Forever 21 to Fairy Princess???

My youngest sister (henceforth referred to as "my baby sister;" my other sister will be "my younger sister") buys way more clothing than me, and is way more concerned with looking fashionable because she's in high school now. However, a lot of times she'll decide she doesn't like something and get rid of it - but not throw it away. She stuffed a lot of things on the top shelf of her closet, but this past year, we switched rooms. I guess she either forgot or didn't care about the collection of cut-up dresses/skirts she had, because she left them in the closet. I have since claimed these items.

So this one was once a Forever 21 dress, but my baby sister cut it into a skirt and top. I don't have any before pictures really, but here's the top:

 So imagine a skirt attached to that. Now the first thing I thought when I saw the poor skirt many months ago was decide that it would be really cute with a thick waistband (once I removed the seam leftover from my sister's initial cutting).

I dug around in my fabric bin and pulled out a sheer green stiff-chiffon-thing with sparkles glue on it (from Joanns) and a very pale blue lining fabric, sewed them together, folded the result over, ironed it, and stitched it to the waistband.

Very fairy princess, but it's a little flat.

Now, I'd been working hard on a petticoat to fluff up a costume skirt, but I ended up with more tulle than I wanted to put into the petticoat. Not wanting to waste any, I stitched the remaining layers to the lining of this skirt (four layers). Then I realized that the bottom layer stuck out from the lace, so I cut four/five inches off, gathered it, and then stitched that to the lining too.

boom BAM

Then I added the little leaf/wing ties to the back because the waistband didn't actually go all the way around the waist (OOPS). But I think it's cuter this way! I also put in two small pieces of boning to keep the ties from collapsing the waistband - it's some of the most professional construction I've ever done~ Last thing I had to do was re-sew the hook & eye closure that had been on the dress originally, because apparently companies are incapable of getting that done before you buy a piece.

So this was a pretty labor-intensive refashion, and used a lot of fabric that I bought, instead of other old garments, but I'm really proud of it. It's super fun to wear, but I'm not sure where to wear it, haha.

(ultimately what this is is me taking a perfectly normal, everyday item from Forever 21 and turning it into a tutu and I'm completely okay with that)