Saturday, July 21, 2012

Outfit of the Day: Upcycling

I posted this picture on Instagram about a week ago and included my upcycling project!

If you can see the tunic top that I'm wearing, believe it or not, it humbly started out as a Minnie's size 14 shift dress! My mom and I found it in a consignment store in Rehoboth, Delaware (just down the road from where I am now!) for $40! Springing at the chance for a little DIY project, she told me to get it and we would figure out how to make it work! I'm lucky because I'm small chested and this top has NO darts or extra material in the chest, but I was able to get into it!

We took the dress home and to the tailor that we trust with our favorite things. She vented the sides up about 7 or 7.5 inches to make it a much better tunic fit. She also removed the bows from the shift and voila it was a tunic for me! It's a little hard to see, but there's this rocking square neckline that's so much fun. 

An upcycling project just goes to show that you CAN very easily transition a fun piece with very little work! We transformed this dress to a tunic in a matter of days with just a teensy bit of assistance, but you could TOTALLY tackle this project on your own! Keep your eyes out for girls' dresses that you can do this to yourself!

Have you ever done a project like this? Have you transformed (upcycled) a piece of clothing to a new, fresh piece?

Happy upcycling!

xxKatie

4 comments:

Carly A. Heitlinger said...

Is it really sad that I'm short enough to fit into the minnie shifts??? haha

You should check out some of the J. Crew crewcuts dresses.... You could DEFINITELY make them into tunics! This sailboat dress would be PERFECT: http://bit.ly/PtKO9R

(I almost got it as a dress but my chest is a bit too large :-/ )

Miss Janice said...

How cute! I'm always envious of the little girls' clothes at Lilly. I have the Krista shift in that pattern, I believe it's "Florida Friends." I must wear it soon...such a cute pattern! You look great in your outfit!!1

Unknown said...

Cute outfit! Love your blog!!! xoxo

suchgoodstyle.blogspot.com

DC Girl in Pearls said...

Wow, this is such a cute outfit!! Definitely changes the way I look at kids' clothes