Every so often, I get a package in the mail from Courtney Anne Chu who makes dresses under the name CourtneyCourtney. They aren’t any old dresses, because each dress or romper is one-of-a-kind, handmade and repurposed from old (and sometimes hideous) clothes that she finds at thrift stores or at the bottom of her own drawers.

Because Courtney is combining men’s t-shirts and women’s mumus and various other items in different prints, colors and patterns, everything she makes has a variety of textures and different constructs pieced together to create really unique styles and shapes.

Like this one:

And this one:

Or this adorableness:

It goes without saying that every time Mazzy or Harlow walk out of the house in a CourtneyCourtney dress or romper, someone always asks where we got it. And then I have to let them down easy by saying you can purchase something similar from CourtneyCourtney but no two dresses are the same.

Take this romper of Harlow’s with the cross back and the fringe down the side that was my absolute favorite for three years running. It looked cute both when it was too big and when it was too small. I’m actually still debating if Harlow can squeeze one more summer out of it.

I mean, is that not the most adorable thing ever?

Then there was Harlow’s birthday dress when she turned three. Birthday dresses, with their big bold sport-style appliques are a specialty of CourtneyCourtney. A 3 dress is way more original than a big 3 balloon, if you ask me.

Courtney Courtney also made Mazzy’s chunky red and pink dress, along with a complimentary dress for Grace, Mazzy’s American Girl doll.

Then there was this backless number that Harlow wore all last summer and to Disney World over Christmas. Electric rainbow leopard print goes with pretty much everything, you know?

CourtneyCourtney also made Harlow’s Four dress this year (you can find the four in the folds of the skirt on the bottom). For awhile that dress was the only dress Harlow wanted to wear because she deemed the long length extra fancy, despite the entire dress being made of sweatshirt material.

Most of CourtneyCourtney’s stuff uses sweatshirt and t-shirt materials, making each piece super comfy and easy to play in. Like this hot pink sweatshirt dress that Mazzy wore religiously until she decided pink was no longer her color.

Here’s a shot of the most recent CourtneyCourtney dress that we added to our collection. It looks like a rainbow party, which is perfect for Harlow who says every color is her favorite.

To add to the rainbow, Courtney sent Mazzy this cooler toned dress in blues and purples which plays to my oldest daughter’s more recent change in color preferences. Mazzy even relaxed her new “no dresses” rule to wear it.

They go pretty adorably together, don’t you think?

When I told Courtney that I wanted to do a post on all the dresses she has given us over the years, I ended up going on her site to get some basic information and was excited to find before and after pics of the repurposed clothes she transforms into dresses.

Check out this black magic:

And this one:

And this one:

And this one:

I also found this example of a dad who had a custom dress made out of his old t-shirt for his daughter:

And this one was custom made for a basketball fan:

I also stumbled upon the hideous clothes that made Harlow’s adorably awesome black and white/electric leopard dress.

I mean, it takes a special person to make something good come out of that pair of shorts.

If you’d like to see what CourtneyCourtney has in her shop now, or to commission a dress of your own, check out her online shop here. Clothing sizes start at 12Mo and go all the way up to 10/12 Girls.

There is some seriously adorable stuff.

Giveaway:

I’m giving away one custom CourtneyCourtney dress on the blog today! Just leave a comment below telling me what item of clothing (yours or someone else’s) you’d love to repurpose into a dress or romper for your kid.

Winner will be selected at random and announced on June 18th. Good luck!