Who's dressing your form

It's been some time since I have been here. I apologize.  I have had many many things to do.  I have been creating just not sharing.  Don't worry, I will make up for the delay.

Some time ago I bought this paper mache' dress form at Michael's, why?  Because I am in LOVE with dress forms!  I have been looking for the die for my sizzix machine for some time, but that story is for another day.  Today all that matters is I bought this dress form.  The form was just that, a form.  It had no stand so I just sat it up on my paint shelf and stared at it.  Two weeks ago, I decided to get brave and make my own stand.  I found a sucker stick (it was an unused one like the ones you use for the melting chocolate) and some wire.  I fashioned the wire around the end of the stick to resemble the four little feet that support a dress form.

Once I shaped the wire like I wanted I had to paper mache' over my creation. I may have done this a little differently than most would, but I like mod podge so I used strips of newspaper and mod podge to build my stand.  Each strand of paper would get drenched in mod podge then wrapped around the stick/wire. I made a base at the top of the stand by layering many layers of paper strips.  My dress form will rest on this little knob.  Once the stand dried, I drilled a small hole with scissors into the bottom of the dress form.  I inserted it onto the stand which I had coated in Aleene's tacky glue.  I then added more drenched strips around the bottom of the form and the stand, just for more security.

I let it sit for a few days then I added coloring (with Distress inks and paint) to the body and trim that my mother-in-law made in the '60s.  After that dried, I painted the stand black. I was on the fence. I thought of embossing the stand with silver embossing powder, I may do that to the other dress form I have because I am CERTAIN I will be making a stand for that soon.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it next and I made a gown for the form.  I did not like it so I ripped it off and decided to go with a tulle tutu.  I took a Tim Holtz pearl, a glass bead, and a rhinestone.  I wired them all together in a belt for the skirt.  I thought the rhinestone needed something else so I took it off and colored it with cranberry alcohol ink.  MUCH BETTER! A pearl necklace provided the finishing touch to the body.  I wish I could fashion some stilettos from newspaper and mod podge to go with this beauty.