DIY Denim Leather Jacket

I saw this jacket in Urban Outfitters a while ago and couldn't help but think how easy it would be to do it myself, and save the 100$ that it cost. Lucky for me, I even had everything I needed laying around the house! 

All you need for this project is:

a denim jacket or vest

a faux leather jacket

seam ripper

fabric scissors

pinking shears

black thread

sewing machine

The most time consuming aspect of this DIY is removing the sleeves from both jackets. Use a seam ripper to remove the stitches holding the sleeve on, try not to use scissors to cut the sleeves off because it will alter the shape of the sleeve itself and the armholes.

1. get your jacket

2. determine which of the seams is the armhole, you will need to remove the sleeve of the lining, as well as the seam holding the actual sleeve to the rest of the jacket

3. this photo illustrates the layers of fabric you need will need to work through to fully remove the intact sleeve

4. remove extra threads from the edges of the cap of the sleeve

(you will also need to remove the denim sleeves from the vest, again using your seam ripper and avoiding cutting the vest)

5. pin the lining of the leather jacket sleeve to the sleeve

6. sew the lining to the sleeve and trim the excess lining with your pinking shears

7. set the leather sleeve to the denim vest as you would any other garment, pin it evenly all the way around making sure that the underarm seams line up and that the caps match

NOTE: be sure that you sew the correct sleeves into the armholes! If there is a dart in the sleeve, it should go towards the back..if there is no dart in the sleeve, simply slip it on and you'll be able to tell by how comfortably you can move which arm it is meant for!

Once you have the sleeves attached, slip it on to make sure that the sleeves are in fact in the right armholes and make sure that it fits!

I wanted to change up the buttons, since I wasn't crazy about the GAP buttons the jacket had to begin with. However, I don't have any experience with replacing denim jacket buttons. Instead I found some cool metallic buttons I had picked up on sale which fit nicely. Try to find buttons with a shank that fits into the existing denim button. Instead of changing the buttons, I simply filled the denim button with super glue and stuck the shanks of the new buttons inside. It isn't the most perfect solution to the problem, but it works for me!