Refashion Friday - Dressing up a Dress

My sister and I went thrift shopping at New Years and she found this dress and said I should buy it for Mallary's baptism.  It was only $2.  I almost didn't buy it because I don't really like fancy fru fru dresses, but I thought I could use it for something else if I decided not to use it for Mallary.  

Before Pictures:

The dress fit perfectly. There was a rip on one side where a sash had been.  The other side had one part of the sash still.  I cut that out carefully and made the sleeves out of the sash.  I made a pearl collar for it, and sewed on pearls to the little bow in the front.  So, it's funny because I made it more fru fru which isn't really me.  But, I think it turned out so cute.

The after picture:

So, the perfect dress for a total of $4! (I got the pearls for 50% off at Hobby Lobby)

An up close shot of the collar.  You can see the fishing wire coming out of some of the pearls.

I sewed some pearls on the bow at the waist

I also made her a matching bracelet with leftover pearls.

I was kind of sloppy and did the collar pretty quickly, so you can see the first time she wore it some pearls fell off the collar as you can see in this picture. 

I cut out the size of collar I was going to use out of felt.  I clipped the pearl strand so the pearls wouldn't be loose on the fishing wire.  I glued the middle part of the collar first.

Then I glued in the last strand to the outer part of the collar.

This was the dress she was baptized in which was also a flower girl dress from my wedding 13 years ago!  My niece wore it for my wedding and then wore it to be baptized in a month later.  Most of my nieces have worn this dress to be baptized in since then.  The dress that keeps on giving.  Love it!