I'm not quite sure what you're looking at, but I actually used 3 different additional layers to cover the background crap. They were all basically done the same way though. I don't have a copy of Elements on any of my machines right now, so I can't remember if you can "free transform" a layer, but I think you can. If so, you can copy a bit, paste it in, choose the tool to do the "free transform" and click the middle handle on one side (or the other), and then drag that side straight across until the it's 100% horizontally flipped. Or, if that's not an option, copy a section, paste it into a completely new file, and then flip the image horizontally, copy it again, and past it back into the original image.

I really am a photoshop moron though... I've simply learned by doing and trying stuff, mainly to do car 'chops. I've never even done a tutorial. I swear there have to be a million better ways to do 95% of the crap I do. Maybe one day I'll bother to learn the "right" way, but in the meantime I'll just keep using the Photoshop equivalent of the BFH method.