I went through a brief stage of buying a few vintage dresses online. I still browse but I don’t really need another dress so I am refraining. I bought a lot of vintage dresses for less than $10 each – all in my size!

One dress in particular needed a little work. I thought it was cute if it was accessorized properly, but Marc really didn’t like it.

Dress in original condition

Here is the dress. It seems like all the vintage dresses I have bought have been sheer. Did people have slips in every color? Disregard the fact that you can clearly see my bra.

I decided to make the dress short sleeved and to make it a little shorter.

I hemmed the sleeves.
I hemmed the bottom of the dress (twice, because the first time I did it a bit wonky).
I even made a sash out of the extra fabric from the bottom of the dress to use as a belt.

But it was missing something.

Should I add ruffles? A fabric flower? Finally, it came to me: make a bow!

Short sleeves and a cute bow

I took extra fabric from the sleeves and made a bow using this tutorial. It was pretty easy – it actually didn’t take as long as making a fabric flower which was my original plan.

Here’s the shirt that I got the bow inspiration from:

Sailors Away striped shirt from Eclectica Clothing

Now I just need to find a slip that will work with this dress because my white one doesn’t cut it!