Unfinished Dress Form

    Last week I finally finished a very overdue project...my dress form! Complete with a boob job. I know, you are as excited as I am. The back story: I am the occasional sewer. Never anything too sophisticated, just skirts and loose tops. I would probably do it more, but it is truly a pain to try and craft and/or do alterations to an item of clothing while it is on your body. I wanted to get more into sewing clothes, so I bought a dress form from JoAnns. Unfortunately, I don't use it nearly as much as anticipated. The proportions are a little off for my body shape, therefore I still end up having to try things on constantly. I thought of getting rid of it or selling it. However, that sounded like a waste of money and I do kind of like the idea of having a dress form. So, I decided to keep it and turn it into something pretty and more functional.
    1st- I did some boob enhancements. Yes, she got implants! One of the reasons why I didn't use the form as much was because of the proportions in comparison to my actual body. I decided to take an old bra I had and attached it the top part of the form. The cups were stuffed to give more shape and structure. Then I covered the entire form in some scrap fabric I had laying around the house. This gave the whole thing a smooth uniform texture.
    2nd- Fabric. I found the perfect fabric at Gail K. If you've ever been there you know it's an adventure. I almost picked another fabric, and at the last minute spotted this gem in the middle of the pile. The sales guy even had to help me get it out it was so buried. I pinned the fabric to the shape of the form inside out.

3rd- I sewed the cover, and then dressed the form.

Honestly, at this point I was slightly in love with her. The fabric was so spot on and exactly what I envisioned

    4th- Make a stand. What's a pretty dress form without a stand. Don't get me wrong the one it came with was just fine...for a normal person though. Not me! If I was going to go through the efforts of recovering it and making it look pretty, might as well finish the job. I wanted something modern and slick, but not too designed. I didn't want to take away or complicate my fabric choice. After staring at it for a few days, the idea came to me. I could use the foundation of the original stand, and create a dome shape at the bottom. I look 5 feet to the right, and I saw the dome. A lamp shade from my living room light. 

Now, if you can't already tell there was an emergency surgery situation with the dome. On the way to the craft store to get additional supplies, I walked into the wall and the dome shattered. So, before I could use it I had to glue it back together and recreate a smooth surface.

    5th- Operation smooth the dome. I decided to go with paper mache. This would not only smooth the dome out, but create a hard protective shell. 

Unfortunately, the paper mache did not create the smooth surface I wanted. I'm too much of a perfectionist to leave it, so that meant covering it with something else. I played around with a few ideas. Again, I wanted something interesting but not so busy it takes away from the actual form. After digging around in my art supplies I saw Reinforcement Labels and got an idea. 

For those of you who don't know what Reinforcement Labels are, they are stickers that you put around 3 hole binder holes to add strength. I added them all over the dome. I was so excited. However, once I spray painted the whole thing black the texture and look of the Reinforcement Labels disappeared. I was soooooo disappointed. I really liked the concept of the labels. What can you say though, ideas in theory don't always translate in reality. After all was said and done I decided to leave it.

I couldn't figure out exactly what I was going to do with the base, so for right now it is going to stay the way it is. At some point, some amazing idea will come to me and I will change it. Until then it's on to the next project. Well, more like finish the next project and start planning the one after that. I am on a roll and keeping the momentum!