How to Distress Your Jeans at Home

A pair of jeans you want to distress

Chalk

Tweezers

Box cutter

Safety pin

First, slip on the jeans you want to distress. 

Use chalk to roughly mark the area you want to distress. For a rather impressive hole in the knee area, it's best to start cutting two inches above the knee and two inches below. 

Insert a magazine into the leg, which will prevent the box cutter from slicing through both layers of fabric. You can use cardboard or anything you think is thick enough to act as a buffer. Firmly place it under the cutting area.

Use the box cutter to start slicing at the line you marked. 

Continue to slice in horizontal strips. Make each strip about 1/2 inch to an inch apart. The cuts don't need to be equal in length or in width. For a natural looking rip, start the hole with short slices, gradually create longer ones midway, and end with a short cut (so that it looks like a diamond, versus a perfect rectangle). 

Flip the first strip over and individually tease out each white thread (these are long woven strings that run from side to side) with the sharp point of a safety pin. Carefully continue to loosen and extract each white thread without breaking them. 

Once you've teased out enough of the long white strands, you'll notice that a frayed fringe will have formed. Use your tweezers to pluck out and remove those short vertical threads. When you're done, what's left of the strip will be a cluster of white threads running horizontally—the beginnings of your ripped hole.

Repeat steps five and six for each strip. For variety, try leaving a skinny strip untouched and use sandpaper to fray the edges. 

The finished look: Denim, destroyed.