This Halloween, I’ve been busted as a Project Runway junkie and/or wannabe even though I’ve only seen a couple of episodes. Is that possible? Seems that recycling some newspaper to make a party dress is soooo Tim Gunn. If so, then guess I’m guilty as charged cause that’s what I did.
Basically, I just wanted something that would go with my new wig and there’s always a ton of newspapers scattered around our messy house. Hence the inspiration for the frock. Of course, any excuse to play hookie from work also factors greatly in my daily decision-making as well.
Here’s some shots of the grand gal as I began to conjure up the party vixen.
Started out making a bit of a muslin sloper to support it internally because the visions of me splitting this dress wide open, mid-cocktail, gave me night sweats.
Then I fit the bodice. Using narrow strips, micro-crimping and a lot of hot glue, the sweetheart neckline began to take shape. My dress form/manni is quite a bit more of a Joan Holloway than yours truly so draping the darts was rather uncharted territory.
But all in all, she came out kinda sweet in that disney princess sort of way.
I added an exposed red zipper to the back for a little color pop and paired it with matching candy-apple red pumps. It is Halloween after all.
And… I’m happy to announce that the dress quite survived the festivities with only minor crumpling in the seat and just a slight mini-burger staining on the Jane Mansfields.
That’s pretty much about as good as it gets for me.
wow i love your dress so amazing what you can do with newspaper. hi hello i am a high school senior and was interested in making a newspaper dress for my senior project or maybe a use plastic grocery bags to make the dress. i am still undecided but i am having a problem on how to get started i see how u started..is it a old sheet?
if you could e mail me back i would really appreciate it
Hi Araceli,
Glad you liked the dress. It wasn’t that hard to figure out. I do think that having a mannequin was really helpful to getting a fitted shape. I used cotton muslin as the under-structure. It’s just a cheap, thin cotton that dressmakers use for patterns and basically the same weight as an old sheet. More power to that for extra eco-cool points.
I can pin right on the mannequin to hold and shape the fabric (and then the paper). If you don’t have this, then you’ll probably need a second person to help and maybe a less fitted design. Also, I used hot glue to attach the paper to the fabric and you would burn the bejeezuz out of someone if they were in the dress at the time.
That being said, I like a challenge. So if you’re gonna make one, give a shout back with more questions and maybe I can talk you thru it. There’s lots of tricks you can try.
Good luck with it!
Hi I have to dress up for a school thing and our theme is recycling I wanted to make a newspaper dress but I am not aloud to buy stuff (school rule ) can I use a rubbish bag under as my base ? Please help and any suggestions will be helpful
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Hey! I absolutly love this dress!!i had a couple questions though. 1: did it make a lot of noise wearing it? 2:how did you did the bottom tulip/drapping part on the skirt of the dress?? Thanks so much!
Hannah
Oh and I actually have one more! How did you get it on? Did it slip on or was the zipper actually functional?
Hi Hannah,
Thanks for liking my newspaper couture. It wasn’t too hard to make especially working on a dress form so I could see what it looked like. That really helped to do the bottom tulip hem. Basically, I added the skirt by working the pleats around the waist. The bottom of the skirt was just kinda flared out at this point. Then I trimmed it into the tulip curve and turned under the hem for a finished look. It bells out a bit because I hand curled it a bit for some volume.
The zipper was functional. I sewed thru all the layers of paper and the muslin underneath. It was a long zipper so it opened up enough not to put much strain wiggling into the dress.
And it really didn’t make much paper rustling noise when I wore it. Then again, it was pretty loud at the party so maybe I couldn’t hear it if it did.
Hope that’s helpful info. Sounds like you’re gonna make something yourself. Hope it comes out cool.
Hey, i really liked your dress. I am doing a newspaper dress for a school project and i wanted to know how to make the newspaper rose. I also saw another newspaper dress and they just sewed newspaper to newspaper without the dress under it. Would that be easier to do the dress underneath newspaper? My grandmother is a seamstress and she is going to help me. I you could email me back that would be awesome
thanks,
Boo-Boo
Hey Boo!
Glad you liked the dress! The flowers were pretty easy to make. Most of the time paper flowers are made with individual petals like this tutorial: http://craftberrybush.blogspot.com/2010/11/paper-romance.html
These are really nice but I was too lazy so I just rolled strips of newspaper and twisted them around like in this tutorial:
http://www.erinbassett.com/creativite/2010/02/7.html
You can play around with the width of the paper strips and how many twists to give you different flower shapes.
As far as the under-structure, I kinda think the muslin had a give and kept the paper from ripping when I moved around. You can try layers of stitched paper underneath but it might add more bulk. Of course, it could work to add a sculptural look to the design. It all depends what your look is and how you want the dress to move when you wear it. I would recommend a big zipper. It helped when I needed to wiggle in and out of the dress without stressing the seams.
OK, hope that’s helpful. You’ll have a blast making it and it great to a seamstress in your corner.