Quick Faux Mannequin

Just back from a pre wedding open house, where the bride wanted to show off her Grandmother's wedding dress, that she will be wearing this coming weekend at her wedding.

 

Unfortunately, plans for a borrowed mannequin fell through at the last minute and my garage full of mannequins was 8 hours away!  But by putting our heads together we came up with a quick substitute!

 

Here is how we did it, and you can too!

 

 1. Remove lamp shade from simple floor lamp.
2. Find a down pillow and wrap around lamp, use masking tape to define the waist.

 3. Using large safety pins, pin the pillow case and pillow to the harp of the lamp, as shown.

 4. Shape pillow to roughly resemble a torso.

 5. Slip the dress over the top.  Add stuffing to fill and shape the bodice of the dress, where needed.

6. Put a piece of bonded batting over the top of the lamp to soften the lines of the harp.

 7. Place a hanky or other fabric over the batting and tuck into the neck line.

That's it!  I don't think anyone knew that the dress was not on an actual mannequin.

 To the left is the dress worn by the original bride back in the fifties.

And here is our darling bride Brittney, in one of her bridal photos ... of course she skipped the hoops!  What a beauty!

 

And if you have the time, and know someone with hard mannequin, you can always make you own out of paper mache!  But for an emergency, this is a great method using items that most crafty folks have on hand!

I am linking this post to Nifty Thrifty Tuesday







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