An altered state of mind

So the babes and I are having a swap - an altered dress form swap - and the Sassy Sister I'm sending to is Rhonda!  I was so excited about this.  Firstly cause I've never altered a dress form, and had to do some extensive researching about it before even committing to the challenge!  Then I had to choose a theme - that turned out to be quite easy, cause for Rhonda the theme was always going to be the 1920's Flapper theme - which I absolutely love now!!

So first I started of with a dress form that I found at Lincraft, it comes brown/naked and is made of paper mache.  It stands at about 25cm tall and is quite rigid (it feels like cardboard).  First I went about tearing up small pieces of musical patterned paper that I got at Spotlight.  I didn't have to use much, cause I only covered the areas that show - which is the top part of the form. I used Martha Stewart Decoupage glue.  It not only glues, but leaves a nice shine over the top of the papers.  I waited for it all to dry before going over the musical paper one more time - just to ensure everything was sealed and had a shine.  It's not super shiney, but it's not matt either if you get what I mean.  Then I started to fashion a dress from some pictures that I found on Google Images (fantastic resource!).  I didn't have to sew a thing.  I simply folded over the black satin type material and wrapped it around the form and secured it with hot glue.  Then I trimmed off any access and glued around the bottom.  The holding then sequined material I made it drape in the front and secured the top edges with hot glue, then continued gluing around the top until I reached the back.  I trimmed all the edges and folded the last edge over to give it a sewn look.  The bottom was also glued.  I bought some tassel-like trimming, as this is what Flapper Dresses have on them.  It's about an inch wide, so I did 3 layers, slightly overlapping each other around the bottom of the dress.

The beads came as is, I just simply twisted the necklace in the middle and made it look like 2 around the forms' neck.
I added some tiny pearls to the back of the dress to look like buttons, and I added some glittery ribbon to act like dress straps.  You can see how the beads are folded over in this photos (above)
This is the bottom of the dress showing the layered tasseling.
If you've ever seen women from the 1920's dressed up in their Flapper Dresses, you'll know that they have beautiful, often flamboyant head bands on.  So I used Rhonda's favourite colour - aqua in the feathers and paper rose.

To make this embellishment, I wrapped a thin piece of satin ribbon around the form's neck, then started layering black and aqua feathers on top in a fan shape.  Some of the feathers had a distinct bend in them, so I was mindful of where I placed them. I then added three of the bead and crystal stems and lastly to cover everything at the bottom and finish off, I added the paper rose.

I am so so happy with how this turned out!  If I had another dress form I would definitely make another!  Just a word from the wise though - pick your materials wisely, the sequined material is $50 a metre, but I just had to have it!  It's the perfect size miniature sequins, any bigger and it would have looked odd.  Now I have to think of a use for all the other material!

1 comment

Scrappycath said...

Sarah - this is simply gorgeous! She is going to love this!!!