DIY Dorothy Dress

This year for Holly's 9th birthday we're well into planning a Wizard of Oz party. Its such a great theme that I don't think we can go through 'girlhood' without doing it one year properly. So aside from all the plans to create an emerald room and gingham notice boards, rainbows, yellow brick roads and hot air balloon party bags (I started these 5 months early because they are fun!) I have good reason to get the birthday girl's outfit ready as next week is also Book Day at school - so lets get 2 wears out of the costume! These gingham schools dresses are so cheap in the Supermarkets so I picked up a blue one for a couple of quid and got straight to it with the scissors...

I chopped across the front, under the armpits and across from that point along the back.

 

 The edging on the sleeves seemed to be the ideal piece to make the straps for the shoulders from so I chopped them off and across the seam and pinned it all into place. 

 

We couldn't find any big matching buttons in the sewing box so once I'd hemmed it all, tidying up all the edges I'd snipped at with the sewing machine, we got these buttons to cover, a bit of old curtain and a sharpie and made ourselves these matching buttons to sew onto the front to make it into a pinafore.   

And voila... very easy. Dress customised in less than half an hour. Meanwhile there is a lot of glue and red glitter around the lounge mid-ruby red slipper creation. Will post up when we have a result on those!