Dressing Up My Dress Form

Here is the project I worked on tonight.

My dress form is a dark royal blue color and would not be so pleasing to the eye in photos...I was searching for an antique form or something that was aesthetically pleasing, even if not functional. I stumbled upon a large number of sites describing how to create your own form...one was Just Something I Made Blog. She found an old dress form at a dump...covered it in book pages and Mod Podge and had a new decorative piece! Well, supposedly Mod Podge dries hard, so that gave me an idea...cover mine in shrink wrap, do the Mod Podge project, cut up the sides, and use for photos but remove for function.

First Step: I wrapped the dress form (tightly) in movers shrink wrap. Because it has a large black plastic neck cap, we cut out a block of wood and notched a chunk out for the size adjuster. I covered every part at least twice to prevent the glue from seeping through, and pulled packing tape tight around the neck and waist to preserve the shape.

Next: I began applying Mod Podge...straight to the plastic. I used a sponge brush, and coated a small area with a thin layer, placed a page and then applied a thin layer to the page. Only do small areas at a time, the glue dries pretty quickly. The pages stuck very well as soon as I started the outer coat. I placed the pages at various angles for interest, and when the majority was covered, filled in the gaps with small cut pieces of pages. (I went to Goodwill and bought an old encyclopedia for the book pages for $2...used basic pages for the first layer, and am using pages with line drawings for clothing articles for the top layer...but I have heard of people using music sheets, French books, and horticulture for the aesthetic.)

Well, due to the other projects I was working on and the fact that I had the thing covered by one layer. I left it at that for now. In the next day or so, I'll update and share what else happened...I am intending on doing (hopefully) two more layers, but because I used about half of my 16oz container on the first one, I may only do one. But I think that will help firm it up enough to keep it's shape when I remove it from the form.