic, your design will last through a lot more washes.

Cut your clothes

Do you have a pair of pants that’s just too long? Cut them. How about a shirt with a scratchy collar? Cut it off.

There are so many ways to alter the style of clothes by cutting them. My favorites involve denim cutoffs and capris.

The video above is helpful for showing the number of things you can do with a shirt and a pair of fabric scissors. That said, I’d recommend looking for a few tutorials on pinterest before you take the blades to your clothes though, just to make sure you don’t mess up. (I’ve learned that lesson the hard way, too.)

Beginner Sewing Methods for Upcycling Clothes:

Most of these projects can be done if you know how to hand sew. If not, this tutorial is really helpful for beginners.

Add patches

I love patches. I’ve been scouring the internet for months to try and find the perfect jacket that I can add patches to.

If you prefer to buy your patches I’d recommend checking out Etsy’s patch section. They have tons of stores that specialize in patches and all of them are unique.

I like the video above, though, because it offers no sew options to make patches and attach them.

I will warn you, though, that hot glue doesn’t last long on fabrics that go through a lot of wear and tear — so if you’re planning on attaching your patches with an adhesive I’d use something a little bit stronger or do this on an item that you won’t be washing often.

Add beads or other accents

Beadwork can be really complex, however the pearl jeans project above from Honestly WTF is fairly simple.