Add Straps to Strapless Dress // Dandelion Pie

Add Straps to a Strapless Dress in 30 Mins

A lot of women are uncomfortable wearing strapless dresses.

Strapless dresses, unless they are fitted perfectly to your body, just tend to slide downward throughout the evening leaving us all uncomfortable! I come across so many pretty strapless dresses on sale, and at thrift stores. They are just too gorgeous to leave on the rack so I bring them home, and quickly add straps.

I grabbed up this shimmery blue dress last year, but I had never worn it because of its rather strapless nature. Strapless dresses worry me (I, too, have experienced them slipping) and so this dress had been sitting in my closet just biding its time. My choir banquet was approaching, however, so I pulled out this dress, added straps to it, and wore it to banquet. The whole process took me less than half an hour.

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It was simple, thrifty, cheap, and fun! Here are all my tips to add straps to your strapless dress to make it worry-free!

How to Add Straps to a Strapless Dress // Dandelion Pie Tutorial
Worrisome strapless dress…already slipping down.
How to Add Straps to Strapless Dress // Dandelion Pie
I painted my fingernails purple to match the shimmer of this dress. Love this color.
How to Add Straps to Strapless Dress // Dandelion Pie
A quick run to Wal-Mart provided me with some shimmery blue fabric that was close to matching the dress.
How to Add Straps to Strapless Dress // Dandelion Pie
Use a measuring tape to ensure your straps are the same width, and then iron them to keep them manageable before you sew the seam down the back.
How to Add Straps to Strapless Dress // Dandelion Pie
This guy. 🙂 And my last choir banquet as a student. Sob. So long spare rib!
IMG_4423 (683x1024)
Yay for straps!

How to Easily Make a Strapless Dress Not So {Ahem} Strapless

  1. Go to your local fabric store, and pick up about one yard of fabric. One yard will give you enough to work with in case you cut one strap too small {not that I would do that}. My yard of fabric cost me less than $3.

  2. Using measuring tape or just eyeballing it, cut out two swaths of fabric three to four inches wide.

  3. Fold the fabric over to be the size you wish, and iron it. Sew the sides of the fabric together to make a long flattened tube.

  4. Have a friend (or husband!) help pin the straps on the back of your dress.Try your dress on, and pin the straps where you want them in the front. It might be easiest to cross them in the back.

  5. Be sure you can get out of your dress when  you take it off!! This is a must! You don’t want to be sewn into your dress for the rest of the night. 😉

  6. Sew the straps on to the dress.

  7. Prepare yourself for compliments!

A Few More Resources:

Add Straps to a Strapless Dress in 30 Mins
Image from Amazon.

I also bought rhinestone straps from Amazon that I use on several of my strapless dresses! They just clip on to the dress, add a little sparkly (but they are not gaudy!), and are adjustable. Since they can detach I bought one set, and just transfer them to whichever dress I am going to wear. I highly recommend them if you want a shortcut, and don’t want to worry about sewing some straps of your own! I wish I would have known about these sooner. They are so handy!

14 thoughts on “Add Straps to a Strapless Dress in 30 Mins”

  1. Wow! Very nice! I always love to see what others can do with clothing. YOU look beautiful and, more importantly, like you had fun!
    Thank you for sharing this post!
    Amy

  2. You look so pretty in that dress–it is your color! And how clever of you to find fabric to match it so well and add the straps! And what a hunky bit of eye candy to found to accompany you. 😉

  3. Great idea! I also love great thrift store finds! One of my favorite homecoming and banquet dresses came from Goodwill. 🙂 That color is beautiful on you. And straps can bring so much peace of mind and less tugging up! By the way, I think Mitch and I looked into the apartment that you live in (or at least one in that house) years ago. We ended up in an adorable little apartment above a Mexican restaurant downtown. We were just talking the other day about how much we miss it sometimes. It was small, but it had so much charm and an abundance of good memories!

    1. I am glad you, too, utilized Goodwill, Nathana! I have found that I LOVE our little town’s store. They always seem to have great clothes, and I always go on dollar days. 🙂 That is neat that you looked at our apartment! Sometimes I dream about having a house, but I know there will be things we miss about this cozy little place.

  4. What a pretty dress and well done for making the straps. They look perfect. The best thing about your behavior is that you reuse clothing from the thrift store. That’s fantastic in a girl so young. Keep it up. Save the Earth from overproduction.

    1. Thanks for the encouragement, Francene! I love thrift store shopping. I just always seem to find the clothes I need used, and I hate paying full price for new clothing. I am a tightwad at heart. 🙂

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