Okay, so I’ve been seeing these things everywhere and have been having the urge to make one. (BTW – Sorry I’ve been away so long.  The holidays are always such a hectic time of year, I figure most people are as busy as me anyway.) For this jewelry stand,  I decided just to go the simple route of using spray adhesive, rather than sewing everything.  This way, they are much easier and less time consuming.  They are fairly inexpensive to make and would make great gifts.   Here is what you need for to make your own Mini Dress-Form Jewelry Stand.

Materials:

-Inexpensive Craft Doll or Thrifted Barbie

- A thrifted candle holder.   I like the kind with the rounded rims at the bottom.  It gives me a place to put my rings.

- Sculpey or Fimo clay

- A versitle glue that will glue plastic to plastic and fabric to metal.  I used Aileen’s Jewelry & Metal glue which smells alot like Super Glue and it worked great.

- Permanent spray adhesive

- Ribbon

- Fabric

- Batting

- Cotton/Poly Fill

- Hanger

- Aluminum Foil

Tools/Equipment:

- Heavy Duty Wire Nippers

- Pliers

- Iron

- Oven for baking Sculpey

Step 1 -Prepare the Torso

Remove head, arms and legs from doll. You just need the torso so remove everything else.  Hmm, not sure what to use these for yet?

Determine the height you want the stand to be.  Wad up a piece of Aluminum foil to act as an armature for the space between the torso and the candle holder.

Condition the Sculpey by kneading it until it is workable.  Then flatten it out and wrap it around the foil and partially around the torso. Be sure to place pieces of sculpey around the empty legs part of the torso to stabilize it.

Remove the plastic torso and bake sculpey according to instructions on package.

Step 2 – Prepare the wire

Cut open hanger with nippers.

Straighten wire the best you can. Strip plastic coating from wire if desired/needed.  Use nippers to cut wire to desired length (mine were 9 inches).

Step 3 – Attach plastic pieces

** First, stuff the plastic torso with poly or cotton fill.***

Apply glue to the plastic torso and stick it to the baked sculpey form. Apply firm pressure until the glue sets up.

Step 4 – Cover Form

First, cut a piece of batting to size.  Then, spray the batting piece with adhesive and wrap tightly around the form.  Cover the neck but it is not necessary to wrap batting around bottom. Trim overlap of batting away.

Next, cut a piece of fabric appx. 2×2 inches.  Spray the back of the fabric with adhesive and cover the neck of the torso.

Cut fabric so that it is wide enough to wrap around the torso plus an extra half inch on top and on one side.  Fold the fabric and iron half an inch on top and one side.  Spray adhesive onto the back of the fabric and then wrap tightly aorund the form.

**Repeat for the bottom piece.**  Except, be sure to leave an extra 1/2 inch of fabric on bottom so that you can wrap fabric under form.

Stitch in a few places to keep secure.

Step 5 – Embellish

Tie or stitch ribbons around waist and neck to help define the shape of the form a bit more.  Embellish as you like. I glued the ribbon down to hide my seam and hand stitching.

Step 6 – Attach wires

Use a craft knife to cut slits in the fabric on the arm holes of the torso.

Work wires into slits. You may have to wiggle the wires to get them to go through the cotton batting.

Remove wires a little bit, apply glue and reinsert. Twist wires on both sides so that they become more stable.

Use pliers to curl wire slightly on ends.  Shape wires as you like.

Step 7 – Glue form to candle holder base.

Apply glue to bottom of form and apply to base.  Use firm pressure until glue sets up.

http://craftchi.com/