What you will need:
Scissors
Tweezers
Pencil
Ruler
Step 1: Look online for inspiration. It is important to map out how you want your jeans to look beforehand so you have something to follow. There are two major rips you can make: a gapped rip like the ones on the left or the frayed rip like the one on the right.
Step 2: Use a pencil and ruler to mark where you would like the rips to end up. Make sure that the lines are as horizontal as possible so they will follow the stitching in the jeans and keep the white thread intact. And just like in the pictures above the rips look more natural if they are not even and symmetrical.
Gapped rip: mark one line.
Frayed rip: mark 4-6 about 1 inch apart depending on how big you want the hole to be.
Step 3:
Make the cuts! Pinch your jean vertically so you can make the cut on your marking. Make sure not to clip the other side! You can always make a bigger hole but you can never undo one so take it slow and see how it looks before going further.
Gapped: Cut a small horizontal slit in the middle of your marked like. This should be no bigger than a centimeter.
Frayed: Cut a small horizontal slit on your marked line and then cut along the rest of your mark. This should be just like cutting a shape out of the middle of a piece of paper.
Step 4 Gapped: Start pulling at the slit so the edges rip toward the end of your marked line. You can put one finger at each end and pull in opposite directions or stick to one end at a time and pull at the sides. Don’t be afraid of pulling too hard, the rips aren’t supposed to look perfect anyways.
Step 5 Gapped: Once the gap is at your desired width you can mess around the edges for a more distressed look. Spreading apart the blue threads or pulling out the white threads usually does the trick. If you want a bigger gap you can cut the edges to make the hole bigger, but once again take small cuts because there is no undo button.
Step 6 Gapped: Admire your work you are done!
*Warning the frayed rips are a bit tedious so set up your Netflix and get ready to multitask*
Step 4 Frayed: Using your tweezers start to pull out the blue threads. It helps to start off in the middle and work your way out to the sides. To keep the white threads from breaking start by taking one or two out at a time.
Step 5 Frayed: Once the middle chunk of blue thread has been removed the other pieces will be easier to take out and you can grab more at a time. Continue to do this until you make it to the end of the slit and the blue thread cannot be removed.
Step 6 Frayed: Repeat steps 4&5 onto the next line until all of the blue thread has been removed from the allotted area. For a more uneven look you can even pull at the slits, like in the gapped method, to continue past the white thread like on the third line in the picture below.
Continue to add more rips by mixing and combining the two styles. Once you’re done you will be able to give new life to any old pair of old jeans!