This Prom Dress Is Made Of Coke Can Pop Tops

This Prom Dress Is Made Of Coke Can Pop TopsNelson Hicks, wsbtv.com reporter/photographer

Posted: 9:55 am EDT May 22, 2009Updated: 10:53 am EDT May 23, 2009

CUMMING, Ga -- When Maranda Smith arrived at her West Forsyth High School Prom, she didn't worry that another student might be wearing the same dress she was wearing. That's because her dress was made of soda can pop tops. That's right. Her dress was made of those tabs on top on soda cans.Smith discovered the idea about three years when she was surfing several crafting web sites. One of them featured a girl who had made a dress out of the tabs on top of soda cans. It was then Smith decided she would do the same.SLIDESHOW: See The Pop Top Dress

Her collection started off small. She got her mom to buy more canned drinks and slowly the tops started adding up. But she knew if she wanted to make an entire dress, she had to have some help. She got her friends and even some teachers at West Forsyth High School to contribute."All my friends, they are pretty much the ones that gave me the majority of the tabs," Smith told WSBTV.com. "I had friends who would put them in Ziploc bags. I had friends who would mail me those Ziploc bags."Once she reached about 3,000 tabs, she began constructing the dress. To make it, she took two tabs and put them back to back with the scratchy sides facing each other. Smith weaved them together with plush ribbon to create a row.This Prom Dress Is Made Of Soda Can Pop Tops

The dress isn't lined, nor is it layered. Smith says that the one row covers everything and she just has to wear a slip underneath it.When it was finally time for the prom, the dress was completed and it was finally time to show it off. Most of her classmates knew about the project, though few had actually seen it."Alot of teachers, they just couldn't believe it. People were holding up their little Cokes because they had canned Cokes and the whole time I wanted to take the tabs off of the Cokes but I was like, oh, I'm already wearing the dress, I can't really do that. But they would just look at it and hold it (tabs) up to it (the dress). They had the most confused expressions on their faces. It was fun."Next up for Smith is graduation and on to college where she plans on becoming a history teacher.