Lace does something no other trim manages. Half a yard of it off a spool turns a plain tee into something you would actually buy, and it costs less than a sandwich. These 17 lace crafts split three ways. There is the wearing: lace sleeves set into a striped jersey, crochet shorts, a bralette, a crop top, a gauze scarf, a watch strap beaded with pearls and rhinestones. There is the decorating: doilies soaked in Mod Podge and dried over a bowl, black lace stitched around glass votives, a lampshade recovered with a single leg of patterned tights. And there is the sneaky third group, where lace is the tool rather than the material, spray painted through onto a pair of canvas shoes or inked and rolled across plain paper to print your own gift wrap. Full tutorials, all credited.
1. Crochet Lace Short
Crochet shorts with a lace motif worked all the way through, finished with a soft tie at the waist, and the pattern comes free with charts as well as written rows. The waistband is the part to read first: single crochet along until the chain matches your waist, then work five or six rows doubled, because you fold that band over and sew it into a tube so a ribbon can thread through. The rest is two leg pieces joined, which sounds harder than it is. A broomstick stitch band is suggested if you want more stretch there.
Get the full tutorial at FabArtDIY.
2. Ombre Lace Jewelry
Lace trim off a spool, dip dyed from pale to saturated and mounted on chain, and the half yard it takes makes about four pieces. Pick out motifs you like in the trim and cut them away individually, because a good lace has several usable shapes running through it. Fabric paint or dye that works on synthetics matters here, since most craft lace is not cotton. Seal the cut edges with white glue so nothing frays, then add jump rings, a clasp or earring hooks. One afternoon makes a run of them, which is why these turn up as bridesmaid gifts.
Get the full tutorial at Glamour and Grace.
3. Lace Doily Jewelry Holders
Doilies dyed first, then soaked in Mod Podge and dried over an upturned bowl, which gives you a shallow dish to drop rings into instead of leaving them by the bathroom sink. Fill a container with water, add a touch of salt and a few drops of dye, more drops for a deeper shade, then dip the doily and lay it out on a towel to air dry. Flip your bowl over and cover the base with plastic wrap so nothing sticks. Soak the dried doily in Mod Podge, spreading it with a sponge brush, and drape it over the mold.
Get the full tutorial at Inspired By This.
4. Reese Witherspoon Inspired Draper James
A striped jersey tee with navy lace sleeves, copying a Draper James top that retailed at ninety dollars and was on sale for fifty five, which is still a lot for a basic tee. The sleeve is the whole idea and it is why this works: the body stays an ordinary striped knit and the lace does one job in one place. Both fabrics need stretch, so a stretchy striped jersey and a lace with give in it, or the sleeve will not pull on over a shoulder. Stripes plus lace sounds wrong on paper and looks expensive in person.
Get the full tutorial at Rival A Diva.
5. Black Lace Votives
Plain glass votives wrapped in a band of black lace trim, lit from inside so the pattern reads as a silhouette. The trim is the sort sold by the yard in the ribbon section, not dress lace, which is why the scalloped top edge stands up above the rim like a little crown. Cut a strip long enough to go round the glass, overlap the ends, and tack them with small stitches in black thread. A yard or two covers a table. Use battery tealights rather than flames, because there is fabric sitting right against hot glass.
Get the full tutorial at Family Chic.
6. Lace Scarf
Two yards of gauze and a reel of lace trim, and the whole thing takes about half an hour. Cut the fabric to three feet by one foot, pin the trim along the edge, and topstitch it down on the machine. Then keep going, because more rows of trim added across the body of the scarf are what give it a layered, accessorized look rather than a single band at the hem. Gauze is the right choice here because it is light enough to drape properly and soft enough to sit against a neck all day.
Get the full tutorial at A Beautiful Mess.
7. Lace Painted Slip-ons
Canvas slip ons sprayed through real lace doilies, so the doily acts as a stencil and leaves its pattern in the original canvas color while everything around it turns red. Mask the rubber sole with tape first, then stuff the shoes with crumpled newspaper so no paint gets inside. Wrap the doilies around each shoe and hold them in place with straight pins. Spray in several light passes rather than one wet one, because canvas drinks paint and the first coat barely registers. Let them dry properly before you lift the doilies off.
Get the full tutorial at Lil Blue Boo.
8. Laced Crop Top
A black lace crop top made from an existing shirt in two cuts and a few seams. Cut away everything above the armholes first, then measure 25 cm down from that new top edge, mark it, and cut the bottom off so what remains is a 25 cm tube. The straps are two different lace widths, the broad one forming the strap itself and a narrow one on the inside covering the raw cut edge, because the lace used was twice as wide as needed. Pin the straps on a dress form and fix them with a zigzag stitch.
Get the full tutorial at Green Bird.
9. Refashioned DIY Lace T-Shirt Top
A sleeveless top in white lace, made as part of an eco refashion series about getting more out of clothes that already exist rather than buying new fabric. That framing is the useful bit: the lace here comes from something else, which is why the motif runs in panels rather than as one continuous yardage. A simple shell shape with a wide neck and dropped shoulders is the forgiving place to start, because lace hides a multitude of fitting sins and a loose shape does not need darts or a zip anywhere.
Get the full tutorial at Cucicucicoo.
10. Redress a Lampshade with a Pair of Lace Tights
One leg of a pair of patterned lace tights pulled over a bare lampshade frame, and the whole thing costs nothing if the tights are already in the drawer. The shade used here measured about 26 cm across at its widest and 80 cm around. Slide the leg over with the toe towards the narrow end, knot the crotch and the spare leg out of the way, then whip stitch all round the lower edge through both layers of fabric. A line of running stitch just inside that seam, pulled tight and fastened, is what tensions the whole cover.
Get the full tutorial at Alicia Sivert.
11. Lovely Layered Lace Shorts
Thrifted shorts covered in overlapping rows of lace trim, and the whole project came to about twelve dollars including the shorts. Pin the first row of lace on and run it the entire way around so it covers front and back as one continuous band, then sew that row down before pinning the next. Work from the top toward the hem, overlapping each row onto the one above. At the zipper, wrap the lace underneath the flap and hand stitch it so the fly still works. The last row gets sewn in place at the hem.
Get the full tutorial at Sincerely Kinsey.
12. Easy Self-Print Lace Pattern Gift Wrap
Real lace wrapped around a rolling pin, inked, and rolled across plain paper to print your own gift wrap, which is a proper printing technique rather than a pattern that merely looks like lace. Cut the lace long enough to wrap the pin, secure the ends, then load it with color using a roller or a brush. Roll steadily in one direction across the paper and do not go back over a pass, because a second roll doubles the pattern and blurs it. Plain white paper, one color of ink, and the lace texture does everything else.
Get the full tutorial at Wonderful DIY.
13. Lace Infinity Scarf
An infinity scarf is one long loop, which makes it the easiest thing in the world to sew, and this one pairs a dark ground fabric with lace along its length plus machine embroidery worked across both. The cutting list is generous: scarf fabric a yard and a half long and at least fourteen inches wide, lace of the same length and at least seven inches wide, with a finished decorative edge so nothing needs hemming. Sheer mesh cutaway stabilizer goes behind the embroidery, and invisible thread is optional. Let the design fold into the drape rather than sitting flat like a sticker.
Get the full tutorial at Urban Threads.
14. Lace Square Crochet
A free crochet square with an open lace center and a solid border, which makes it a useful building block rather than a one off. Worked in cotton it becomes a dishcloth or a trivet, worked in a run of colors and joined it becomes a lace afghan. Gauge does not matter, because the square is whatever size your yarn and hook make it, so pick the yarn first and let the square follow. It starts with a chain of six joined into a ring, then builds out in rounds of clusters and shells.
Get the full tutorial at Cre8tion Crochet.
15. Handmade Lace Bracelet With Ring
A lace bracelet that runs from wrist to finger with a ring attached, built from a cut lace motif, a length of fine chain and some flat back rhinestones. Cut the motif so the widest part sits across the back of the hand, then run the chain from the bracelet edge up to the ring so the two pieces hold each other in place. Glue the stones on one at a time with a fine tip rather than flooding the lace, since adhesive soaking through the holes is what ruins these. Pliers and a glue gun are the only tools involved.
Get the full tutorial at Bored Panda.
16. DIY Lace Bralette
The pattern prints on one sheet, and the clever part is where you lay it. Pin each piece with its straight edge along the scalloped edge of the lace, so the finished decorative border becomes the top of the garment and nothing ever needs hemming. Cut four pieces, two matched pairs, and line the motifs up so both sides read the same. Sew the curved edges, then wrap the lace around a band of two centimeter elastic measured stretched under the bust, sew a centimeter in, slide the clasps on and add thin elastic straps.
Get the full tutorial at Geneva Vanderzeil.
17. Lace, Pearl and Rhinestone Watch DIY
A narrow lace strap beaded with small pearls and rhinestones, fitted to a ribbon bar watch face of the sort sold in craft store jewelry aisles. Those faces are made to take a ribbon or a strip of fabric through the bars, so lace threads straight through with no hardware at all. Keep the strap thin. A bulky one was the original plan here and the slim version turned out better, which is usually how it goes. Sew the pearls on individually with a needle rather than gluing them, since a strap flexes all day.
Get the full tutorial at Dream A Little Bigger.
