Little Girls Party Dresses. How to Alter a Party Dress. Easy and Simple ideas.

If you are trying to save money buying a new dress for a party can be out of the question. So what can you do?

You can solve the problem in one of two ways; either by altering a party dress that you already own or by exchanging the dress you have for a 'new' one.

So here are some alternative ideas to buying a new party dress.

From these ideas, pick one that suits you best or even try to combine them to get the very best result.

• If it still fits well, change the way your little girl's last year's party dress looks. This is easier to do than it sounds, ideas on ways to alter a little dress hints will be further down the page.
• Swap the party dress your have in the back of the cupboard for one that fits and suits your daughter. If you can get together with other mums you could organise a - party wear clothes swapping session. The dress someone else's daughter has worn only once and out grown, may fit your daughter perfectly this year and look great. While the existing dress you have may and wish to change may fit a younger child. Be prepared to barter and add a bit of cash to the deal if the values of the clothes being exchanged differs. With goodwill everyone might leave with a smile and a new dress, petticoats and glittery cardigans.

Be prepared to put in a little bit of work altering the dress that is new to you to customise it. Even if you have never sewn or made anything there are easy adjustments and design ideas that you can use to make that dress extra special for this year's parties.

Another alternative you could consider is buying second hand,from a shop but this will only work if you can find a supplier with dresses that are in very good condition, clean and fault free. Remember some fabrics are not easily washable so bear that in mind if you decide to go for a second-hand dress.

The simple way to make a dress longer is to add length to it with a simple frill.

What you make the frill from will mainly depend upon the fabric of the dress and your sewing skills. Some fabrics will not need the edges neatened so it is better to seek advice at the place of purchase on which to fabric use if you are not keen on or experienced with sewing.

To have enough fabric to gather up into a frill you need to buy a quantity of fabric for the frill that is = to the width of the hem either doubled /or one and half times the width of the hem, this varies depending on the type of fabric you are buying for the frill. (Some fabrics gather up more fully than others) Making the frill might involve joining the fabric in order to have enough fabric to gather up.

Buy the depth of fabric you need for the frill as a rough guide the length of you need to add to the skirt + turnings to hem top and bottom of frill(if needed) + the amount it will overlap the original skirt at the top of the frill.

A variation of this is to add the frill to the underside of the skirt so that it hangs beneath the hem of the dress.

An easy version of this idea might be to add a 'petticoat' style wide lace trim to the hem, if you are not confident sewing, sew the lace onto the inside of the hem the neatness of the stitching will not be as important.

A simpler still way to lengthen the appearance of the dress buy a low cost petticoat with a pretty lace hem or something that will look good showing beneath the hem of the party dress.

Remember that wearing a party dress with lacy tights may make a slightly shorter dress look better than when wearing it with ankle socks.

• The first method will gather more with a softer fabric.
• The second one shown, if you find that method difficult then gather the fuller piece of fabric first with a gathering stitch and then attach it to the hem of the dress.
• The third method for ruffles shown will gather up more if you are using a softer fabric.

You can buy ready made lace collars and they can be a simple way to dress up a party frock. Lace collars would look good on velvet, satin or taffeta dresses. Cream or white lace collars would look good on most colours. A lace collar can easily be slip- stitched or hemmed onto the neck line of a dress, but do check that the collar that you are buying matches the shape of the neckline of the dress.