Button Fly DIY

I had a pair of jeans that the zipper broke on (terribly timed while husband and I were TRAPPED in an airport for three days) and decided that I would try to make a button fly on them as well as cut them into shorts for an upcoming trip since they are just a tad big and I don't want to spend money on buying new shorts.  This was so much easier than I thought it would be.

First things first, rip out the zipper as close to the existing seams as possible.

Since, I was cutting the legs off I cut a piece off for my new button fly the same width and length of where the zipper was before removing it.

After stitching up the sides, flip it to the right sides out.

I set it in place to determine where I wanted the buttons and button holes.

Serge up the open side, and sew your button holes.  Not going to lie I had to look up the instructions and use a Spanish book to remember how to do these because I cannot find my English instruction manual.  Thank you, Google Translate app!

I then laid out the buttons so I could mark where I needed them to be sewn on.  Note: sew them closer to the seam where the zipper was or your pants will look "unzipped" even though they are buttoned shut.  I ended up removing the buttons to redo this.

Pin the new fly in place and sew on jeans.  I ended up making the fly wide enough to where I just followed along the existing seams with gold thread to not make any new thread marks.

Sew your buttons on, either by hand or machine.  I recommend using a machine; but, then again I hate hand sewing.  You can use the same metal buttons that most jeans have.  I chose plastic buttons because I already had them and they were less expensive than the metal ones.  Note: this is before I moved the buttons closer to the existing zipper seam.

When all is said and done, this is what they will look like buttoned.

Proud that my on a whim sew job actually worked better than I imagined.  This is actually still before I moved the buttons closer to the existing zipper seam as you can tell they don't look closed as well as I had hoped; but, I assure you that they do after moving the buttons.