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Monday 25 July 2011

Girl's Summer Dress Mini Tutorial


This is one of my favourite upcycling projects. I needed some orange clothes for my youngest daughter. At nursery they were having colour themed weeks where they asked the children to come in dressed in clothes matching the colour of that week. I managed to have some clothes for all colours except 'orange'! I really didn’t have anything in the house which was orange. My girls like pink, and orange doesn’t really go with pink.

I went out to the shops to try to find something girly and orange. I didn’t find any clothes in the general clothes shops, so I decided to look in the charity (thrift) shops. I still couldn’t find any girls clothes, but I did find a small ladies strapless top in a lovely bright orange colour, and this was extremely cheap. I purchased it as a backup option, still hoping to find something else before orange week.

As I did not found any alternative, I then started on re-designing the top into a little girl’s summer dress. It wasn’t that difficult and only took less than 2 hours of often interrupted work. The only things extra I needed were: some elastic and thread. Below is a quick tutorial of how I did this.
Step 1: I measured my daughter's chest, then took in the side hem of the top accordingly, to make it slimmer. (I kept the scraps to make the bracelet).

Step 2: I cut of part of the long bottom frill. (I just cut this by freehand to make it unique.)

Step 3: Using half of the cut of bottom frill I then made two long straps.

Step 4: I added elastic into the long straps, to make them look ruffled and sewed them to the top of the top (now making it a dress!).

Step 5: I added some belt hoops with some of the spare material. (I sewed these into the side hems, by unpicking a small gap, placing them inside, and then sewing over the gap and the belt hoops)

Step 6: With the remaining half of the frill, I managed to make a belt for the dress.

Step 7: With part of the top frill (which I had removed to make the dress slimmer) I made a stretchy arm bracelet.


The Photo above is a close up of my daughter modelling the completed dress and the bracelet. She loves posing for the camera, as you can probably see. To keep in with the theme of orange, I also managed to crochet an orange headband. My daughters’ have boxes full of headbands, but again none of them were orange. This was the first crochet headband I have ever made, so I kept it to a very simple quick pattern, nothing fancy. I also made an orange crochet flower hair bobble/band.

I hope the mini tutorial makes it clear on how simple it was to accomplish this. If I wasn't being distracted by my children I could probably have made this in less than 1 hour!

This is a duplicate post, the first time I posted this I only had a handful of followers and didn't join in with any link parties. I thought that now we are in the summer this would be quite a good summery post! This post is linked up with the following:
 
TipMeTuesdayButton Katie's Nesting Spot      homework   Beneath the Rowan TreePassionately Artistic Confessions Of A Stay At Home MommyStrictly Homemade TuesdayRhinestone Beagle



34 comments:

  1. Sounds interesting..:) Thank You so much for this. Btw, I am glad to find you and glad that you stopped by and followed my blog. I am following your blog. Will keep visiting, Insha Allah!

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  2. Thank you so much for stopping by the blog (THe Joys of HOme Educating) and leaving a comment on our Backyard Beach Birthday Bash post. I am a new follower of yours now and LOVE that dress!

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  3. What a great idea!! Thanks for visiting my blog! I am here from the Monday Monkey Hop. :)

    Jessi G.
    Green Mam-a Jam-a

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  4. That turned out super cute!

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  5. Thanks for stopping by midnight mommy! I am your newest follower! :) Question, when you say that you are reposting this because you have this post now linked to several other blogs, did you just guest post on all of those other blogs or did this post get mentioned on these blogs? I am just curious, it might be a dumb question.

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  6. How cute is this?! Love the dress and wish I could devote some time to sewing and other crafts lately. Thanks for visiting my blog!

    Jenny Lee Sulpizio
    Author of "Mommy Whispers"
    http://www.jennysulpizio.com

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  7. Very cute!! I am working on converting an old tube top of mine to a dress for my daughter.

    Thanks for checking out my blog and following!

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  8. Love this cute outfit! Great idea! Thank you for following my site! I'm following you back! Www.jamesandleighann.blogspot.com

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  9. Thanks Karima to visit my blog, so I have visited your blog. I'm your new follower.

    Sonia

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  10. That's impressive, it turned out so cute. Please stop by www.laughloveandcraft.com and link up to my Share the Wealth Wednesday Link Party! I'm your newest follower!

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  11. Very cute! That is great refashion...and I really like the color. I think orange can be so pretty if its a nice shade!

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  12. How sweet is that cute little girl in her bright yellow dress? Her smile is as sunny as the material. Love what you did with the dress.

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  13. Cute! Love the color and your refashion is so innovative!

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  14. Love this dress! It turned out so cute! Can't wait to try it for my little girls :) Thanks for stopping by my blog and becoming a follower! I'm your newest follower. See ya round blog world!

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  15. Very cute dress! Thanks for stopping by squeezing it all in! Love to have you as my newest follower!!!

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  16. Thanks for visiting my blog and for the nice comment. It means a lot. I am a new follower. :)

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  17. This turned out so cute! Thanks for linking to Wicked Awesome Wednesday!

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  18. Gorgeous dress and great upcycle! I love your clear tutorial too!

    Thanks for linking to the Creating Success Worldwide blog hop!! Hope you'll come back again next week!
    Jill @ Creating my way to Success
    http://www.jembellish.blogspot.com/

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  19. Sew Cute! I am totally into sewing right now.

    I would love it if you would come share with my linky party!

    http://thecraftyblogstalker.blogspot.com/2011/07/blog-stalking-thursday-1.html

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  20. I love the little dress and upcycled is even better. I wanted to stop and return the follow from micheggy.blogspot.com. We really apprecitate it.

    Love your blog.
    Michelle

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  21. Hi. This is so cute. I found you on a crafty soiree.

    Jennifer
    www.missmaggiesplace.blogspot.com

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  22. super cute! great way to upcycle!

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  23. Love the dress!! Returning the follow

    Missy
    www.marvelouslymessy.com

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  24. great DIY I should do this for my daughter
    http://momdaughterstyle.blogspot.com/

    new follower! also at FB thanks for the follows

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  25. this dress is so adorable. i love that you made it from a women's top...your daughter is beautiful. thank you so much for your kind comment. glad to follow your blog. you are so talented.
    happy tuesday :)
    maria

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  26. What a cute dress! If only I had a daughter to try it out on! Thanks for stopping by my blog!

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  27. Thank you everyone so much for all your lovely comments, they are much appreciated! Karima x

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  28. The frock and bracelet look so cute :) You did a great job! I am sure your little girl had the best orange dress in school.

    Thanks for linking. The party for this week - Tea Time Thursdays @ Kreative Korner - is on. Hope to see you there with latest posts.
    http://tanyaanurag.blogspot.com/2011/08/tea-time-thursdays-2-and-features.html

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  29. wow... so beautiful... Love the color of the dress... It has turned out to be soo pretty !!

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  30. this is so cute! you did an awesome job!!

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  31. wow cute dress-mashallah!

    -mohandessinteens.blogspot.com

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