Dollar Store Apron Dress

This dollar store apron dress tutorial contains affiliate links.

Years ago, I saw a cute dress with a little apron overlay and I’ve never forgotten how cute it was. That was the inspiration for this dollar store apron dress. This little tunic or dress starts with a dollar store dress and requires just a few basic sewing skills to turn it into something that’s really cute for little ones!

To make this dress, first you’ll need to hit up your dollar store to find some type of dress or tunic. Regardless of the season, you can usually find various clothing items. Look past some of the details, if possible, and find something that has really basic lines.

I kept the basic structure of the dress the same but ripped out a nasty little fake dart along the neckline. It just involved using a seam ripper to pull out a few stitches. Look over the dress to see if any details can be simply altered. Because dollar store clothing is made so cheaply and simply, it’s also really easy to remove some details.

To make the apron to attach to the front of the dress, I cut a rectangle shape from a coordinating piece of fabric, serged the raw edges, then folded up 1/2 an inch on the bottom and sides and sewed them in place to create finished edges.

I used a ruffler {a really inexpensive attachment you can get for your sewing machine} to gather the top edge {this can easily be done by hand as well} …

… cut another piece of fabric to use as the band, fused interfacing to the wrong side of that band section …

… and sewed the gathered edge to one long edge of the band, right sides together.

I then flipped the band, right sides together and stitched the side seams, then turned the band right side out and stitched the inside section to the back of the apron to complete the band across the top of the apron.

I added a scrappy edged ruffle to the bottom edge of the apron by cutting a strip of coordinating fabric then randomly sewing in ruffles as I stitched it down. The ruffle will fray a bit but I love a bit of fraying. If you don’t, hem the edges before sewing the strip onto the apron.

To complete the apron, I measured for and made buttonholes in the band of the apron …

… then sewed buttons onto the dress to match the position of the buttonholes.

That’s all it took to transform a very simple dollar store garment into a cute dollar store apron dress! It was a fun little project, completely cheap, and a great way to use up fabric scraps from the stash.