{"id":283,"date":"2012-05-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/stphn5cole\/michigan-teen-makes-prom-dress-out-of-starburst-wrappers\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T22:15:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T22:15:57","slug":"michigan-teen-makes-prom-dress-out-of-starburst-wrappers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/stphn5cole\/michigan-teen-makes-prom-dress-out-of-starburst-wrappers\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan Teen Makes Prom Dress Out of Starburst Wrappers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Michigan Teen Makes Prom Dress Out of Starburst Wrappers<\/h2>\n

By\u00a0Sarah B. Weir, Yahoo! blogger\u00a0|\u00a0Summer Kick-Off\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Wed, May 9, 2012 12:25 PM EDT<\/abbr><\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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courtesy WLUC-TVDiane McNease, a high school student from the northern Michigan town of Ishpeming, had sweet idea when she saw a friend folding Starburst wrappers. \u201cI was waiting for my event at a swim meet,\u201d she tells Shine, \u201cand an exchange student from Ecuador was making them into bracelets.\u201d Eighteen thousand candies later, she fashioned the bodice of ahomemade dress\u00a0completely out of the colorful papers and wore it to the prom last Saturday night, May 5. Her date, Luke DeWitt, is one of her best friends from the swim team.<\/p>\n

VIDEO:\u00a0Pier Breaks As Prom Picture Taken<\/p>\n

The teen told\u00a0WLUC-TV\u00a0it took her a year-and-a-half to collect all the wrappers and five months to create the dress which also features a black satin \u201cball gown\u201d skirt layered with tulle. \u201cIt was kind of a dare,\u201d she tells Shine. \u201cSomeone said I couldn\u2019t do it. That\u2019s the last thing you should say to me.\u201d She says DeWitt encouraged her through the whole process.<\/p>\n

McNease explains to Shine that she did have some help. \u201cMy friend Bria Johnson made the fabric part of the dress for me. I couldn\u2019t have done it without her.\u201d The high school junior also says that dad, David, pitched in. \u201cEvery night he would help hand sew the folded strips of wrappers to the dress for a few hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the first month, McNease ate all the candy herself. \u201cBut then I got sick of it.\u201d Friends at her school, which only has about 300 students, were happy to assist in the eating phase of the project.<\/p>\n

Related:\u00a0Texas Prom Queen Arrested for Allegedly Faking Cancer<\/p>\n

detail, Frye\u2019s dressMcNease isn\u2019t the first young woman to don a candy wrapper dress on her big night. Last year, Tara Frye splashed out in a tutti-frutti colored gown that her mom, Kerrin, had spent six years crafting out of Starburst wrappers. Kerrin Frye explained the process to\u00a0KARE-TV. Each wrapper had to be folded eight times and squeezed with tweezers to \u201cget it just perfect.\u201d Mom initially contacted Wrigley Company to see if she could just buy the wrapping papers but they declined. Instead she purchased bulk bags, 20 pounds at a time, and enlisted her neighbors\u2019 sweet tooths.<\/p>\n

McNease says she already had her plan and was collecting wrappers when pictures of Frye came out in the news. \u201cBut I really admire her dress. Especially the shoes. They are fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crafting website\u00a0fluffyland.com\u00a0has an easy tutorial for how to make a cute Starburst bracelet with only 30-36 wrappers.<\/p>\n

Starburst Prom Gown<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stephanie Cole<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michigan Teen Makes Prom Dress Out of Starburst Wrappers By\u00a0Sarah B. Weir, Yahoo! blogger\u00a0|\u00a0Summer Kick-Off\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Wed, May 9, 2012 12:25 PM EDT courtesy WLUC-TVDiane McNease, a high school student from the northern Michigan town of Ishpeming, had sweet idea when she saw a friend folding Starburst wrappers. \u201cI was waiting for my event at a swim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[530],"class_list":["post-283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-michigan-teen-makes-prom-dress-out-of-starburst-wrappers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/stphn5cole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/stphn5cole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/stphn5cole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/stphn5cole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/stphn5cole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/stphn5cole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/stphn5cole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions\/327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/stphn5cole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/stphn5cole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/stphn5cole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}