Once a Dress, Now a Skirt: Holiday Edition

Chances are if you've gone online, turned on the TV or radio, seen a newspaper or overheard anyone talking today you have heard little more than election coverage. You will find absolutely no election coverage here, so sit back, relax, and enjoy this post :)

I know it's a little early to be talking about Christmas, but I've been thinking about what to dress Charlotte in for the holidays. All the cute, fancy Christmasy dresses in the stores are adorable but I've been struggling with the idea of shelling out money for something she will only wear for one day (and most likely only part of one day). Yeah, yeah, I could dress her in a cute pair of pants and a sweet little top but let's be honest: part of the fun of having a baby girl is dressing her up for special events. Last year's dresses are obviously way too small and the least expensive store bought option that I liked was $34 on sale! If only her dress from last year fit. I loved that dress, I thought. Hmm...

This is the dress she wore last year for her Christmas photos:

This dress holds a special place in my heart, and not just because she wore it for her first Christmas. On December 23rd, 2010, Chad and I went to my 18 week ultrasound appointment and found out that we were having a girl. Immediately after we went to lunch and stopped at Carter's (a baby/kid's clothing store, for those of you who don't know) and bought the first thing we ever bought for our baby--this dress. We had held out on buying anything up to that point, which took a lot of self control. I had gone into this store many times before buying gifts for friends' babies and always hoping that the next time I walked through the doors would be my turn. When it finally was, I was overwhelmed by the choices of baby girl clothes all packed in to one fairly small store. I walked around in a daze for awhile until I spotted this sweet dress and snatched it up in a size that I hoped would fit when the time came. It did, thankfully, and when last Christmas was over I packed it up in a box in the attic, unable to even think about giving it away.

Today I remembered that it was up there and started wondering if I could repurpose it into something for her to wear this year. The thought made me nervous, because I could easily make one wrong cut and ruin it completely. But by now I've made enough skirts out of outgrown dresses to feel pretty confident in my ability to not mess it up. So out came the dress and the scissors.

I bit my lip as I cut into the dress, worried that I would rip it or measure something wrong or otherwise reduce it to a pretty pile of garbage.

I carefully removed the flower adornment to use later when I make a matching headband!

I cut according to the finished length of the skirt plus 1":

Then sewed the raw edge with a zig zag stitch to prevent fraying.

Made the casing for the elastic waistband and inserted the elastic and stitched closed.

And done! I'm thinking of adding some kind of detail to it, like a flower or some kind of trim on the bottom. But for now, here it is:

And the whole outfit (minus tights):

I'm so happy to have found a way to reuse this special little dress but I'm also thrilled that it didn't cost a dime! I'll take it, she'll look adorable and festive, everybody wins.

Try to keep your sanity during the rest of this Election Day, and let's all rejoice that no matter what the outcome, it will be a relief to live without political ads for awhile.

~Stacy