Sneak Peak at Tim Holtz Dress Form Die Cut Wedding Dress

Okay, so I have this friend who is getting married and while I know it's a second marriage and they probably won't make a big deal of it, I wanted to make her something special (kind of a congratulations on your engagement).  Yes Sheri, I'm talking about you, so don't scroll down!

I have seen so many over-the-top gorgeous or funky dress form projects by so many different talented artists and am inspired by all of them, but this one I wanted something different.  As I was going from blog to blog looking at the different ones trying to decide what I could do that was different and it hit me . . . duh! . . . a wedding dress.   And, I am going to do it as a standing form by attaching two dress forms at the top so it stands like a tent (I got this idea from a blog by a very talented woman named Bona - I will link her blog so she gets credit for her idea when I post the final project). 

What I am the most excited about I think is the veil.  I didn't get a good enough picture of this, so I will make sure I get some good ones when I post the finished project.  For the veil, I was going to take wire and make a mini crown with some white beads, etc. and then attach some tulle to it, but then . . . SCORE!  I was looking through my beads and misc. jewelry findings and I found this (I have no idea what it's called or why I have it but it's perfect!).

I think they are for earrings, but now it's a veil.  I took my pliers and bent the single one up and bent the three down.  I then cut strips of tulle which I looped through each of the set of three loops.  I then trimmed the bottom (slightly curved) to make it even.  Then on the one loop that was bent up, I attached a large rhinestone with a glue dot and the used glue dots to attach two more on each side of the large one, descending in size.  I then coated the back of the rhinestones with glue (in such a way that when they dried they were like a single unit) and set it to dry.  The last step on the veil was to glue some small rhinestones to the tulle to finish it off.  I think it turned out sooo pretty!  This quick picture doesn't do it justice because it is so much cuter in person.

For the dress form, I cut two from chipboard using the Tim Holtz Alternations Die and then cut 4 more dress forms from patterned paper (if you are going to do this, make sure you place your paper 2 pieces face down and 2 pieces face up so they line up cleanly on the dress forms).  After I glued the paper dress forms to the front and back of the chipboard dress forms, I painted them with a creamy white paint wash (1 part paint and 2 parts water (and an extra part of Martha Stewart white glitter).  This just softens up the patterned paper a bit.  Then I coated the top part of the dress form I want to be the front and the stand (the only parts that will show) with Ranger Distress clear Crackle Paint (Rock Candy).  When it dried I applied a 2nd coat.  When it was dry I used my paint wash and went over the crackle finish and then wiped it clean with a baby wipe (I would probably tint my paint wash with some color if I did this again so it shows up more, but the effect I got is really soft and pretty).  Because there is the rock candy in the crackle paint and the glitter in my paint wash, there is a bit of pretty pearl shimmer that you can't quite see in the picture (at the end of this post).

The last thing I did was die cut some mini flowers (5 flowers) from scraps of the satin I am going to use for the dress.  I then heated the flowers over a candle to curl the edges  - I learned this technique from Leanne (Luvlee Scrappin blog); make sure to check out her blog and her youtube videos because she has some GREAT tutorials - and seal the satin so it doesn't fray.  This technique was really hard to do with these tiny flowers, but I sure like how it turned out.  You really need to see Leanne's youtube video for complete instructions on how to do this - I will post a link to it with my finished project.  When the flower was finished I added a little stickles and silver Martha Stewart glitter and then layered on a metal flower and mini pearl brad (note:  I used pliers to bend the petals of the metal flower down slightly to show more of my fabric flower).  

Okay, this so-called "sneak peak" was way more verbose than I intended (sorry).  Here are the last pictures (again, sorry they are not great images):

Thanks for allowing me to share my creation with you.

Wendy