Fun Scrappy Dress

 I have to start off by saying this was one of the 

funnest projects I have done in a while.  

I wish that I came up with this clever idea but, 

alas I am short of original ideas as I spend too many hours up at night with a sick kids.  

I was searching online to find projects to re-purpose and up-cycle clothes and I stumbled upon this awesome dress from :

Cheri at I am Momma Hear me Roar.

 She was recently featured on Martha Stewart demonstrating how to contruct this dress.

Cheri shares quite a few re-purposing projects that you should go check out. 

Here are a few photos of my steps in re-creating the dress: 

 

 All of the girls were fighting over who got the dress.  So, it looks like I will be making more.  

 

 First gather all of your old t-shirts.  

 Pick a decent shirt for the top.  This works great with ones that have holes, snags, or stains on the bottom.

 Start stacking up the layers.  Play around with different colors and patterns.  This was the fun part.  I am pretty conservative with color and pattern mixing.  This was my chance to mix and match.:)  

 After you decide what shirts you are going to use, cut the top piece to fit under the breast. 

For a size 5T-6 dress I cut all of the additional strips 4" wide.  Keep the width the size of the t-shirts.  You will trim those up later.  Cheri gives a great tip: make your bottom piece the hem of one of your t-shirts so you don't have to hem it up later.  I love short cuts!

Here comes the fun part.  I have never painted fabric before.  I had some fabric paint collecting dust so a great chance to pull it out.  I used some foam stamps for stamping.  They worked great!  I have always been afraid that painting fabric had to look perfect but, I realized that if it looks faded it actually looks really cool and vintage.  I wanted that look for this project.  So, it worked great.

 I would recommend putting a piece of cardboard between the layers so it doesn't bleed through.

 Hanging to dry.  It took a couple of hours for it all to dry.

 Sew all of your strips together and trim off the excess.  

Line up the sewn dress strips to the top piece and trim down the sides.  Angle the cut out so they have room to walk and stretch the bottom.  Since I don't have a photo of this step check out 

Cheri's tutorial for more photos.

Sew the front and the back pieces together.  Then attach the bottom skirt to the top shirt piece.  

Then sew it together.  That is it!

I love how it turned out.  So fun and cute.  I love the freedom of painting your fabric.  It adds a unique look and my girls loved it! Ava all ready for school.  She couldn't wait to put it on this morning.

Such a fun and funky dress.  I am so glad for the great ideas that come from blog land to save me from my recent creative block.

I would encourage all of you to try this project. 
You could make a shorter version for a boy that would make a cool funky t-shirt. 
I had a lot of fun with this one--I hope you do too!

 -Julia