Diane McNease, a high school student from the northern Michigan town of Ishpeming, had sweet idea when she saw a friend folding Starburst wrappers. "I was waiting for my event at a swim meet," she tells Shine, "and an exchange student from Ecuador was making them into bracelets." Eighteen thousand candies later, she fashioned the bodice of a homemade dress completely 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. VIDEO: Pier Breaks As Prom Picture Taken The teen told WLUC-TV it 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 "ball gown" skirt layered with tulle. "It was kind of a dare," she tells Shine. "Someone said I couldn't do it. That's the last thing you should say to me." She says DeWitt encouraged her through the whole process. McNease explains to Shine that she did have some help. "My friend Bria Johnson made the fabric part of the dress for me. I couldn't have done it without her." The high school junior also says that dad, David, pitched in. "Every night he would help hand sew the folded strips of wrappers to the dress for a few hours." For the first month, McNease ate all the candy herself. "But then I got sick of it." Friends at her school, which only has about 300 students, were happy to assist in the eating phase of the project. detail, Frye's dressMcNease isn't 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 KARE-TV. Each wrapper had to be folded eight times and squeezed with tweezers to "get it just perfect." 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' sweet tooths. McNease says she already had her plan and was collecting wrappers when pictures of Frye came out in the news. "But I really admire her dress. Especially the shoes. They are fantastic." The crafting website fluffyland.com has an easy tutorial for how to make a cute Starburst bracelet with only 30-36 wrappers.