Upcycling Dresses

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What to do with those old dresses that no longer fit, or are out of style?

Refashion

This post has to begin with mentioning

New Dress a Day

If you haven't seen this blog, then go and take a look as it is AMAZING!  Marisa decided to challenge herself to upcycle a dress a day for a whole year. She had a budget of $1 per day to buy dresses from charity shops. The results are astonishing! 

If you're looking for ideas for dress upcycling - then her site is the place to look! Or  - you can buy her book which as plenty of ideas and sewing tips to refashion and upcycle your own daggy dresses!

So to anyone who hasn't now disappeared off to Marisa's lovely blog - thanks for hanging on here for some more ideas to upcycle dresses!

Transform to other clothing items

One of the simplest things to do with a dress is cutting to create different items, like a skirt or a top....

Emily from Domestic Deadline, took an old dress and turned it into a tunic - a simple upcycle:

Greetings from the Asylum did the opposite - cutting off the bottom of this dress and making a skirt:

Pam from Threading My Way also did this:

Or you could thriftily reuse both parts of the dress as did Cass Can Sew who made this cute top and shorts from a thrift store dress:

One of the most amazing dress refashions I've ever seen was this wedding dress transformation from Threading my Way.

Bags

Kids dresses are great to upcycle into bags as you can keep the basic shape and just enclose the bottom of the dress.

I did that with a couple of my girls sundresses that they grew out of:

Karima's Crafts also upcycled a kids dress to a shoulder bag:

Use the fabric for something completely different

You could just use the fabric - as I did on this money box that I made from one of my girl's old Hello Kitty Dresses:

I used other sundresses my girls had grown out of to make this cute fabric origami bag.

I also made a pencil and notebook folder from a pretty kids dress, using the left over parts in the gift wrapping!

I liked that I could use the buttoned up front part for an extra feature and pocket on the folder.

Have you ever upcycled or refashioned a dress?

For even more ideas you can take a look at my 

Dress Upcycling Pinterest Board