Altering CDVs, and my dress form's upgrade

I just sent off my finished pieces for the carte de vistes (CDV) swap hosted by JoAnne at Vintage Dragonfly.  CDVs are those small photos that were mounted on heavy paper and often had lovely imprints on the reverse, like these:

Here are the photos I started out with:

And, here they are, altered:

This one was my favorite (do you recognize the quote?):

As soon as I receive the completed CDV book, I'll show you!

Here's my dress form; I bought her about 3 years ago.  She never had a stand, and she was one of those adjustable forms that had a lot of "empty space" in her bodice.  A year or so ago, I padded her with batting and covered her with vintage damask linen so she was more "solid", and I use her photograph the few accessories (like that Vera scarf) I sell in my Etsy shop.

This past weekend, inspired by the dress forms I saw at Home Goods, I decided it was high time to give my gal some legs!  I had bought a plant stand for cheap at a flea market last summer, so I got it out, spray painted it espresso, and plunked her down on it using 9001 glue.  She looked fine, (above); alas, she wasn't real steady on her feet.

My helpful husband came up with a better idea: we took the legs back off and removed the plant stand base I had previously glued to the bottom of the form; then, we drilled a hole in a dowel...

and then screwed and glued the dowel into the base.  Once dry, the hollow form slipped right over the dowel.  It's a much better solution than my easy/lazy version.

Now she's ready for anything!  You'll notice that I also gave her a rosy slipcover!

I literally pinned some shabby chic fabric to her, wrong side out, stitched it, cut off the excess, and slipped it over her bodice.  I really love the look!

The finishing touch was this finial that I created using a round, pearlized stick pin, which I glued into the opening at the top of the form.  I wrapped trim around the base, and I think it's lovely if I do say so myself!

Here are some photos of her wearing some of my favorite jewelry.  This piece was a surprise from my gypsy pal, Angela and her mom, Bonnie:

Is it not gorgeous?!  What a thrill -- it's made from sea glass...

and aventurine.  And it came with matching earrings!  Swoon!

I'm not sure if it's because we worked on it together -- so he has a stake in it -- but even my husband really likes the 'new' dress form!

(Snoopy says, "Honestly, I don't see what all the fuss is about.  Will you stop playing with that thing and feed me?")