Do you have an old prom or bridesmaid dress laying around? Maybe a ballgown? A fancy dress you found at a thrift shop?

A natural way to re-purpose these type of dresses is to turn them into a fairy costumes! This costume post some easy tips for converting a gown into a fairy costume.

As plus-size people, I think creating costumes ourselves is the best way to find cute costumes that aren't too terribly expensive. So, here's another crafted, thrifted look you can recreate!

To create this look, cut away at the bottom of the dress to get it to your desired length. Remember, you can always go shorter, but you can't (easily) add fabric back on after you chop it off - so take your time! You can also wear a pencil skirt, shorts, or slip under it if it gets too short. You can save some of the fabric to re-purpose to poof up wings, add to a wand, or another creative use.

On the green dress, I was going for a Tinkerbell look so I chopped the skirt in triangle cuts and then sewed green, yellow, and white fabrics to it. (I used a sewing machine but you could totally do it by hand.)

NOTE: If you're looking for dresses at a thrift shop, size tags can be deceiving. Think about it - many people get dresses like this altered so you just never know. For example, that green dress had a tag that read "size 26" but it fit like a 20.

Wings, gloves, and wands can be found at dollar stores or other in expensive places. (Maybe at a thrift store if you're lucky!) This might be a little fancy, but I didn't want the elastic arm bands to take away from my look (plus, they're tight), so I cut the wings in half with a wire cutter and then hand sewed them in/on to the back of the dresses!

Oh, yeah! That purple number is my prom dress from my junior year of high school Not surprised it doesn't quite zip anymore. . .