The dress was one I made a long time ago -- pre-motherhood so it doesn't fit quite right anymore (blame the baby weight...lol!). Back when for $20 you could get silk wedding dresses from Ebay, I bought one made of lovely lightweight silk taffeta, took it all apart then inset cotton lace to make a lawn dress. I was wearing a bum/hip pad that I made by looking at real photos of such padding, and one petticoat because it was so darn hot. This was ok until one of my fellow guild members pointed out that if the light hit me just right you could tell "that you have legs." Hmm....
I also previously posted on how I made the red-whtie-blue cockade which I've used now for the second year. It makes any outfit patriotic. Here is the cockade tutorial: http://tfirah.blogspot.com/2012_06_01_archive.html
I played with some of the photos using Pixler-o-Matic, a wonderful free download that you can "antique" photos with, as well as do a lot of other crazy effects: http://pixlr.com/o-matic/
