The All-Purpose Dress

I love hand-me-downs.  I love them for my kids and I'm not opposed to wearing them myself.  Some of my kids have even handed down clothes to themselves.  How? you ask.  By re-doing an item a bit to make it last longer.  A few years ago when Maddie had grown too tall for a pair of jeans, but  they still fit in the waist.  I bought a roll of thick pink ribbon and stitched it the hem of the pants for an adorable way to lengthen them. 

My favorite (and super easy) alteration, though, has got to be this dress.  Alaine received it as a hand-me-down from an older cousin.  She wore it through the summer with its original ornamentation: a pretty hot pink fabric rose. 

By summer's end, the rose was droopy, but instead of sending the dress off to the rag bag, I snipped the threads and removed the flower.  There was a slight pink stain where the dye had rubbed off, but this bright orange button (from my button jar) and this bronze-colored leaf (from a candle I had purchased) covered the mark. 

She wore her new look over and over and over throughout the fall.  In fact, when looking back through my photos of the past few months, it is almost embarrassing how many time I dressed her in it, but it was lightweight for warm days (of which we had many), yet still cozy with tights and a sweater. 

Alas, on Thanksgiving night when I put the dress in the laundry, I snipped off the reminders of fall and  the next day I stitched on a red felt flower with a silver bead, creating a bit of casual Christmas attire.  Of course, any girl knows that if you are going to wear the same item of clothing over and over, you need to mix it up a bit so this time she paired it with a light shirt and jeans.  (The hair band lasted less than 30 seconds.)

The questions is: do we re-create it come January or finally let it go?