Many of our customers who purchase a dress form from us with the intention of making a dress form Christmas tree, never end up doing it because they get intimidated by the prospect of using chicken wire to make the skirt.
So we asked members of the Facebook group Crafty Fun with Mannequins for alternatives they tried and have listed them here.
1 Plastic Fencing
This blog post from the Amazing Goodwill website explains how to use plastic fencing to make the skirt. While we have not tried this, we do agree that the plastic fencing would be much easier to manipulate to get the shape you want and no sharp edges to cut your hands.
2 Tomato Cage
This is one that we have personally tested and have had great results. However the tomato cage does not work on all styles of dress forms. For instructions on this option read this blog post.
3 Hula hoop and twine
A friend of mine, Howard Murray, who used to work as a visual merchandiser for a retail store, sent us this suggestion. Although he used a mannequin, it would be done on a dress form as well.
While we don’t have instructions the photo explains it. This works best with lightweight garland or tinsel.
4 Similar to the hula hoop option is using an embroidery hoop. We do not have experience with that but this blog from Heather Handmade explains how in the youtube video she created explaining how she did it.
5 Cage Hoop Skirt
This idea was submitted by Sharon Johnson. We tried this ourselves but personally we did not find the hoop (which is made of fabric) stable enough to hold our garland. We use a heavy commercial grade garland. By the time we added our garland along with the decorations it was sagging at the waist. But on Sharon’s tree it works quite well.
We have a list of vendors on Amazon who sell the cage hoop skirt here along with vendors who sell the chicken wire, which is still our favorite. We chicken wire to be the most versatile and stable of all the choices. And once you get the hang of it, it is really easy. See a few examples below.
This is our signature tree that we designed back in 2014. (you have probably seen it all over the internet) We have a digital tutorial for $1.99 with step by step instructions on how to make it using chicken wire. The tutorial is free when you purchase a dress form from us and type in the code Tutorial at check out.
These three versions of a Christmas Tree from the Dusty Victorian blog where she uses chicken wire and explains how she did it.
We hope you found this helpful. If you have tried other alternatives that we have not included please let us know. Either send us an email at sales@mannequinmadness.com or post on our Facebook group.
