Spotted: Vintage Wedding Dress Pendant from Little Red Window, and 4 other Wedding Dress Crafts

A vintage wedding dress, especially one passed down from a loved one, is a priceless treasure, but let’s be realistic: if it’s stained or hasn’t been maintained properly, or if grandma has eighteen children, all of whom love her equally dearly, then that vintage wedding dress doesn’t necessarily need to spend its next hundred years stuffed–lovingly stuffed, of course, but stuffed, nevertheless–into someone’s out-of-the-way storage.

Not when it could be remade into heirlooms for many loved ones to hold dear.

That’s the case with the vintage wedding dress from which Little Red Window took a small piece. She set it into a pendant and gave it to a far-away aunt, who adores the piece of her own mother that she now gets to carry with her. I can’t imagine a more thoughtful gift.

To make a  pendant like this, check out the DIY Vintage Wedding Dress Necklace tutorial from Little Red Window. If you’d like to try your hand at a few other precious crafts that you can make from old wedding dresses and their accessories, check these tutorials out, too!

1. baby dress. Babies only wear their special dresses for a very short time, so this one can also become a keepsake or be passed down. And because babies are small, you could potentially make lots of little baby dresses from one wedding dress, so all the kids can have one.

2. hair flower. The amount of fabric used for this is so small that if you’re short, you can probably use the very fabric that was cut away from your own wedding dress when it was hemmed. It will then match perfectly!

3. handkerchief bonnet. With careful sewing, and even more careful thread-snipping, a single heirloom-quality handkerchief can go from wedding, to christening, to wedding, to christening.

4. vintage lace cuff. This lace cuff tutorial uses vintage lace from another handmade wedding dress. It’s a wonderful way to incorporate a loved one into one’s own wedding.

What do you say–would YOU be brave enough to cut into a wedding dress?

[wedding dress pendant image via Little Red Window.]