A dress-up rainbow

I'm not really much of a girly girl; I rarely wear make-up, I prefer jeans to dresses, and I despise high heels. (Seriously, the last time I wore heels was for a friend's wedding several years ago -- I was her personal attendant -- and my toes were numb for days afterward.) But the new Dress Up Framelits dies in the Stampin' Up!^® spring catalog are too adorable for words. The set comes with dies for two different dresses and a dress form. I bought them on my last order, and yesterday I made this adorable set of cards:

Supplies (all Stampin' Up!):
Paper: Summer Smooches Designer Series Paper (DSP); Basic Gray, Whisper White, Tangerine Tango, Daffodil Delight, Real Red card stock
Accessories: Dress Up Framelits dies, Oval Accent Bigz Clear die, Beautiful Wings Embosslits die, Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder, corner rounder, Itty Bitty Shapes punch pack, Bitty Buttons, Brights Designer Buttons, Everyday Enchantment Lucky Limeade 1/8" organdy ribbon, Daffodil Delight and Real Red 1/8" taffeta ribbon, Sycamore Street Tangerine Tango and Island Indigo 1/4" ribbon, Rich Razzleberry 3/8" taffeta ribbon, white baker's twine, pearls, rhinestones, Glue Dots, Tombow Mono Multi liquid glue

Aren't they cute? They were easy to make, too. I used Basic Gray card stock to die cut the six dress forms. For the dresses, I chose six monochromatic patterns from the Summer Smooches DSP and cut a dress from each pattern.

The hardest part definitely was deciding how to embellish the dresses! I've seen many cute and creative variations of these die-cuts: dresses with ribbon skirts or ruffles along the bottom, dresses with patterned tops and solid skirts (or vice versa), and adorable little cardigan sweaters over dresses. But I decided to keep it simple: I just added a ribbon belt and one other embellishment to each dress. I did make a little alteration to the Real Red dress by trimming off one of the straps. Then I added a flower (made with three flower shapes from the Itty Bitty Shapes punch pack crumpled and layered together with a pearl in the center) to the other strap.

To frame the dresses, I used the Oval Accent die to cut decorative oval shapes from Whisper White card stock. I embossed the ovals with the Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder and adhered them to Basic Gray card bases. (I rounded the corners of the card bases before attaching the ovals.) I adhered the dresses onto the dress forms and then glued the forms to the middle of the white ovals. Inside the cards I simply adhered a blank 4" x 5-1/4" piece of Whisper White card stock with rounded corners.

I have a few friends with birthdays coming up this spring, and I've been trying to decide who will receive this set of cards. Hmm ... I might just have to make some more dress-up cards. Thanks for stopping by!