From the Seamstress's Room

What a fun project this dress form was! I was a bit intimidated by the pieces when I first cut it out, but I watched Mary's tutorial and did it step by step, following her directions to just take your time and attach each tab one at a time. It went together much easier than I thought it would!
This dress form cut file is from SVG Cuts' Dress Shop SVG Kit.  It won't be the only thing I make from this kit. I don't know how Mary makes these cut files, but she is the best out there. This was made for my sis-in-law's birthday.

I know I got a bit carried away with the butterflies, but I just liked them so much I couldn't stop! I did a small addition to the base of the stand. I wanted to add a bit of weight to stabilize the base a bit, since it's made completely out of paper. So, I traced the bottom piece (octagon) of the base onto heavy chipboard, and cut it out with scissors right inside the trace lines. Then I cut a hole in the center, such that I could put my finger well inside to guide it into the bottom. It's not a pretty hole, but it does the job.

I took some rocks (I believe they came from the dollar store in the floral section), and used some Beacon's 3-in-1 glue to glue the rocks to the chipboard. I put a little more glue between the rocks. I then opened the tabs on the bottom of the base and inserted the chipboard into the base.

I used the finger hole to pull the chipboard to the edge of the tabs, and put glue on all of the tabs. Then folded the tabs onto the chipboard.

Once that was done, I was able to just glue the solid black bottom onto the base, and you can't tell I put anything inside of it. It's not too heavy, but just makes the base feel a little more stable.

For her card, I made a card-in-a-box or a pop-up-box-card. I made the cut file myself. It's a pretty simple concept, that ends up being quite impressive. The box folds flat to fit in an envelope for mailing. If you're interested in them, you can find lots of tutorials on youtube.com that will show you all of the measurements and how to make them.

Hope she doesn't see this in the next couple of days!

Happy Designing!