Decorative Bureau Top Dress Form

I pulled out a bin from the garage the other day that was full of craft items; a pillow form, a costume that had been cut out, small jars of shells, thread, and a partially painted paper mache dress form, among other things.  I had wanted to do something with the dress form a long time ago. If I remember correctly, I ended up giving it to one of my little ones to paint because they wanted something to do.  Every time I start a craft I get bombarded from my kids to also do crafts. I end up letting them use all of my supplies plus I end up helping them more than I get my own crafting done. Believe me, I’m not complaining because I know someday it will stop and I will miss it.

So…this dress form needed a fix. When I took it out of the bin it was half painted. Finishing the black paint job, I then gave it a coat of gold.

 

My thought was for flecks of the gold to show through so I brushed on my crackle medium and let the piece dry overnight. I painted over that with a buttermilk color. Watching paint dry is boring but I love to see the crackling happen when I use it.

I went digging for a small wooden candlestick I knew I had thrown in another bin.  It was already painted black but really rough. I sanded it down and repainted it. The dress form was too top heavy for the candlestick. I drilled a hole, about a quarter inch wide in the bottom of the dress form to fill it with sand.  I put about 3/4 of a cup of sand in it and used E6000 glue to adhere the two pieces together.

Finally, I get to decorate it. I printed out “Fabrique en Paris” and transferred it onto the back of the form with graphite paper and then filled it in with an ultra fine black sharpie.

 

I found a burlap ruffle, decorative tacks, and little muslin flowers at Hobby Lobby. The flowers were so plain once I started placing them onto the dress form.  I took a sharpie to the petals and colored the tips of some of them.  I actually tried a few colors until I settled on the light brown. As you can see above, the other colored flowers are back in the bag.

The burlap ruffle I put on with the tacks. The tacks were hard to bang into the papier mache. That stuff is sturdy.

Here is my final dress form. I would love to make a larger one sometime to stand in the corner of my bedroom.

 

 

 

 

I am linking up with these parties.