Wedding Dress Recycle: Whole Lotta Ruffles

I recreated so many vintage wedding dresses to wear around my wedding and honeymoon and this one was one of my favorites!

Look at all these ruffles!!!

It feels oh, so, Marie Antoinette.

Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinette

Look at those sleeves!

And that lace collar?! 

I have a fairly certain idea what's going to happen to those sleeves.

But first, DYE!

The dress went into a bath of emerald dye and came out a lovely lightish aqua color. This dress was fully polyester and I didn't use a poly-friendly dye just to get a more subtle shade. 

I grabbed my seam ripper and got to town around those sleeves... The used to be attached...

I was OBSESSED with how the tiered ruffles turned out and just couldn't touch the skirt portion of the dress. I mean, hello new lewk!

I'm obsessed with the way fuschia/hot pink goes with this aqua color, so I took some remnant tulle (YES, THAT'S TULLE AROUND MY WAIST!) and got myself a gorg rose to pose in front of this super chic door.

Greens on yellows on pinks, oh my!

When in such serious ruffles like these, you must find a hammock and swing!

This is most definitely on my favorites list. I couldn't have been more excited with how this turned out!

19 Days Til I Do!

Day 19 has arrived and oh do I love this dress! I especially love the sticky price tag attached to where my finger is pointing! 

Look at those lace sleeves!!

Look at the neck, waist and hem trim!!

And that train!!

The train was the first thing to go, but that was an easy removal of hook and eye closures. I think this will come in handy down the road!

I also went with Cherry Red dye for this dress - depending on the color took, the dress could turn out firey red, or a mix of pinkish. It turned out to be the latter and I was in love! Oh and before I dyed it, I removed the trim at the waist as well as the neck to keep those areas clean.

I wanted to go a bit shorter so I trimmed the dress to make it more of a cocktail length and pinned the raw edging to create a new hem. THEN, because of all the great feedback from Day 27 saying the shoulders felt a bit too puffy, I took out the extra pouf (the lovely fanned tulle as you can see below...) to minimize.

The pouf removal was the best decision I made! Next it was time to tweak the back of the dress. The button closure felt a bit dated, so I wanted to clean it up - I folded each side under to create a clean open back. The dress was fitted enough where this closure wasn't actually helping it stay closed. 

The last step was shortening the sleeves and then sewing everything into place!

From long and lacy to shorter and sleek!

This dress can go two ways - you can style it to be something you can wear to a cocktail party or a wedding with the right shoes and accessories OR you can dress it down a bit with brown heels, a denim jacket and a vintage red mesh purse for a fun dinner out with friends to celebrate your upcoming wedding! I went with option two! 😃

I loved the fit and the color turned out spot on. I'm obsessed with the shorter sleeves too! 

I can't wait to test this out with black kitten heels and a pashmina next time!

This is a total winner!

19 days til I do!

20 Days Til I Do!

Today's wedding dress was a lacy treat!

There was lace everywhere!

Only issue...

It was way too tight! That zipper wouldn't zip! 

That's my "but look how pretty this lace is" pose! There's a way to make it work - just wait for it.

I started off by adding this to a dye bath of Teal Rit Dye and it turned out this gorgeous shade of green! Now it was time to figure out how to make this fit.

I grabbed my scissors and started trimming! ✂️✂️✂️

I removed the zipper from the back of the dress where those gorg buttons were and then created a new hem at the bottom.

All pinned and ready to stitch in place.

Not too shabby for a dress that didn't fit just a little while ago!

I turned the piece around so the old back that was too small to zip was now the open front of the jacket. Because the bust wasn't very busty 😂 it didn't look too puckered wearing it turned around.

I added a simple black shift dress underneath with a long tassled necklace, black heels and a small vintage black clutch to make this an evening ensemble. Pair it with jeans and a t to give a little chic to a dressed down look.

Again, what a change a little color makes!!

20 days til I do!