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Paper Dress Template: Paper Dress DIY Tutorial
I decided to come up with a new fun paper design this week! Paper dresses! These Paper Dress Templates are a lot of fun to put together. They can be made in so many different ways and customized to fit any theme you can possibly imagine! So far I’ve already made a fairy dress, wedding gown, this mermaid gown and I am currently working at a unicorn inspired paper gown!
Some folks ask, what do you use these for? Well, they make great dessert table themed decor, nursery decor or even a table centerpiece for a girl’s party!
They are really very simple to make. I spent the last couple weeks coming up with eight, yes, eight different bodice designs. Four of the bodices come with straps (one is a halter!) and four that are strapless.
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I have a two part video tutorial on how to make these beauties. I’m going to walk you through a picture tutorial for the mermaid dress and you can find the videos for more details at the bottom.
Let’s go over supplies first. You will need to design how many tiers you want your dress to be. In this tutorial, I am making a 3 tiered gown. You can make a two-tiered gown or even one if you like.
Supplies
- Dress templates (click here for the set of 8 or find ONE freebie dress template just below!
- Giant flower templates for the dress’ skirt (view all templates or check out the paper dress starter kit)
- Scissors and/or cutting machine (Cricut Explore Air 2 Machine)
- Embellishments that fit your theme (sticker rhinestones, ribbon, tulle, small paper flowers, etc.)
- Glue Gun
- 65-pound cardstock
The Bodice
Find one sample free dress template in the party printable section of my free craft library or purchase the whole set here.
Step 1
Cut out 2 dress bodice patterns. If you are hand cutting you can use 8.5 x 11 cardstock or you can use our enlarged ledger PDF included to print at a printer so that you can use the template with 12 x 12 cardstock, which is the size I use when I lay them out on my machine.
(Please note cutting machine users: Cutting machines sometimes like to enlarge the templates bigger then what I save them as. The goal is for the dress bodice to be within an 12 x 12 margin)
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The Skirt
Step 2
Glue your 2 dress bodices together, one side over the other and then the opposite side as shown above. Tip: try to make your seams go the same direction for a cleaner look.
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Step 3
For the dress’ skirt you will be using giant flower templates. In this tutorial I am using Lacey style’s extra large petals for the first tier, Bella style’s large petals for the second tier and Whimsy style’s medium and small petals for the third tier.
We are going to make the skirt the same way we build my giant flower designs.
I’m using 8 XL Lacey petals, 7 large Bella petals and 7 medium Whimsy petals.
Cut a slit at the bottom and overlap slightly. Curl the edges back. Glue your petals together in a circle.
Full video tutorial on the dresses at the bottom of this post for more details.
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Do this with Bella’s large petals and Whimsy’s medium petals as well.
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Step 4
Once you have your 3 tiers complete (or however many you choose to use) you will want to stack your top 2 tiers together.
The petals will naturally meet together when stacked. Add dots of glue to the underside to secure.
Step 5
Cut a small square or use a small circle punch to glue over the open hole.
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Step 6
This part can be optional; I like to add some small petals around the top for a more complete look. Here I added 7 small Whimsy petals.
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Step 7
Your dress template will have small circle tabs at the bottom which you will fold inwards; add glue to these and attach to top of the dress’ skirt.
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Step 8
Stack the whole thing on top of the XL Lacey petals (shown in very last photos below)
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Decorations
Step 9
The final step is to decorate! There is a lot of creative freedom with these dresses so there really is no right or wrong way to do it.
For this mermaid paper gown I use small circles arranged to look like mermaid scales, small mum flowers, my seaweed templates, shell template, ribbon, green and purple rhinestones.
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Out of the ones I have made so far this mermaid one is my favorite! You can see in these photos the Lacey tier has been stacked with the others. Check out the video tutorials below where I make a wedding style paper dress plus photos our very popular fairy paper dress!
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Check out our free Under the Sea cake topper .svg cut file here!
This fairy gown was made using Lacey style template for the extra large bottom tier and Whimsy for the second tier plus a few additional small Whimsy petals for the top of the skirt.
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Please note: ♥ If you are a fellow artist that has your OWN flower templates and wish to use our bodice templates, you may do so as long as copies of our templates are NEVER resold as your own and a line of proper credit is provided. You can tag us on Instagram @abbi_kirsten_collections or link our blog.
If you are a licensed seller through us feel free to use these template within those terms. 🙂
How would you use these templates?! Tell me in the comments or let me know what tutorial you would like next?!
Update here is my unicorn dress!
Paper Dresses Part 1:
Paper Dresses Part 2:
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Share what you’ve been up to by using #DIYwithAbbi. I would love to see your creativity in the works so flaunt your flower power magic! You are a huge source of my inspiration!
My mission is to inspire you to nurture the creative magic inside your soul – bringing you fun, easy to learn DIY projects, and quality template designs. I share a variety of projects but specifically love paper crafting and paper flowers. Interested in more flower tutorials?! I’ve created dozens of signature designs for you to enjoy – starting with my best seller, The Art of Giant Paper Flowers, the Giant Flower Library and my shop of endless paper designs and flower templates.
Feeling overwhelmed? Start here with my tried and true Resource List!
Thanks for letting me pop into your day!
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