Handy Ways to Repurpose Old Leggings

Once you stretch out and wear out your leggings or yoga pants they’re pretty much useless and usually end up in the landfill . . . are they?

If you wore your leggings often, then you've probably noticed that they wear out pretty quickly, yet it seems like a waste to just toss them out. Why throwing your tights, leggings, or yoga pants away in the trash when you can get artsy and upcycle them instead?

Most leggings are made of synthetic fabrics which can’t be composted, so microfibers are often released into the water causing harm to marine life when they enter rivers and oceans.

Luckily, with a little bit of DIY innovation, you can repurpose your old leggings in really cool ways. Even if they no longer carry out their duty as legwear, they have the chance to be so much more:

Storage Solution

Reuse your old leggings as storage for shoes while traveling: Slip them inside the fabric and tie off in a loose knot so they won’t become separated in your suitcase.

Polishing/Cleaning Cloths

As your yoga leggings become more worn out, the fabric turns into super soft material, so you can cut smaller clothes to use them for cleaning, dusting, or polishing furniture.

Leg Warmers

One of the easiest ways to stay warm during the cooler days is layering. Cut off the two separate "legs" of your yoga pants to make leg warmers. There are so many awesome ways to style them in cozy fall and winter outfits.

Emergency Hair Tie

We (ladies) are almost always down to our last few hair ties, so here’s the most crafty idea ever: Start cutting strips at the very bottom of your leggings (about 3,4 cm in), and finish at the top of each leg. Well done, now you have at least 20 soft and gentle hair ties!

Personalized Headband

A similar way to repurpose old leggings is to create cute headbands for you or your girls. Leggings fabric will keep hair in place because it stretches and bounces back easily.

Harvest Spare Elastic

You can always reuse the waistband from your old leggings which is still stretchy and functional to replace elastic in other pants or skirts.

Beautiful Lampshades

Convert those printed legging you don’t wear anymore into a unique and stylish lamp-shade. All you have to do is cut the two separate "legs" and stretch the fabric lightly onto the lampshade. Glue with silicone gun first point with the rubber and then cut with scissors fabric over from the other side, leaving a 1,5 cm margin. Finally, stick the margin of the fabric around the cap with silicone gun.

Woven Floor Mat

If you have more than just one pair of old but fun leggings, or any other kind of pants made from a soft fabric, even your children's old t-shirts or blouses that are too old for donating or gifting to someone, you can create one of a kind colorful floor mat. Begin stripping them all, and then knot each end to the other one, so you can create braids in one long strand. Coil the braids around themselves, gluing all along, and you have your super natty rug!