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.

Prom is supposed to be a fairy tale evening, and some teenage girls (and boys) spend their entire senior year dreaming about it. It really would be an unforgettable night if you were turned away at the door for wearing an unacceptable dress.

Related: Best Prom Styles for Under $100

The Wall Street Journal reports that high schools across the country are tightening their rules about what constitutes overly provocative prom clothing in response to more and more girls pushing the envelope with micro-minis, cut outs, and plunging necklines such as the ones seen in our slideshow.

Trend watchers attribute the upsurge in revealing gowns to television shows such as "Dancing with the Stars" and Hollywood stars' sexy red carpet looks.

"It seems kind of petty," Cindi Lee, an Algebra teacher at Southmore High School outside Oklahoma City, told the Journal, "but we really do want them to understand we are holding them to a high standard." Administrators at the school have put together a twelve-page power-point presentation with close-cropped images to show students exactly what the rules are. "Words don't mean much to them," says Lee. Other schools are using posters and illustrated handouts.

Typical prom dress fails include gowns that are shorter than three inches above the knee, have low backs, are sheer, or have thigh-bearing slits.

Chaperones will be on the lookout for sneaky teens trying to skirt the regulations. Ginger Lawrence an assistant principal in Lee County High School in Leesburg, Georgia, plans to bring a ruler and ask girls to measure themselves if their hemline appears to be cut too high above the knee. Sunnyvale High School, which is located outside of Dallas, Texas, enforces a dress code that clearly states that fabric inserts may not be sewn or pinned on a gown-since girls are known to rip them out once they make it into the dance.