The 4 Funky Funk's: DIY Dress Form

Make your own Child’s Dress Form Custom Fit

So I had been looking at how I could get (or make) a child size dress form, after scouring the web and a late night of brain storming with my mom we came up with this idea. I was able to finish it all in under an hour. All you will need are these few items.

* Please do not wrap your child to tight as it could cause breathing difficulty

· 1 willing child to stand still long enough to wrap in duct tape

· 1 Roll of Duct Tape (you can precut into strips I didn’t do this but it would have been easier)

· 2 shirts for your child to wear (preferable two old ones as you will be cutting only one hopefully but use two old ones in case) I used my old T-shirt so I could make it a body suite style

· 1 pair Scissors that will cut fabric and duct tape at the same time (if you have a set that the hospital uses to remove clothing they work very well)

· 1 old pillow or other source of stuffing (depending on the size of your finished form you may need two pillows)

· 1 elastic to tie your child’s hair out of the way

Make sure your child has gone to the washroom before you begin as I made mine a full body suite style but if you only make the top then you should be fine.

To begin put both shirts on your child,

and start wrapping * not to tightly. I only did one layer of overlapping duct tape. I wrapped around her arms to allow my dress form to have arms for sleeve fittings. I also wrapped around her hips so could do pants and shorts in the future.

Once you have the child and shirt wrapped get your scissors’ that you can cut both duct tape and fabric and not have to dash around the house and find a better pair (like I did) Last think you need is your child thinking moms going to leave her wrapped up forever!

Now cut down the back of your form watching not to cut the child, hair or under shirt.

Now you have an empty shell.

Now duct tape up the back and your almost finished.

I wrapped duct tape a lower around the legs (mid thigh on my small girl) and then wrapped them all shut. If your doing a torso just duct tape up the bottom to help give it strength you can add some stuffing now. I used an old pillow that I pulled the stuffing out of as the pillow looked dingy but the stuffing was in good shape.

When it’s almost fully stuffed I added a hanger so I could (obviously) hang it while I sized clothes on it.