2 Great Ideas!

Apartment Therapy featured a how-to today for turning "retired" bridesmaid dresses into pretty pillows. Totally cute! The AT name of the project is Turn Your Ugly Bridesmaid Dresses into Pretty Pillows, but I prefer "retired" to "ugly" (though the original name is just "Make a ruffled rose pillow out of a bridesmaid dress"). A dress doesn't necessarily have to be ugly to be cast the back corner of the closet. I'm not sure any of the dresses I have would be as suitable as the iridescent taffeta in the demo, nor do I think a pretty ruffly pillow would look suitable on my very casual couch, BUT there was this little gem in the comment section...

There are a whole bunch of local "Cinderella Project" websites I found after seeing a New York-based program linked in the comment section. There's also a site that lists stores and organizations who accept dress donations nation-wide (Donate My Dress). I feel like I should have known these existed (maybe somewhere in my memory?...).

Some of the comments stated that donating the dresses would be a better use than upcycling into a pillow. I, however, think that if you need/want new pillows and fancy a fancy-looking one, making one out of a dress you have lying around at your house could be a very responsible and sustainable way of getting one. If not, donate! Or if you're lucky like me and happen to have two of the EXACT SAME purple bridesmaid dress, you can donate one and make a pillow out of the other.