You’ll Never Guess the Inspo for This DIY Shift Dress
Creative collaborations are kind of our jam. We’re strong believers in the concept that many minds are stronger than one, and that truly innovative ideas are born from unexpected combinations. (Exhibit A: our floral wreath DIY that combines tons of our favorite Pinterest trends into one piece of art). Our next challenge: What would happen if a designer, a DIYer and a tastemaker all collaborated on one project? With the help of Curate Snacks, we enlisted three rockstars from the Brit + Co team — visual designer Rosee Canfield, DIY editor Kelly Bryden and channel marketing associate Elise Cofield — to put their heads together to turn an art print into an outfit.
Our source of inspiration comes from Curate Snacks, a brand new line of brilliant snack bars made from all-natural ingredients combined in unexpected ways. Each bar is made of real food, is non-GMO, gluten-free *and* under 200 calories. Plus, B+C designers are kind of gushing over its beautiful packaging. We’re quite partial to the Sweet & Tart Berry Bliss bar, which combines berries, almonds, chia seeds, flax seeds and quinoa for a satisfying and healthy snack. We took the unexpected ingredients of this bar and did something similarly unexpected — we made a dress!
Introducing our new favorite hobby: taking an unexpected source of inspo and seeing what we can make from it. This project was FUN.
Scroll on to see how it all went down.
THE PRINT
First, visual designer Rosee sketched out some of the ingredients found in the Sweet & Tart bar.
Then she scanned the sketches and made an art print in Adobe Illustrator inspired by the colors of the bar. (Can we just take a minute to appreciate this beautiful print? We’re seriously impressed).
Next, we printed our art print onto jersey fabric with the help of Spoonflower, then handed it off to DIY editor and sewing pro Kelly Bryden to make a dress.
THE DRESS
Materials + Tools
— 2 yards jersey fabric
— sewing machine
— shift dress pattern (download ours here!)
— chalk
— scissors
— sewing pins
Kelly created a simple shift dress pattern for this project — you can download it here!
First, download and print out the dress pattern. Head to a copy center to print it lifesize (it usually costs $10-$15), or print and tile it together at home.
Fold your fabric in half and pin the straight edge of the pattern to the fold. Then cut out the dress pattern that fits your size. (The green line indicates size large, blue line is size medium, and pink indicates size small). Cut out both front and back pieces of the dress. Keep in mind the direction of the motifs on the print.
Use chalk to transfer the dotted line marking seen on the front pattern of the dress onto the fabric. Then remove the paper pattern and fold your fabric in half the opposite way to transfer the chalk to the other side of the dress.
Fold the fabric on the chalk line and pin a diagonal line, creating a triangle with the point facing inward. Sew this diagonal line on both edges to create pleats in the dress.
Pin the good sides of the front and back pieces facing inward, and sew the two side seams and shoulder seams. Once you’re done sewing, trim excess fabric.
Turn the dress right side out. You’re done!
THE STYLING
Lastly, we had our ever-trendy channel marketing associate Elise style the dress and make it her own. She paired the shift dress with a light denim jacket and a mint saddle bag for another punch of color. And of course, she had to go with a berry-colored lipstick :)
Ta-da! Three creative minds, one simple source of inspiration and a delightful result.
As you can see, keeping the Curate bar out of Sir Otis Wellington’s reach was a task in itself. Happy snacking!
Will you try out this DIY? If so, we want to see the results! Snap a pic and tag #iamcreative and #TasteCurate on Instagram so we can take a look.
This post is a collaboration with Curate Snacks.
Author: Maddie Bachelder
Production + Styling: Rosee Canfield, Kelly Bryden, Elise Cofield + Maddie Bachelder
Photography: Chris Andre
