Baptism Dress

Ok, first off prior to even setting the baptism date I was looking online for heirloom style dresses. This is when I came upon Baby Beau and Belle a web site that sells the most detailed and exquisite children's outfits for special occasions. The Jessica collection baptism dress was my inspiration...I use the word inspiration because although beautiful in every sense of the word it was a lot of money for this mommie to afford. So I went to see my sweet and loving mother showed her the pictures of the Jessica dress and said look how adorable little Ellie would be in that dress. My mother looked at the price and said are you CRAZY. I then went to ask hey mom remember a few months ago when I was pregnant and had insane bouts of energy from hormones (I grouted our bathroom floor at 8 months pregnant)..well remember when we were up in the attic looking through my old baby stuff and found your unpreserved and seriously crispy wedding gown. My mother wanted to toss it out because it was obviously ruined I said save it for the lace which is still good and could be reused for something else. I then informed my mother of this idea I had to buy a cheap baptism dress and basically re create it into something heirloom looking. To my dismay my mother told me she had tossed her old wedding dress after I left that day. So I went back into the attic and found her old veil. The veil was attached to a large head piece that had lace and pearl appliques on it which happen to be in great condition. We then found a ivory baptism dress at a gently used children's clothing store for $7.00!

We removed the collar, ribbon sash and opened up the sleeves to make them more of a balloon/puffy style sleeve. My mother had some old lace and used that to make a pattern for a muffin hat. I made a trip to Jo-Anne Fabrics, purchased some ivory lace and a little bit of ivory netting for the inside of the hat. We reused the ribbon from the sash to wrap about the base of the hat. Took a final trip to Jo-Anne's to buy ribbon with lace intertwined for the waist of the dress and to go onto the hat. We then tacked the lace appliques on and VOILA Ellison's heirloom baptism dress made from her grandmother's veil. It cost me under $30.00 total!





This is not the best photo (bad backdrop) but it shows the detail of the hat up close.

Ellison and I right after her baptism.







This picture I took on a dinning room table with a black sheet for a backdrop. I uploaded it online to picnik and did some photo editing to make it look a little old fashion.