Maverick Francisco Oyao, a student taking up Bachelor of Culture and Arts Education at Western Mindanao State University in the Philippines, recently made news headlines around the world after surprising his sister with a one-of-a-kind prom dress that he made by hand.

It all started earlier this month, when the Culture and Arts Education student from Zamboanga City learned that his sister, Lu Asey Keanna Oyao, wanted to attend the upcoming Junior and Senior Prom in February. Unfortunately, renting a dress suitable for such an event was very expensive, and their parents simply couldn’t afford it. Keanna was worried that she didn’t have enough money to afford a proper prom dress, but since she was in her final year of junior high-school, she still insisted on going. Determined to make his sister’s prom a memorable one, Maverick decided to make her a unique princess dress himself.

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Just in case you needed more proof that you don’t actually need designer labels to attract attention, here’s the story of Kara Koskowich, who created her prom dress out of old homework.

After graduation, most students never want to look at homework again, but 17-year-old Kara Koskowich actually decided to look good IN it, by making a unique prom dress out of her old math homework. “For me, it’s not a big, spend your money, you have to look this nice, you have to fit into this mould of grad,” the Canadian girl told CBC, so she decided on a more creative and far less expensive alternative to the classic prom dress. So instead of going window shopping, Kara started thinking about what would make a really interesting dress for prom. And although she had made up her mind since March, and even started working on the dress back then, she only barely managed to finish it in time for the big night. “I did most of it the last week because I’m that kind of person. I procrastinate,” Kara said.

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High-school senior Tara Frey, from Wisconsin, won’t have to worry about having the same prom dress as other girls, as her mother has made her a unique outfit from thousands of Starburst candy wrappers.

Tara and her mother Kerrin worked on the dress for the last six years, trying to collect as many wrappers as possible before the big event. Kerrin Frey told local news station KARE-TV that she got the idea for the wacky project after seeing another mother weaving gum wrappers during a hockey game. The two started collecting Starburst wrappers, but had to go the extra mile in order to complete the outfit in time for the prom. They tried calling Starburst to ask them if they could only buy the wrappers from them, but they weren’t too keen on the idea, so they had to buy up to 9 kg of candy at a time. They handed them to neighbors and friends, but asked them to keep the wrappers and try not ot tear them.

In order to be used for the sweet prom dress, every candy wrapper had to be folded eight times, and pressed with tweezers to achieve a tight weave. Not the easiest of tasks, considering there were a lot of wrappers to prepare, so Kerrin asked for help from her friends. She doesn’t know exactly how many Starburst wrappers were used on Tara’s gown, but she does remember it took five failed attempts before the two of them agreed on the design.

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