When we went to our friends’ wedding earlier this month, I wasn’t the only one there with some DIY touches to their outfit! My husband was the best man, so he didn’t have much to decide about his outfit, but he asked the groom if he could wear cuff links, because he’d just gotten a beautiful pair (and matching tie clip) from our friend Davis Hatcher who had a tent at the Boulder Creek Festival this year. Hubs got an easy “yes” from his bestie, but the shirt the groomsmen all got had buttoned cuffs, and we weren’t allowed to change which shirt he was wearing, so we (I) had to get crafty!

First, rip off those pesky buttons! Carefully, of course. I used a seam ripper.

Next, fold the cuff in half, and mark where the buttonhole should go based on where the existing buttonhole is. I did this with a pencil, because it had a nice fine tip, makes a light mark, would wash off, plus all the marking I did was on the inside of the sleeve and would be covered/cut by the buttonhole processes, and therefore wouldn’t be visible anyway. You’ll notice my mark has a small horizontal mark below (perpendicular to) the mark I made through the existing buttonhole. This is based on how my sewing machine’s buttonhole foot instructions detailed the process.

Then you make your buttonhole! My machine has a special buttonhole foot that you insert a button into to get the size right, so I used one of the buttons I ripped off earlier. I attached the buttonhole foot to my sewing machine, lined up my marks with the red and green marks on the foot, picked the proper stitch and started sewing. Other than gently holding the fabric in place, I didn’t do much - the machine does all the hard work. Depending on your machine, you may have to do things a bit more manually, so double check your instruction manual. I’d imagine most new-ish machines will have this ability, though.

The scariest part comes next - you have to actually cut the hole for the button (or, in this case, cuff link) to go through. I’ve seen that some people use scissors, but I prefer using the seam ripper again.

And there you have it! Another fun touch for this project is that, rather than using white thread to match the white shirt, I used the same color thread that I used on the culottes I made for this wedding, so we were subtly (ok, let’s be honest, completely unnoticeably) matching. 😉