Today we are talking about the dress garland hanging in the picture. It actually hung from end to end of this long room and we had enough to swag it too. I had no idea it was going to be this long when I started.

A while back I saw an adorable French Dress garland over at Little Birdie Secrets. I was bummed I had missed out on it for the baby shower I had just thrown. Well I decided to use it for this one. I made a PDF and SVG version of the french dress so everyone could make one.(Downloads at the bottom)

Each 12×12 sheet of paper yielded 6 dresses. I decided to do 6 different patterns of paper, for a total of 36 dresses. Once I decided how to decorate each style of dress it went quickly to actually put them together.

On all the dresses I added a necklace of cute little clear beads. I got a roll of this trim from Hobby Lobby.
Unless I say other wise, all of the trims I used came from SAS, a discount fabric store in the area. All of the trims cost between $0.10-$0.50 a yard. I wasn’t kidding about the discount part!

Dress 1 and 2:
Dress 1: I found that cute scalloped trim at SAS. I got a whole big roll of it for $1. Wahoo! I then glued some white grosgrain ribbon to cover the raw edges and added a row of those clear beads over the ribbon. This one is my favorite by far. I love that scalloped trim.
Dress 2: I glued on that pink iridescent ruffle(SAS) and added a row of beads in the center.

Dresses 3 and 4:
Dress 3: I glued on the green ruffle trim(SAS).
Dress 4: The flowers are a felt ribbon from the $1 bin of ribbon at Michaels.

Dress 5 and 6:
Dress 5: Iron on ric-rac from Joanns. They were on clearance, so it was $.50 a yard. I was cautious about ironing on paper, but it worked great. I used the lowest heat setting I could that would still get the adhesive to activate. AND who know there was iron-on ric-rac? Not me! That stuff is awesome!
Dress 6: Another Iron on Trim from Joanns clearance. It’s the 3 rows of white beads.

Now for assembling the garland. I wanted to go the lazy easy approach so I decided to sew it all together.
1. Start with about a foot of thread, both bobbin and top thread.
2. Sew across the shoulders of the dress.
3. Lift the presser foot and pull out several inches of thread. I didn’t measure, but I would say about 5 or 6.
4. Put your next dress in and sew away.

As I sewed through the dresses I kept them in a neat pile.
1. So they wouldn’t get all tangled.
2. I knew I was pulling out the same amount of thread each time.
There are a few that are a little farther or closer together, but overall I was happy with the spacing.

Here she is all hung up!

Download the PDF template here: http://www.4shared.com/file/254891770/554da5da/FrenchDressTemplate.html
Download the SVG version here:
http://www.4shared.com/file/254896646/b1601a2/FrenchDressSVG.html
Purchase Sure Cuts a Lot, cut fonts and images from your computer. You never have to buy another cartridge again if you don’t want to.

Tip about the downloads: After you click to download the file, there will be a 20 second countdown. If you click before that is over, it will try to get you to sign up for premium service.
Let me know if you have any questions about the downloads and I would be happy to help you out!