Wisconsin Teen Wearing Prom Dress Made from Starburst Wrappers

April 22, 2011— -- Tara Frey, a senior at River Falls High School in River Falls, Wis., can be certain she can avoid the terror of many a high school girl -- that someone will be wearing the same dress at the dance.

After many hours of hard work, she will be wearing a dress made entirely out of Starburst candy wrappers. With the help of her mother and the community, she also has matching shoes, earrings, bracelets, headbands and even a Starburst vest for her date.

Tara told ABC News she is excited about wearing the dress at the April 30 prom. ""It's going to be fun. It's something different and we've been working on it for years, so it's worth it."

Tara's mother Kerrin Frey had the idea six years ago after watching her friend Joan Doyle folding gum wrappers together. After six failures, Kerrin and her friend Paula Korbel figured out how to put it together. First they fold the wrappers eight times, braid them together, add some hot glue and finally sew them onto fabric to make it durable.

"Start to finish on the last dress was maybe about 40 hours [of work]…not counting the braiding," said Paula.

Tara's mother would buy 20 bags of Starburst at a time to get the huge amount of wrappers needed to make the dress and the accessories. "The whole community gave us wrappers…My mom hand [Starburst] out to people and ask for the wrappers back, and don't rip them!"

Tara is not planning on having a back-up dress at the prom, saying, "I'll make it through." Although she does admit it is not very comfortable to wear.

It helps that they lucked out. The theme for this year's prom? Candyland.