Yes, more refashions...fifty cent shirt dress!

I really like shirt dresses. You know, the ones that look like a button down shirt, except they're a dress? Weird, because I don't usually wear those type of shirts. I bought this tan dress at the little Family Outfitters thrift store off the sweet $0.50 rack.

 It's tan. I really don't do colors from the brown family, but I had an inspiration...

click for source

That would be Marissa, one of the Interweb's most famous refashioners. Here's her awesome post. I wanted to make that sweet bird print. Novelty prints/swallows on flight are good.
I wanted to make this big sack looking dress fit like a 50s style shirt dress. It's a size 8 petite, and that's too big.

Ooh, it's from Talbots. They're not exactly known for their hip, edgy fashion for the young folks, but their stuff is made well. For instance, these gorgeous cuffs on the sleeve.

 Sadly, I had to hack them off. There was just no way I could properly edit those sleeves at that length. I wanted to go with short sleeves.

By the way, hemming those damn sleeves was freakin hard. They came out kinda puckered and wonky, I don't care.

I

I took in the sides quite a bit, as well as the sleeve. Do you see how I used safety pins for the armpit area? That's to avoid pin injury when I try it on to see if I like it before sewing. There's got to be another way, right?

So, it's sleeves are off and it's been taken in on the sides. Yet, according to that awful night time phone selfie, it still looks like a real boner killer. (I'm looking at you, collar. You too, waist.)

If you can't tell...I fixed that collar. I pinned it down so that it lays flat against the chest and shows a nun's amount of skin. I guess I forgot to grab a pic, but for the waist, I used the small belt loops to take it in. I tied a red, stretchy string from another dress through the two loops in the back and cinched it up.
And here's where you're saying, "Cool, now it's time to hem it up to the thighs!" And when I say that I'm keeping the length, you be like, "Dang, girl, why are your dresses so damn long? Are you part of a strict religion that leg shames?"
No, damn it. I just like retro styles and dislike my short, white legs. I'm trying to go for a 50s, housewife-y looking dress with this. I would have to go through my button stash because I did not want to keep those boring-ass matching fabric ones already in place. I wanted something interesting but small, and after my edit, I needed seven.

Well, that was easy. Seven buttons in the perfect size. I took a million hours and sewed those on. I thought the collars could use a little embellishment so I slapped some other round buttons on each side. At this point, my dress looked pretty cute. I have a confession to make. I attempted to hand stamp some bird on another dress over the summer.

Nailed it

Too many birds, shouldn't have been placed so close together, looks like handprints from a distance...That project sucked. Did I want to risk ruining a dress I just spent some time fixing? What's that old saying? "If at first you don't succeed; don't try that shit again." I'm not gonna do the birds on this. But I needed something to make it more fun.

Nope, nope, nope. None of those work. (I DIYed that one on the left. Ribbon sewed to a button and attached to a pin.) I decided to try these rose shaped, iron on appliques that I've had in my stash.
Here it is!

Oh, I added a belt, too. And I didn't do a careful ironing job.

Go home, camera. You're drunk.

Sorry, I hate to waste pictures.