Giving you 10 easy tips you can use to create the CUTEST Senior Pants for your school’s Spirit Week! If it isn’t a tradition at your school, this might make you want to start one!
So there is finally a SENIOR in the house, too? Whoop whoop! Can you believe it? And now you have been tasked with creating special pants as part of a fun tradition and want to level up.
Don’t worry! I’ve got you and you will have so much fun creating these. I promise! From dreaming up ideas to shopping to completion, creating these will be so much fun!
It’s hard to believe that just a few short years I was making these delicious egg bites to make mornings a little less chaotic as I prepared my daughter for the school bus, and now I have made senior pants for my 4th and last baby and sharing all my best tips here.
If it’s not a tradition in your school, maybe it should be because these are creative, fun and really help you get into the spirit of being a senior! After all, you are at the top of the totem pole now!
What are Senior Pants?
Sounds funny, right? If you Google it, you might find someone wondering if 70-year-olds should be wearing jeans, lol! But these are not your mom’s jeans. These are meant to be for Seniors ONLY and set them apart from the herd. After all, they have earned it!
And it is not just for high school! The notion of Senior Pants originated at Purdue University in Indiana in the early 1900s. “Boiler Up!!” Two of my kids went there for college!!!
They became sort of a wearable yearbook for college and high school seniors, were actually done out of corduroy, and were adorned with the kids’ initials, favorite activities, initials of their boyfriend/girlfriend, and so on. But the tradition died out in the 1970s until it was picked back up and made popular again.
Having Senior Pants allows kids to be the only group in school that have pants unique to them with their graduation year, name, and other interests included on them. They show your school pride and what makes you stand out as an individual. The designs don’t have to be extravagant and can be simply drawn or painted on or you can get a little more creative with them.
It really is up to the student, but we decided to go all out for ours. The Senior students all wear them on the first day of school, to pep rallies, during spirit week, and to football games to name a few occasions.
There are NO RULES to what you can do with your pants. But think sequins, glitter, paint, etc., and get ready to get your spirit literally ON!
Here are my 10 Tips for Creating AMAZING Senior Pants
- Start with a pair of plain white Dickies pants. The colors you add to them will stand out much more than on denim, which is often used to make senior pants. But, you can use jeans if you want to!
- Pick items and fabrics to decorate that are in your school colors or that go with your mascot. Our mascot was a jaguar, so we used animal print on the hem of the pants and for some of the letters.
- Incorporate the school mascot somewhere. My daughter added the illusion of jaguar claws “ripping” down the pants with paint and a big jaguar head on the front,
- Incorporate your graduation year onto the pants.
- To add hand-painted art or a design you like, print the outline out on a printer in dark bold black and then hold up the design to a window, place the white pants over it, and trace it onto the white pants. You can also cut out the design and trace around it. Or freehand if you can do that! Then add to the design with paint. You can use acrylics just fine. You don’t need any fancy paint.
- Personalize the pants with your last name like you would find on a jersey in big, bold letters.
- Use iron-on letters and numbers, your favorite quote, or a popular phrase in your school or grade. You can buy iron-on letters at the craft store or you can use a cutting machine to cut out your designs like a Cricut. We used my Cricut to neatly cut out letters and ironed them on using Heat ‘n Bond. OR you can iron on the Heat ‘n Bond to your fabric and hand-cut your letters and shapes, too! The key is the IRON ON that makes it so easy.
- Sew or glue ribbon onto the bottom hem of the pant legs to add more color and interest to the pants. This is also a great way to extend the end of your pant legs if they are slightly too short for you.
- Add a decorative chain with your grad year or initials on it and sew it onto a pocket or use Rhinestones to outline items or put large gems in the eyes of your mascot. Get creative!
- Add symbols of your favorite activities or clubs you belong to. **You can even print out photos onto iron-on transfer paper of your favorite moments with friends throughout high school and have your favorite photos. How fun!!
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How to make Senior Jeans?
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Buy a pair of white Dickies or a pair of denim jeans.
- Plan out your design. Be sure to use the front and back of the pants!
- Purchase anything you need: Paint, paintbrushes, glitter, fabric glue…whatever is in your plan.
- Draw out your design in pencil first if you are doing that, but hold off on the paint.
- After drawing in pencil, iron on all the things you want to iron on and allow to cool. Iron on photos, letters, etc.
- Add paint and let it completely dry for a day before doing anything else.
- Add anything you need to glue like glitter or rhinestones.
- Add any ribbon to the bottom hem of the pants. You can glue, iron fuse or sew this. (We bought ours really wide because my daughter is tall and needed some extra length.)
- Add any additional chains or dangling items.
- Enjoy!
We had so much fun making these! I hope this inspires to you either jump into your creativity and make something amazing for your school’s tradition OR start a fun tradition that your friends will remember forever!
Funny note: As I was writing this blog post, I started to get all kinds of “senior” ads. AARP, etc. I had to laugh because that is pretty creepy, right?
Let me know if you have made Senior Pants before or if you think your kids would start the tradition at their school in the comments below!! Until next time, keep creating!
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