Welcome to September’s

I’m calling this Meh to Marvelous!

But first things first! I promised you photos of my flower girl “tablecloth” dress in action! Here are Anna Claire and Leah in their frocks~

You’ll notice a rainbow in the last shot. There was actually a double rainbow! And then a super moon later in the evening. Congrats to Greg and Katie!

Now, we move on to my next project.

I have hand-painted greeting cards and T-shirts for a long time.

I have always wanted to paint a dress. So, when trolling through my neighborhood thrift store, I came across a Victoria’s Secret dress (with the tag still on) for a whooping $6.50. So I snapped it up.

Here is the dress~   

It’s made of a very light silk. I wasn’t in love with the pattern already painted on it, so I thought this would be a great dress to paint.

I have a bunch of fabric paints already, but they are very affordable if you wanted to purchase them. I like “Jaquard” brand. I have plain paints and also “Lumiere” paints which have a pearlessence sheen to them. Here are my tools below. (Notice a LARGE cup of coffee!)

I use an old ice cube tray to mix the paints. The iron I use to iron the fabric flat and to set the paint into the fabric. You can also use permanent markers to augment your painting. I usually like to outline my painting with markers but I didn’t in this project.

I looked at some painted dresses on the internet and was going to do flowers but then I thought of doing peacock feathers and liked that idea. After looking at a few pictures I determined that my feathers would start with a blue/purple center…then  lime/turquoise in the middle…and then finally a yellow/bronze on the outside. (Those colors would also blend with the painting already on the dress.)

Then I used blue, purple, and green to paint the long “feathery” part of the feather. As I moved toward the top and bust line of the dress, I painted the feathers closer and closer together.

So, here is the dress finished!

I tied the ties in a bow instead of drawing them around my neck, but I always have the option of changing it to tie around my neck. (click on picture to see the detail.)

Since I had my paints all ready, all I spent was $6.50!

So what do you think?

Is the dress better as a Peacock? Or did Victoria’s  Secret have the right idea?

Finally, The Dressmaker’s Duke is ONE YEAR OLD! I know, you must be saying, write another book for goodness sake. Well, the good news is I am! In fact I’m writing two new books~Mad for the Marquess, and Captivating the Countess (working title.)

SO, If you have not read The Dressmaker’s Duke, please try it!

If you have read it, and reviewed it, THANK YOU!

If you haven’t yet reviewed would you please consider writing one? A few honest thoughts will suffice.

Once again, thanks for taking a peek at

Trash to Treasure!

Till next month!