Semi-homemade princess dress

So I'm still getting used to this blogging thing, and I am terrible about remembering to take before pictures. But if you can imagine this dress was very well-loved. The hem had long since fallen out, and the bottom of the dress was shredded and strings where everywhere. Not only that, but the sleeve had ripped completely off, taking the very Aurora collar with it.

Now just to get it out of my system- I have to say WHY would they make a dress up dress out of this very thin mesh-like material and not expect it to rip apart in the first couple of uses!? Who ever created it must not have daughters who LOVE dress up. I'm just sayin'.

This adorable thing insisted on being Aurora for Halloween and INSISTED that it be a home-sewn dress, not a store-bought dress. I have a ton of big sewing projects this next month (the biggest being cutting up a mother's wedding dress to create a daughter's baptism dress), so I am trying to get Halloween stuff all done so I can focus 100% on the upcoming projects. First, I just found a yard of matching satin fabric and tried to cuten it up.

I grabbed a pattern that I had with sleeves and used just the sleeve pattern to cut them out. She insisted Aurora has long sleeves and it has to be exact, apparently.  The collar was a bit tricky. I looked at lots of pictures of Aurora to try and get it just right. I cut out 2 exact pieces and added interfacing to make it stiff so it would stand up like it's supposed to.

Next, Kambria insisted that Aurora has a floor length dress and I wasn't sure it would look great if I added to much fabric. But I added about 6 inches to the bottom and hemmed it to make it a little longer, and she seemed happy about that. She said it makes it spin just right.

You can't be a princess without a crown, and Aurora has a rather large one. I picked up this pattern a while back when Hobbby Lobby was having their .99 pattern sale and I knew it would get used. I simply cut out the pink crown, added interfacing and elastic to the back, and voila- a cute crown to top off the outfit. She loves it and looks adorable. And I'm happy I was able to get away with fixing up an old dress rather than making a new one from scratch!