Bailey Pellicano, a student at Jefferson High School, got creative for prom in hopes of bagging some prize money.

Entering the scholarship contest sponsored by ShurTech Brands LLC, the original maker of duck brand duct tape, Pellicano said she spent approximately 132 hours making her dress and her date’s tuxedo for the prom.

“I started on Feb. 20 and worked on it until May 2, about 12 hours a week,” she said.

The fashions encompassed 25 rolls of duct tape in a variety of colors. Black was predominant with a dozen rolls used with white coming in at four rolls, chrome at two and electric blue, light blue, red, orange, yellow, gold and green each at one roll per color.

The scholarship contest is held annually and is a national contest for any high school student willing to design and wear duct tape fashions to the prom.

The contest is for further education scholarships with the first place winners receiving $10,000 to each individual of the winning couple, as well as $5,000 for the school that sponsored the prom attended by the winning couple. There are also second and third place runners-up and a few other areas that are awarded scholarships.

Pellicano explained that this year’s contest was titled “Stuck at Prom.”

“The inspiration for my design came from fire and ice,” she said. “I knew that doing a concept of fire and ice was very common and often cliched, so the design had to give it complexity.”

She explained that the swirl patter was something she had doodled in notebooks since middle school; however, cutting it out of duct tape was completely different and proved to much more challenging than simply drawing.

“Each and every swirl, pattern and design was done freehand and cut piece by piece using only an x-acto knife and a hole punch,” Pellicano said. The pieces were then strategically placed on the outfits to add the color and design.

All accessories for the evening including shoes, the necklace, clutch, bowtie and corsage were also hand-cut duct tape creations.

The entry period for the national contest is open until June 1. Top 10 finalists will be announced on June 15 and put out for public voting. Voting begins June 15 and ends July 8 with the winners announced July 16.

Pellicano hopes to be one of those lucky top 10 who make it to the public vote.