DIY Maxi Skirt from Bridesmaids Dress

Do you have a ton of Bridesmaids dresses? I do. And oddly enough, I only started the rapid accumulation of these dresses after I had been a bride! Bridesmaids' dresses are notorious for being ugly, but I never thought any of the ones I wore were. The only problem is that I really never came upon the occasion to wear them again. So they just kind of sit and sit and sit in my closet, hoping one day I might just pull them out and wear them.

Feeling bad that such nice dresses were going to waste, I decided to put them to good use. This is one of my "revive the bridesmaids' dress" projects. 

This dress was from Cameron and Shawnte's wedding (Josten's sister, and her husband), and the first wedding I was ever I bridesmaid in. Here is the only "before" I have of the dress...

*And no, I was not placing my hand inappropriately as it may look...I promise my hand was just around Shawnte's arm

Well, I decided that with the rich tone, the cut, and the delicate fabric, that this dress would look great as a maxi skirt. Making these dresses into skirts is such a great idea because it is so simple, and a lot of times the simple cuts of bridesmaids dresses work perfectly for that.

Though regretfully, I did not take pictures of my process of refashioning this dress, I promise I will try to be as thorough in my explanation so you can try this as well.

1. Figure out where you want your dress to hit your waist. Make a cut a little over an inch above that on the dress, and cut the entire top off. You may have to cut through the zipper (unless you spend the time to rip it out before, which I didn't), so use scissors you don't care as much about when you get to the zipper.

2. Remove the remaining part of the zipper (unless you already removed it).

3. Measure around your waist, and measure around the top of the skirt. If the skirt is too big to sit where you want it to, you'll either need to gather it a little, or take it in a little until it's the right size. I took mine in, because I wanted the straight lines.

4. Fold down the top of the skirt, facing outward, two times about a half inch in height. Pin them down. My dress had two layers of fabric, and I just folded them both together when I folded them down and pinned them.

5. Sew along the bottom of the fold. Here is a picture of what mine looks like. You can see it's folded outward, then sewn along the bottom.

6. Add a new (shorter) zipper. I purposely added one that was off in color, because I like that look. Mismatched zippers give things a funky edge. My zipper is the same color as the belt in the picture below. I also added a hook/eye combo to the very top above the zipper, but it's not completely necessary.

Then all you need to do is cut strings, and you're good to go! Woo Hoo!!

After:

And I love that I wear it so much more now! I was even able to wear it for another temple sealing 6 years after the first time I wore the dress!