DIY Dress Form

Huzzah! It’s our first DIY day together. My heart is all aflutter! Today I’ll show you how I made my own dress form. I don’t have a sewing machine, but do manage to sew together the odd skirt or dress by hand (projects to come!), and my life has been made significantly easier by having my own custom dress form in size ME. Here’s what you’ll need.

Materials Needed:
• large old t-shirt
• 3-5 rolls of duct tape (any colour)
• scissors
• hanger
• lots of newspaper
• flour and water (equal parts to make sloppy paper mache)
• paint (whatever colour you like)
• paint brush
• willing helper to wrap you in tape and hopefully not point, laugh, and take pictures when you’re at your weakest

Step #1) Put on your extra big t-shirt. If you usually wear a bra, wear it. You want it to be longer than where you plan on your dress form ending. Your helper wraps you tightly in tape on top of the old t-shirt, but not too tight! You want this dress form to be a representation of you, not a smashed version of you. When you get to the bit where you tape the neck you may want to wrap your neck in cling film so you’re not putting tape on skin. Your helper then cuts one long seam in the tape and t-shirt straight up the back. Dear god, DON’T CUT YOUR BRA! Once you’re out (hee hee, good luck) place the hanger through the neck hole and close up the top and back. Tape up the arm holes. Then stuff the whole thing tightly with old newspaper (or packing peanuts) and tape up the bottom.

Step #2) Paper mache the entire thing with one or two layers, just to give your paint something to stick to. If you like the color of your tape, you can just leave that and be done (woohoo!).

Step #3) Paint it!

Above is mine…yes, it’s a lumpy version of me, but it is me and it has been very helpful since I made it. It also makes a fun hat holder when I’m not using it for a project.