Life is Beautiful

Motherhood, Sewing, Family

DIY: Vintage Wedding Dress to a Cocktail Dress

~ REFASHION RUNWAY, SEWING

I found this gorgeous wedding dress at a thrift store. Sure, it’s outdated and not within the time of what’s in style right now, but I can see why a certain lovely bride fell in love with this dress and wore it to her wedding! I am sure she looked absolutely stunning in this dress and I felt a little bad(?) as I cut into this dress and made it into something different.

 

 

As I was cutting the endless about of tulle, shoulder pads, giant bow, lace trimmings, lace, and more tulle, I thought of the lady that wore this dress to her wedding. I wish I could meet her so I could see pictures of her in this dress on her wedding day! This is the kind of dress I would have fell in love with back in the day, it’s so fancy and elegant and princess-y. What girl doesn’t want to feel like a true Princess on her wedding day? I wondered what kind of life she had, what she was like, and I wondered why she didn’t keep this dress and what made her donate it, maybe she has passed on to the next life and her children donated it, or she was just de-cluttering. Either way, I hope she would be happy with what I did with the dress and wouldn’t be too sad. I honestly felt like I should have a moment of silence to pay respect to the dress and the lady that wore it, since it’s a piece of clothing she wore on one of her most special and important days. So I did. For real. I am such a dork.
The lining underneath the lace bodice is cream while the lace is white so I dyed the whole dress to a  cream color to match the bodice.

 

 

Then while the lace dyed to a beautiful cream color, the tulle got more yellow than I had wanted so I just ended up cutting off the tulle.
*Dyeing tips: Some of you readers have asked for tips on dyeing evenly. I get hot water in a bowl and pour the dye in and mix it well. Then I submerge the clothing item and constantly stir it around for about 20 mins. Like literally constantly without stopping. I like using the pink rubber gloves I get from an Asian market. Then I let it sit for 10 more minutes, constantly checking every couple of minutes to stir it around. Put it in a washer in cold water with a tiny bit of detergent, then dry on delicate. Hope that helps! 🙂

 

I don”t like any fabric go to waste, especially lace! I knew I wanted to do something with the leftover lace I cut off and after looking at the lace designs, these two designs caught my attention and I instantly thought of a headband to make.
AFTER:

 

 

 

 

Wedding dress refashion DIY
It’s hard to catch the true color of light colored lace, but the lace color turned out to be a gorgeous cream, ivory color. I did A LOT to this dress, I dyed it to cream so the whole dress would be the same color, I raised the waist line so it wouldn’t be like a v-shape waist-line, cut off all the tulle, cut the length of the dress to right below the knee-length, took off the lace collar, lace-bib, cut off the lace cuffs and cut off the sleeves and made it smaller and shorter length, took in an inch from each side of the dress, cut off the train and the giant bow in the back and gathered the extra lace from the sides to add to the back.
I wish I did other things to this dress such as add pearls and diamond embellishments across the neckline and also kept it long without the tulle. But like every Refashion Runway project, I am barely surviving with 3 little kids and I was rushed, once again with this project. I’ve been literally sewing my heart out until Friday 8 pm before rushing to take pictures before the sun goes down! But I’ve survived every week and I am still in the competition and haven’t been voted out so THANK YOU so much for your votes and your support, it means so much to me!
I hope you liked my boho-chic refashion and I will hopefully see you next week, the very last challenge!
Only 2 more challenges left and I need your vote more than ever! This competition has brought out so much insecurity and doubt in myself, and I’ve been constantly nervous, especially this week’s boho-chic challenge. Many people have said while my dress is “phenomenal and the best” I don’t get their vote because my dress isn’t boho-chic. Many of them have grown up during the boho-era and think it’s the same style as back in the day. But boho-chic is the modernized version of the original boho style, therefore the word “chic” added to it. It’s mixing vintage with a modern and Sienna Miller is said to have brought back the style in 2005 with more femininity and lace. I don’t want to lose this week’s challenge because of some people’s own definition of what a boho-chic is, when I followed the challenge 100% and especially when they’re admitting mine is the best transformation and design!
It would totally make my day if you took 3 secs. to vote. I am a runner-up for first place, I am so close! Please go to The Renegade Seamstress to vote, it literally takes 3 seconds, voting ends this Friday Aug. 28th. You can only vote once per device. Thank you so much for your support, it means so much to me!

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Vintage wedding dress refashion

 

 

Comments

  3. Terje says

    Wow, Sarah 🙂 Every week through this challenge I am left speechless over your refashion magic. I love every piece of clothing you have made so far. You are one talented lady!!
    Hope you will win.

  4. Pam Lauren says

    Wow! That's an amazing transformation! My daughter has done this a few times with different clothing items, but nothing like this! I will go over and vote for you! Good luck!

  9. Sara Jolie says

    I love princess dresses too and you are so sweet to think about the first owner of the dress! I love the transformation though! It looks great now!

  11. Sarah says

    Sewing is a skill everybody can learn! You can do it too, I promise! And thank you so much for your congrats! I am crossing my fingers too. 🙂

  18. Sarah says

    Aww, thank you! You make me feel so much better! I am so nervous I will get points docked off a ton because people confuse boho with the term back in the day and not the modern boho-chic.

  20. Sarah says

    Pam, you are the best, thank you so so much! I'd love to see your daughter's work, I bet she creates beautiful things!

  22. Mary K.- In the boondocks says

    Wow, what a great transformation! I don't normally go on fashion blogs, but I really like yours because its all about repurposing and reusing. I also use scraps from clothing to add to my furniture creations. So glad to have visited you, you are doing great work!

  31. Mama and More aka Zaz says

    This is absolutely incredible! You are truly very very talented! I love the head piece as well, and I cannot believe that you manage to do all of this AND have 3 kids to look after! I have 2 myself so understand how much time our little darlings take up. Please don't have insecurities though – I know it's hard to accept that, especially in competitions, but regardless of any judging or competitions, or comparing yourself to anyone else, you really must know inside yourself that you are amazing, talented and really rather clever! I love that you took the time to be sensitive and kind to the memory of the owner of the dress, it says a great deal about you. Thanks so much for linking up to the #AllAboutYou linkup this morning. I can't believe what great posts there are already. Tweeting your post out now.

    (PS – I wrote a whole post about what Boho-chic means a while ago if you ever fancy reading it! http://mama-andmore.com/2015/02/boho-life-boho-style-just-boho-mean.html)

  47. Rebecca says

    That is a beautiful transformation. You are really talented. I love that you used some of the lace from the dress to embellish a headband.

  54. Integrated Learning Strategies says

    Wow, what a beautiful transformation! I love what you did with the style. It's perfect! I need some of that for my clothes. I have so many shirts that are off-white, but are still my favorite shirts. I need to give it a shot!

  59. Cathy Carroll says

    That is a wonderful transformation. I love when something can be remade into something that can be used now. Such a pretty dress. Thank you for sharing at Share It One More Time. Cathy

  65. AdriansCrazyLife says

    This is amazing. I could never have done something like that. I wish someone would do something like that with my wedding dress. It's still packed in the box from after the wedding.

  68. Kimberly Lewis says

    Loving this! You are so talented. Thanks for sharing this at our party. Pinned and tweeted. I hope to see you on Monday at 7 pm, so we get to party with you again! Lou Lou Girls

  74. SusanR says

    This is gorgeous – Were the sleeves created from the extra fabric in the skirt?? I'm looking at doing something similar with my mother's wedding dress for my wedding.

  75. Unknown says

    I love the finished result!! I am in the middle of repurposing my mom's wedding dress from the 80's for my own wedding and am new to sewing as well…can you give me any tips on how you raised the waistline to hide the v shaped waist? That's the one thing I really want to change!! Any help would be much appreciated

  76. Margaret says

    This is the exact same dress that my FUTURE MOTHER IN LAW WORE WHEN SHE GOT MARRIED AND I will wear it to marry her son, I’m currently looking for alteration ideas to make it more modern and found this.

  77. BETH says

    sO bEAUTIFUL! i HAVE BEEN KEEPING MY EYE OUT FOR VINTAGE WEDDING DRESSES AT THRIFT SHOPS TO DO SOMETHING similar.

  78. nvula Rafaela says

    fell in love with the dress untouched <3 <3 <3
    I now I would definetely love to wear it in that century

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