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Mom transforms puffy thrift store wedding gown it into gorgeous cocktail dress





Sarah Tyau is a mother, internet blogger, and an incredible seamstress.

She spends her spare time popping tags at thrift stores, but unlike most shoppers she’s specifically looking for clothes that don’t fit. With a basket full of the tackiest dresses, shirts, and skirts, Tyau heads home.

Behind her trusty sewing machine, Tyau transforms these fashion disasters into absolutely beautiful garments for herself and her family. She shares the whole process on her blog, Life is Beautiful, and on her YouTube and Instagram pages.

Take a look at some of her most remarkable pieces in the gallery below!

This magenta dress won your vote for the next item to refashion so here it is! For a 8-minute full tutorial including tips on refashioning, other design ideas that came to mind for this dress, and me being a big dork in the bloopers, link is in bio. Thank you to everyone that voted! . Today was a crazy day, I woke up this morning to a DM from one of my followers(thank you Lexie!) telling me she saw me featured on Dailymail(hello and welcome if you came from there!??), but they never linked to my sites nor credited my photo?(they later credited my photo in a tiny watermark but still never linking to any of my sites), then an associate producer for People.com contacted me for permission to do a 90 second segment of my refashions on their daily morning show! This is all because of your love and support, so thank you so much, it means so much to me.? #memademay #memademay17

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You guys loved my XL men's shirt into a girls dress so here's another one! A XL men's shirt ➡️ girls crop top + skirt. I turned the fabric around and had the buttons in the back of the crop top & the skirt, and the pleats in the front of the top. Not pictured but I also made a headband using the collar, the collar just happened to be the same exact circumference as my girl's head! See the tutorial at www.ourlifeisbeautiful.com ➡️ click on Refashion Runway _____________________________________________________________ • My weekly sewing series will launch this Thursday 2 p.m! Until I get enough content for the mother/daughter series, I'll be showing you my refashions and Thrift Revision episodes. I'm so humbled and grateful that I haven't even officially launched my channel yet and I have over 600+ subscribers, thank you so much, it means so much to me! If you haven't subscribed, I'd love for you to at www.youtube.com/sarahtyau or link in bio. . . . • I'll be speaking at @saltldsretreat on a topic "When You Don't Like Being a Mom" in March. Have any of you bought tickets? I hope to see some of you there! #sarahsDIY

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✨I need your opinion!✨ Two years ago, I attended a blogger event at our new local thrift store where we all got to pick out an item to upcycle, to be entered into a competition. As I was rummaging through the dress section, as soon as I lifted this dress out of the rack and looked at it, I had a vision of the after and knew this was to be the one. It takes me about 5-15 seconds before I have a vision of the "after" and very rarely does my mind change from that vision. But this one, I initially envisioned the lace to be around the v-neck but I changed my mind to have the lace be on the sleeves instead(the lace is recycled from the giant white collar). Do you like where the lace ended up? Thankfully, the thrift store thought so and I won 1st place in the competition. And I held a monthly class there where people could bring me their outdated clothes and pick my brain on ways to refashion and I demonstrated some of my refashions as well. It was so fun! . . This idea literally just came to me, like literally after posting this photo and writing the above caption, but I'm thinking about adding a new series on my new YouTube channel called "Refashion Revision"(I literally just thought of the name too, do you want me to say "literally" one more time?) where I go shopping at the thrift store and I have someone else pick out several items and then surprise me with it, and it'll show me seeing the items for the first time and then sharing my vision for the after, impromptu style. I wouldn't see the clothing item before I video it, it'll totally be raw, right-then-and-there ideas of my vision of how I'd refashion it. Good idea? Bad idea? Would you watch it? #sarahsDIY

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My most liked photo of 2016! One of maybe 3-4 sewing projects I did this year.? So excited to show you much, much more refashions in 2017! . . Highlights in 2016(travel related): . . •Welcoming 2016 in Hawaii •Going to Disney Social Moms at Disney World . •Traveling to Arkansas to meet influential producers of Hollywood to critique upcoming T.V shows & a private concert by Jewel & having a soul to soul 20 min. conversation with her(we are Spirit sisters). •Traveling to Indiana to shoot a video for fairlife milk at their farm . . •Road trips to Vegas & St. George . •Camping. We love to camp & plan on going a ton next year •Girls' trip to CA sans kids . •An epic reaction from the kids when we surprised them on the day of, with a trip to Harry Potter World. . . Lowlights in 2016: . . •My dad having a stroke & all the effects of it since then. •Having to return all my sequin skirts due to manufacturing error. •Going to Urgent Care two times in one month . •Jay almost never making it back home to us during his work trip in China . •Losing $11,000 from a blog network filing for bankruptcy. . . But one thing I've learned is when life doesn't go the way I'd like it to, I still need to flow with the current of life and accept life as is, instead of resisting the change and refusing to live in the present form. When I refuse to accept life as is but instead try to change the situation or the circumstance, and even other people, that says more about my lack of strength in my character. I'm saying I'm above this situation. But I am not. Life is sometimes bad, sometimes good, life just is. No one is immune to the natural flow of life. . . Happy New Year to you, may you have a wonderful 2017 filled with much love, health and happiness!❤️ #sarahsDIY

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The last challenge of Refashion Runway week 6: Asymmetrical. I got this two-piece dress suit, dyed it from faded pink to blush pink, made the sleeveless maxi dress into a fitted below-the-knee length dress by cutting it in half, adding darts and deconstructing the whole bodice and skirt & sewing it back on, cut the sleeves from the jacket and made it smaller into cap sleeves and sewed it unto the sleeveless dress, and used the fabric from the jacket for the ruffle flower design. . . ?I ended up winning this challenge and became the winner of the Refashion Runway 2015! ? . . I realized from entering this competition that: 1. I'm super competitive. 2. I don't like competitions. I like celebrating everyone's talents instead of judging, critiquing & comparing one another's talents. At times of insecurity and doubt, I found myself doing all of that and being super critical of mine and also my competitors'. It didn't bring out the best side in me. 3. It was the most stressful 6 weeks of my life. I had one week to decide what to make, shop, refashion, take photos, edit and post each challenge and many times I started sewing the day before, this one I started the day before and stayed up almost all night to get it finished. It was so hard to make time amidst being a stay at home mom and trying to fit it in between 4 other people's schedules. 4. Despite it all, I am so glad I entered this competition because it motivated me to sew something every week! So many ask what I won, I won a $100 gift card to @joann_stores, a refashion book, $50 gift card to a fabric shop. So I didn't do it for the prizes, but for the main purpose of not making any excuses and getting a project done weekly, and to challenge my creativity. And it definitely pushed me, so thank you Refashion Runway!

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