Upcycled Maxi T-Shirt Dress Tutorial & Creative @ Home Link-Up Party

Don’t forget to join in the Creative @ Home Link-Up Party! To find it, simply scroll down to the bottom of this post! We’d love to have you join us! Link any and all the creative things you do at home!

I love creating new things out of stuff that would normally be thrown away and end up in the landfill. This is one of those type of projects. A few weeks back I found this beautiful maxi crinkled skirt at a garage sale. The asking price was $2, which I though was fair. But I’ve found in the past with these skirts, that often the elastic in the waist has gone bad. I checked this skirt, and sure enough, the elastic was shot. So I pointed it out to the seller and asked if they would take less. Ended up bringing the skirt home for $0.25. My original thought was to just put in new elastic, but let it roll around in my brain for a few weeks and was inspired to make a dress out of it instead. For this really cute and simple Maxi T-Shirt Dress, you will need the following:

• A long skirt (maxi skirt) – you want a long skirt here if you want to make a maxi dress. This skirt was originally about ankle length.
• a matching t-shirt that fits you (for the best look, choose one that is a bit clingy).  You can also use a tank top, but I chose a t-shirt for modesty.
• sewing machine
• basic sewing supplies

First of all you are going to want to cut off some of the shirt.

What I did was to measure a dress with an empire waist to get how long I wanted it and added half and inch for the seam.  For me, this was 16-1/2 inched from the seam in the shoulder of the t-shirt.    I marked the length and then prepared to cut.

I marked the length with chalk and then used my rotary cutter and ruler to cut off the bottom of the shirt.

Now that the t-shirt is the right length, I needed to cut off the waist band of the skirt.

Now you are ready to assemble the skirt.  This goes quickly and you can easily make a dress in under an hour!  That’s always a nice bonus!

Now you just need to gather the skirt onto the bottom of the t-shirt.  There are lots of different ways of doing this, use your favorite.  But for me I like gathers best when I pin the gather evenly onto the skirt.  I get a much nicer finish this way as I am terrible at gathering any other way.

Sew the skirt to the bottom of the t-shirt using a 1/2 inch seam allowance.  Ta-da!  You’re done and now have a CUTE new dress to wear!  What I love best about this dress is that it cost me under $5 to make AND it’s cool and comfortable in this Texas summer heat!

This dress also came together really quickly that I was able to wear it to church the next day.  Seriously, it took under an hour start to finish.

Creative @ Home Wednesday is a weekly Link-Up Party all about those creative things you do at home! We are looking for all your creative posts, crafts/hobbies, food/cooking/recipes, home decor/remodel, fun & games for the kids, homemaking, etc. If it’s creative, we want you to share it! Please join in the fun and do a little blog hopping! This is a fun way to discover new blogs and make some new friends. Leave a link to ANY AND ALL of your creative blog posts

Instructions:

1. Post a link to your creative posts to the linky below. Simply click on the text link that says: You are next… Click here to enter
2. Enter your DIRECT link to the post you wish to share and fill out the remaining information requested.
3. You may enter as many links as you desire.
4. You MAY link to other link-ups, giveaways, and reviews..
5. Once you post a link to your blog post, please place a text link or use the graphic below to link back to the Creative @ Home Link-Up Party. You should have a link to this link-up part on EACH post you share here.
6. Be sure to also click “like” on any article you liked to vote for that article. I will be featuring the most popular articles next week on the blog and my Facebook page!
7. Have fun! I can’t wait to see what links you leave behind!

If you would like to use the graphic below, simply cut and paste the html coding out of the box below the graphics to quickly link back to here.

 

Linking To: Penny Pinching Party, Wise Woman Link-Up, Homemaking Link-Up, Encourage One Another, Wisdom Wednesday, Women Living Well Wednesday, Works For Me Wednesday, Frugal Days Sustainable Ways, Wildcrafting Wednesday, Hearts 4 Home, Natural Living Link-Up, Proverbs 31 Thursday, Beautiful Thursdays Link-Up, Making Your Home Sing Monday, Mama Moments Mondays, Welcome Home Link-Up, Better Mom Mondays, Monday’s Musings, Motivate Me Monday, Make It Yourself Monday, Meet Me Monday, Making Monday Marvelous, Modest Monday, Craftastic Link-Up Party, A Round Tuit, Teach Me Tuesday, Domestically Divine Tuesday, Titus 2sday, Making a Home, Thankful Homemaker Link-Up, Titus 2 Tuesday, Tackle It Tuesday, Living Green Link-Up, Sew Cute Tuesday,