2017/18 Kaisercraft Design Team Application

It is the time for a new application for Kaisercraft's design team. I have been on the team for two years, and it has been two fantastic years working with fantastic quality papers and so many sweet collections. 

Kaisercraft's design team application is in two rounds. Those who are chosen to go on to the second round, get a box from Kaisercraft with a collection to use for the second round. The task was to create something with a WOW factor, showing my style. So this is just what I did. I created a paper summer dress with lots of ruffles and flowers.

Why I created a paper dress

I do a lot of different paper crafts. I love doing cards, layouts, mixed media - but most of all, I enjoy creating advanced altered and 3D projects. I have created a few paper dresses before, and I have enjoyed that. I love to get the paper to fold into ruffles, just where I want them to. 

Most of all, I get my inspiration to create from the collections I work with. I decided to wait to see what kind of paper collection I got to work with, before I decided what to create for the second round. The box arrived, and the paper collection was the Lilac Whisper with collectables, corrougated cardstock, coloured cardstock, flowers, Blossom stensil, and wooden Flourish Pack (Bouquet).

When I found out that the paper collection I had to work with for the final Kaisercraft round was the super sweet Lilac Whisper collection, I knew that I had to make a summer dress. The colours, flowers and patterns in the lilac papers inspired me. I also decided that I wanted to use the box itself. I used the box to create the circular base for the dress.

The process of creating the dress and the skirt and the ruffles:

The process of creating dresses like these are like you would create a usual dress with ruffles. It is part of the education in a side step of the tailor education, but I will go through the main process.

First I started with the doll. This is a Barbie doll, and I created the pattern for the skirt, using copy paper. At the end, the skirt was dismantled and created in papers from the Lilac Whisper collection. 

The first part was to create the main underskirt. The ruffles need to be fixed to a crinoline or another underskirt. I often create a crinoline for this, but this time, I wanted a dress with a long skirt at the back, so I decided to create a cape / underskirt for this. 

The underskirts were taped together , ready for the ruffles.

Ruffles for a dress like this need to be individually created, to make them come to a mountain fold and a valley fold, just where you want them to. This was done adding triangles to the ruffle, where I wanted a mountain fold and taking triangles out where I wanted a valley fold.

After creating the first set of ruffles with lots of tape and triangles added and taken out, it was traced onto copy¨paper. A new set of ruffle pattern was created, without all the tape. The ruffle was more curled at the back of the skirt. This is due to the shape of the dress at the back. This will increase the amount of ruffles at the back. The strip of paper creating the ruffle, is long and curly, and needed to be created in several steps and glued together.

The ruffles were added to the underskirt. As they were added, it started to curl as the paper is bending and glued onto the underskirt.

All the layers of ruffles, had to be individually made. This can be seen in the next layer, being a different shape.

The next layer of ruffles were added to the dress. As the next layer were added, it started to fold, trying to keep the mountain and valley folds over each other in most places. 

All the layers added. The pattern of the skirt was finished.

The skirt was dismantled, layer by layer, and used as a pattern for the skirt in the Lilac Whisper paper collection. The underskirt was made from white cardstock. I only used the lilac papers for the dress itself. Starting with the darkest paper at the bottom of the dress, and ligher colours above. 

The Lilac summer dress

The doll used for the dress, is a barbie doll. 

The underskirt is made from white cardstock. To create some pattern on the base, I used the Blossom template and gesso. 

At the bottom ruffle, I used the reverse side of the Echo paper. Then I used the papers in this order: Illusion, Opal, Illusion (reverse) and Well Wishes. 

I added hand made flowers, Kaisercraft flowers, flowers from the Lilac Whisper collectables, wooden flourishes - leaves and flowers and diesed leaves. 

You can see a short tutorial, for creating the larger white 3D flower with Kaisercraft dies, at the bottom of this blogpost. 

The base has been made out of the card board box, that the papers and embellishments arrived in. The base has been covered with the paper Mauve (reverse).

Kaisercraft products: Lilac Whisper collection: P2342 Hydrangea | P2344 Mauve | P2345 Illusion | P2346 Opal | P2350 Echo | P2351 Well Wishes | CT885 Collectables | FL604 Bouquet Flourish Pack | IT017 Blossom | F643 Amethyst Paper Bloom | F630 Iceberg Paper Blooms | F647 Sage Mini Paper Blooms | DD359 Decorative Die Gum Nuts  | DD707 Decorative Die Layerd Flowers | DD373 Decorative Die Pancy Flowers | CD101 Coconut Weave cardstock | CD160 Pistachio Cardstock Weave | SB705 Rhinestone Lilac.

Other: Gesso

Flower Tutorial:

I have created flowers for this dress in several ways. One of the flowers is a large white flowers at the back of the dress. This has been created using the Layerd Flowers Decorative Die (DD707) and   Pancy Flowers Decorative Die (DD373) and white cardstock. This is how I created the flower. I have used the Lilac Whisper collection against the white background.

Hope you enjoyed this.