How to Make an Upcycled Heart T-Shirt Dress

It's the perfect gift for Valentine’s Day, but it will look adorable all year long. Bonus? This comfy play dress only takes about one hour to sew! Start by gathering materials.

Take your adult T-shirt, and cut off the bottom of the hem in a straight line across the shirt. The length you cut off should be the desired length of your skirt. If you need to measure, measure from your child’s waist down to their knees.

If you are hand-stamping your dress, insert tin foil in between your shirt bottom. This will be your skirt portion of the dress.

Using your fabric ink and stamp, stamp in various places around both sides of the skirt and child's shirt. Iron stamped fabric to set the ink.

Measure your child’s waist and add 2”. Cut a piece of elastic that length. Bring elastic ends together and overlap 1/2”. Pin in place, and sew together using a zigzag stitch.

Place elastic inside the top of your skirt (at the raw edge), about 1” down from the top. Pin the elastic around the side edges and front and back. Note: you will need to stretch out your elastic in order to accomplish this, as the skirt will be much larger than the elastic.

Using a zigzag stitch, sew the elastic to the skirt, pulling the elastic as you are sewing so that it is the same length as your skirt.

You now have the adorable skirt portion to your dress.

Slip the skirt over the bottom of your child's T-shirt, until your skirt is where you want the waist of your dress to be.

Pin once again to the front, sides and back.

Sew skirt directly onto the shirt over the elastic using a zigzag stitch, pulling the shirt gently as you sew.

And you are finished! Click through the next steps to learn how to make a little flower and chain flourish for your new dress.

To make the optional flower accessory, you will need a felt flower, silver jewelry chain and a safety pin. Slip the end of the jewelry chain onto the safety pin. Pick up a link about 12” away, and slip again onto the safety pin. Slip the safety pin through the back of the flower, and repeat with jewelry chain slipping the links through.

You can now attach the flower embellishment to the dress and remove it for washing!

And there you have it: an adorable and upcycled heart T-shirt dress!