The Wedding Gown Reveal!

DRUMROLL PLEASE.....

For the back story on when and where I bought this dress, go here.

The lady who sold me the dress originally wore it as a Halloween costume. That's probably why she parted with it for only $5.  Lucky me! =)

Right after purchasing this dress, I made a sketch of what I wanted it to look like in the end and to my surprise it actually looks ALOT like my sketch. Yay!

I've been looking at websites and bridal magazines for wedding gowns and I used the ones I absolutely loved as inspiration for this dress.

Here are a few of those gowns:

A gown from Modern Trouseau

A gown from Alfred Angelo

I know that one of these dresses cost $1500! There is no way I would pay that for something I would only wear once. 

Knowing that the pretty dresses cost that much, I was more determined than ever to turn this $5 monstrosity into the dress of my dreams.

Here's how I made it gorgeous:

The first thing I did was remove all the ruffles on the top of the dress.  Under all the frilliness was a lace covered tank style top with a sweetheart-ish neckline.

It was snug to say the least, so I decided to chop off the very top of the bodice and turn it into a strapless style with a straight across neckline.

My plan for the skirt of the dress was to take off all the lace except the bottom layer.  I was super disappointed to find that the bottom layer of lace was only sewn to the bottom half of the skirt.  The top half was only muslin. So, I had to have two layers of lace instead of one.

This is how the dress looked at this point.

Next, I had to work on the silhouette. With my hips, there was no way I was keeping the full skirt.  I really wanted a mermaid style gown. 

To make this happen, I had to take ALL the lace off of the skirt and I had to put on the dress inside out and pin the excess fabric closer to my body to make a slimmer silhouette.

This part of the refashion was a pain in my tushy. Figuratively and literally. (Hey there were stick pins where stick pins should never be!)

After about the 5th try at doing this, I finally got it right.  However, the end result of this step wasn't pretty. 



See?




Once the silhouette was refashioned, I had to sew the lace back on. Unfortunately, that mess I created with inside of the skirt was visible through the two layers of lace, so I had to sew a panel of lace under my original two layers of lace. Lucky for me that dress came with a ton of ruffles.  It left me with alot of extra matching fabric. This is how it turned out with the panel and two layers of lace when I sewed them all back on:

This picture shows a strap...that wasn't sewed on just yet. It was merely for effect to see if it would look good.  I thought I was almost finished so I emailed the above photo to my older sister Jen for her advice on how it looked. She informed me that the dress, while pretty, was still too poofy.  This led me to taking the lace off the dress and sewing it back on a bunch of times to get it tight enough to not be poofy.

I think it was precisely at that moment when I understood why lace wedding gowns are $1500! =) 

 

 This is how it looked when I finally made it less poofy.

Next, I sewed a piece of lace into a belt to cover the seam where the bodice and the skirt were sewn together. I sewed it directly to the gown.

The last step was to make some sort of strap or cap sleeve.

I decided on a wide strap, but chose to attach them to the dress close to the underarm instead of right on the seams of the bust.

And after all that hard work, the dress was finally complete!

I don't think I've ever been happier to complete a refashion than I was when I finished this gown. =)

Here are the front and back photos of the completed wedding dress.

I would like to give credit to my 11 year old daughter for taking the after pictures of my gown. I think she did a great job!

Here are the rest of the pictures from our photo shoot....

 Hopefully someday I'll actually get to wear this dress down the aisle. =)

Thanks for reading! 

***If you have some time, swing by my Zibbet shop and take a look around!***

www.therufflybuffalo.com

Dolman Style Top From Knit Dress

This dress was so comfy. Too comfy. It felt like a nightgown. And it was too clingy for my taste. I've been trying to decide for a long time what I wanted to make from this dress.  I figured I would keep it a dress, just a different style. But I came across a tutorial on Pinterest that sparked my creativity.  A lady had made a dolman style top from a knit skirt.  Since I had a dress, I had to do my refashion slightly different.

First, I cut off the top at the underarm seams.

Next, I flipped the dress upside down. Now the bottom of the dress was the top of my shirt. My dress had long slits on each side. I put those over my shoulders (with the dress inside out) and safety pinned them together.

 Then I sewed them together. I turned the shirt right side out and tried it on.  I didn't like how high the neckline was, so I cut a new lower one. 

I also cut the bottom of the shirt a little shorter because it was too long.

I turned the shirt inside out again. I pinned the sides a little tighter and sewed those up. I decided the side seams needed to be ruched. 

 So I got a quarter inch elastic, a couple inches long, and sewed them to the inside side seam with a zig zag stitch. I pulled the elastic as I sewed.

This created the ruching.



I tried it on and LOVED it! I'm gonna wear it with a turquois tank top that I got at a yardsale for under a dollar. =) 

Oh! The tag in the dress said "New York and Company" and I got it for $1 at a thrift shop! =)

***If you have some time, swing by my Zibbet shop and take a look around!***

http://www.zibbet.com/TheRufflyBuffalo

Thanks! =D

Too Tight Denim Dress Refashioned Into Comfy Strapless Dress

I want to start this blog by apologizing for the awful pictures. I really need to read the manual that came with my camera and figure out what all the settings mean. 

Also, please ignore that awful sunburn line on my shoulder.  I only did two all day outdoor activities this summer (one at the beginning of summer and one on Labor Day)  and both times, I got a sunburn.  I really need to remember to put on sunscreen.

Now that that's out of the way, this is a GAP dress.  I got it at a consignment shop for $1.  If it would have fit, I may have left it alone.  The tag says size 10. A couple of months ago, that would have been fine. But I've given into my love of Pop Tarts and I've been eating more of them lately than I care to mention.  It was also pretty tight in the chest area.  So tight, in fact, that it makes me think the dress shrunk in the wash at some point before I bought it.

This dress didn't fit right in the hips, so I decided to make it shorter and get rid of the tight part. So here's what I did.

I decided where I wanted my new waistline to be and marked it with a safety pin.

Then I decided where I wanted the hem to land by pulling the dress up. I marked that with a safety pin as well.

Next, I cut out the middle giving myself 3/4" on the top and bottom for seam allowance.

I removed the middle. I put the bottom piece in my sewing machine and ran a gathering stitch along the top.  This was done to make it match up with the top.  I then pinned the top to the bottom and sewed them together.

In order to fit on top,  this dress had to become strapless. So I cut off the top. I folded down the fabric on the top of the dress to create a casing for the elastic that I needed to add to keep the dress up.

Once I ran the elastic through, I sewed up the opening in the casing and I was finished! =)

It's pretty alone, but I LOVE it with my riding boots and my favorite navy and white striped cardigan (that I refashioned from an old lady tshirt I got for free at an estate sale.)

***If you have some time, swing by my Zibbet shop and take a look around!***

http://www.zibbet.com/TheRufflyBuffalo

Thanks! =D

Wedding Gown Refashion (part 1...sneak peek)

This isn't a normal blog post for me. There is not a before and after this time. Well, ok,  there is a before, but the after will be posted much later. This is a sneak peek of my wedding gown refashion.

In late July, my boyfriend and I decided to go to some yard sales. I was super happy because yardsaling is one of my favorite things to do and spending time with my boyfriend is my favorite thing to do. So to combine those two things makes for a perfect day.  Just when I didn't think the day could get better, I spotted a wedding gown from the road at a yard sale. A lace wedding gown.  I didn't want to get my hopes up too high, because I didn't know the price just yet.  However, when we asked, they told us it was $5.  $5?!?!?!?! SOLD!  =)  I knew I could turn this hideous gown into something gorgeous! The lace is gorgeous and there was ALOT of it!  

(Just call me Scarlett O'Hara)




For those of you who don't know me, I'm not engaged. I am however in a long term relationship. Like 7 1/2 years long.  We talk about getting married alot. It just hasn't happened yet.

I've looked at other lace wedding gowns online and they are outrageous! I fell in love with one by Alfred Angelo that cost $1500!  That's nuts. And not gonna happen for me.
Now that I have a dress that only cost $5, I am more determined than EVER to make this dress resemble one of the fancy expensive ones I was looking at. =D 

I will post the before and after eventually after it's finished. (Is it bad luck to post a wedding gown online before you actually wear it???)  But until then, Wish Me Luck! This is the biggest refashion I've ever attempted. =D



***If you have some time, swing by my Zibbet shop and take a look around!***

http://www.zibbet.com/TheRufflyBuffalo

Thanks! =D

The Dress That Almost Wasn't

So it's been almost a month since I've posted a refashion.  However, it's not because I haven't tried.  I must have been in a rut or something, because everytime I tried to sew something, I would majorly mess it up. Or it just wouldn't work the way I wanted and I would get frustrated and give up.  Has that kind of thing happened to anyone else or is it just me? 

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a local consignment shop and found that they had a $1 rack! YAY!  I stocked up! =)  I didn't even care if the clothes were my size because I figured I could make them into something that fit OR make something for my daughters from them.  I spent about $10 in that store. It was great.

Yesterday, I took another shot at trying to refashion and it wasn't turning out how I'd planned. So I put it aside (again).  But today, I thought I'd give it another try and it actually turned out great! It made me feel so good. (Which was just what I needed since I was starting to feel pretty low that nothing I was doing in the past couple of weeks was turning out right.)

Basically what I did with this dress was cut off the top right at the underarms all the way across. I turned the top under a little bit and sewed a seam.  Next I removed the side ties that were sewn into the dress (I used these for the straps.)  I pinned them onto the front and back. That wasn't easy because I did this all by myself and I don't have 4 hands. But somehow it worked. I sewed the pinned down straps to the dress.

I measured the dress for the length I wanted and trimmed the excess off.  I hemmed the dress and used the extra fabric as a sash for the dress.

I realize this is a summer dress, but I think this kind of dress would look super cute with a white cardigan for the fall. =)

I didn't take pictures of this process because, after the luck I've had, I didn't think this dress was gonna happen. Sorry. 

This dress was $1 and those cute white Candie's wedge shoes were only $3. I got them at a yardsale! =) 

***If you have some time, swing by my Zibbet shop and take a look around!***

                                                http://www.zibbet.com/TheRufflyBuffalo



Put A Little Pep In Your Shirt

While thinking about which refashion to do next, I realized I've done mostly dresses. And while I really like dresses, I don't get to go many places to wear them.  So, for this project, I decided to transform a $1 Goodwill dress into a Peplum top. I've seen peplum tops everywhere lately.  Anthropology has them for around $58 each. (yikes!) 
But first, I decided to go to Goodwill and find a pair of red capri pants that would go with my future peplum top.  I lucked out and found a pair of red capri pants in my size.

                                The dress I used was 3 sizes too big for me. 

So the first thing I did was to try on the dress inside out.  I looked in the mirror and pinched the sides of the dress until it "fit" and measured how much fabric I needed to trim off the sides.  Then I laid the dress in the floor and pinned up the sides and sewed. I trimmed the excess fabric off and used a zig zag stitch on the raw edges. 

I tried the dress on again (right side out) and measured how far down I wanted the finished top to be.  I laid the dress on the floor again and cut to the desired shirt length.

I put the excess fabric aside because I would use it as the peplum part of the shirt.
Then I tried the shirt on AGAIN.  At this point, I measured from the neckline to 1" above my belly button. (This measurement for me was 13") This is where I wanted the seam for my peplum.  I took off the shirt and cut where I measured 1" above my belly button. 

Then I did some math. I knew what length I wanted the finished shirt to be and I knew how long the shirt was at this point, so I had to figure out how long the peplum needed to be.  For me it was 8". 

Next, I cut the excess fabric to 8" long for the peplum.  Then I put it in my sewing machine to put in a gathering stitch to make it "ruffle-y".

  I turned the shirt inside out and the peplum fabric inside out.  I matched up the seams and pinned the peplum to the top. I tried it on again just to make sure I didn't mess up the seam like I did with this dress .  Liking what I saw, I sewed them together. It worked! YAY! =)  I trimmed the excess fabric from the seam (to cut down on the extra bulk) and used a zig zag seam to clean up the look on the inside.

However, the top still needed something else to make it more fitted.  So I decided to add two darts to the front.

(I'm glad I used tan thread. If I had used black, it would have been impossible to see the stitches.)

 I tried it on for a final time and was super happy to see that it turned out exactly as I wanted.

Don't ya just love when you do something right?

The total cost of my outfit was $4.76. ($1.06 for the dress I used to make the top and $3.70 for the capris).

***If you have some time, swing by my zibbet shop and take a look around!***

http://www.zibbet.com/TheRufflyBuffalo

Thanks! =D



I Bit Off More Than I Could Chew

This dress has been in my closet for months taunting me.  I knew I needed to do something to it, but I didn't know what. I thought many times about making it into a skirt, because I have a cute summer shirt that would work great with it, but I like dresses. 
I had the idea this morning to make it into a shorter, swingy dress.   Sounds easy peasy right? I thought so, too.  I was way off! lol 
I think I had the concept right, but my skill level is not what it needs to be to put all of that together the way it should look.

And in typical Monica fashion, I just thought "oh well!" and did it anyway. 

So I pinned it all together and sewed it. The waistline came out looking all wonky. Which also resulted in an uneven hem. And again, being me, I decided not to take it apart and fix it. I just added a sash to cover it up. lol  (You'd be surprised with all of the mistakes a sash/belt will cover up.)

I was gonna leave the sleeves on this dress, because I thought it would look cute, but I guess because it's a used dress, one of the sleeves was stretched out all weird.  So, off came the sleeves!!! 

I put on the dress and looked in the mirror to decide where the top of the dress should be cut.  I wanted the finished bottom of the dress to fall around my knee (which is usually around 21" from my waist, so I measured from the bottom of the dress up 21" and cut there. I had a middle section left over. (I used this piece to make the sash.)

On the bottom piece of the dress, I cut off the buttons and button holes.  I then sewed a gathering stitch along the top. Next I pinned the bottom of the dress to the top of the dress (and this is precisely the moment it all went downhill.) I sewed it together and tried it on.  It looked alright for something I guessed at and gave a try. But you can tell I didn't really know what I was doing.

To make the sash, I cut off the buttons and button holes on the middle piece of fabric, sewed the raw edges under and sewed the sash to the front of the dress (making sure it was completely covering the waistline.)  I left the ends of the sash hanging off the dress so I could tie it in the back. 

I'm kinda bummed I didn't do it exactly right, but thankfully, the dress was only $1.  Hopefully I'll do better on future dresses. 

So, I guess you could say I pulled a "Monica".  lol  (That's a F.R.I.E.N.D.S. reference for those of you who aren't as crazy obsessed with that tv show as I am. hehe)

***If you have some time, swing by my zibbet shop and take a look around!***

http://www.zibbet.com/TheRufflyBuffalo

Thanks! =D



Mad for Plaid

 I'm gonna take a guess and say this dress is from the mid 90's. I remember buying a bunch of dresses in this style from Jean-Nicole at the mall when I was a teenager.  I loved that store.  When I spotted this at Goodwill, it was the colors that grabbed my attention. Just looking at it puts me in a better mood.  That's when I knew this should be reworked into something fun. 

The sleeves had to go. And it needed to be shorter.  Once I did that I realized this had to be made into a strapless number.  So I cut the top off, made a casing at the top of the dress and ran elastic through it.  Trying it on, I decided it shouldn't be a dress anymore. It should be a bathing suit cover up! It's perfect because it's fun and it matches my bathing suit. =)

I did have to add 2 darts in the front and 2 darts in the back to bring the cover up in a smidge.  All that was left to do was hem it and now it's ready to wear to the pool! =)

This took me 1 hour and 45 minutes to complete and cost $1.

I apologize for the awful pictures. I realize that it looks like I'm leaning to the left. lol I had to take my own pictures. This is what happens when your 6 year old is so done with taking your before and after pictures that she makes up excuses why she can't.

                                        Her excuse? She was late for work. lol

***If you have some time, swing by my zibbet shop and take a look around!***

http://www.zibbet.com/TheRufflyBuffalo

Thanks! =D