Splendidly Dressed Alice & The White Knight

Oh, I've had some fun with this one! The challenge at the Altered Alice blog this month is "Splendidly Dressed!". I just had to use some more of the paper dolls cut from Dover Publications clip art and also introduce a bit of love interest (Lewis Carroll will be turning in his grave!).

"Alice meets the White Knight...Splendidly Dressed!"

"...Or Not!!!"

Does he look like Johnny Depp or is it just me?

The clothes are glued onto an acetate sheet fixed to cover the front of the card, and the paper dolls glued to the background beneath. When the card is closed, the dolls are dressed, but open the acetate and the clothes disappear :-).

The background is decorated with distress inks, post-it note masking and IndigoBlu stamps. The acetate wrap is fixed around the back of the card with strong double-sided sticky tape and the join covered with ribbon.

"Clothes back on again"

A glaze pen was used to add some metallic shine to all the buttons & straps on the white knight's armour & shoes and alice's fan & tiara.

"Lace"

Real lace ruffles are added to Alice's dress.

"Warning sign"

Did you notice the warning sign on the unclothed page?

"Nudity"

It's because of the rabbit's "Full Frontal" on the inside of the card. He has no shame that rabbit! He's raised off the page with some foam pads and the clothes are detachable so you can restore his modesty :-)

Ingredients

IndigoBlu unmounted stamp set Alice I

Distress Ink - Barn Door

Sakura Glaze Pen

images from Dover Publications

lace

Glossy Accents

PVA

acetate

cardstock: white, 300gsm

Entered for the following challenge:
Altered Alice - Splendidly Dressed
Hotshot Craft - Red
Oozak - Anything Goes

A bit of silliness...

The Altered Alice blog challenge this month is a strange one to say the least. "Best Butter"!!! I've had this old ad in my head ever since seeing the challenge. Anyone my age in the UK will probably recognise it immediately as being for Country Life English Butter. Anyway, since I couldn't get rid of it, I thought I'd just go with the flow!

"Mad March Hare"

You really can't beat a good bit of inking for colour! I'm waiting on some dylusions and can't wait to try them, but in the meantime this is coloured with liberal amounts of distress inks. The stamping is all from Indigo Blu's Alice I set. I wanted it to look a bit ghostly, so stamped off the first images and used the second ones (same colour distress inks as the backgrounds).

"Best Butter!"

The hare is adapted from a Dover Publications free clipart image - he's one of those paper dolls. I added lots of little bits of glaze here and there and touched up the image with some pens. Glossy accents was used to make it look like real butter on the toast. After decorating, he's cut out, shaped and stuck on to the background with Pinflair for some added dimension.

Ingredients:

Indigo Blu unmounted stamp set - Alice 1

Distress Inks: Barn Door, Stormy Sky, Pine Needles, Mustard Seed, Vintage Photo
Mad March Hare image from Dover publications

Cardstock: thick red for card blank

Adhesives: Pinflair, Glossy Accents

Sakura Glaze pen

Inkssentials opaque pen: white

Gold pen

printed labels

Entered for the following challenge;
Altered Alice - Best Butter!

An Altered Alice Clock

The theme at Altered Alice this month is hearts. It's a bit late for Valentines, so here's an altered clock for your delectation :-)

"it's heart o'clock"

The original clock is one of those £1.99 jobbies from a famous Swedish furniture store. After taking apart and removing the paper clock face, the shell was decorated with Adirondack alcohol ink and gold mixative. To get into all those nooks and crannies, I stuck my hand in a plastic bag to stop it getting stained with ink and used it to dab an inked felt pad all over the plastic.

"The clock"

Some hammered gold card is decorated with the same ink colour combination and die cut into various gears which are fixed in place at different levels inside the clock using glossy accents and pinflair glue. A weathered clock chapter ring is also cut from the same card, and lots of small hearts punched from the waste. The hearts can be seen decorating the clock hands and any remaining are glued in with the gears.

I have to confess to going through four coloured versions of the rabbit before finally settling on this one! This original John Tenniel illustration  is printed on white card before colouring with distress inks and decorating with Perfect Pearls for plenty of shimmer to match the rest of the clock. He wears the chapter ring like a garland, and has a hole punched in the middle to hold the clock spindle and all the hands.

"Alice"

Images from Indigo Blu's "Alice I" set are stamped around the outside of the clock in black archival ink.

"Rabbit"

Stamping with an acrylic block doesn't really work on curves, so I just hold the inked stamps in my fingers and bend them onto the surface.

"Pendulum"

This heart is cast from UTEE melted in a melt pot and poured into a heart-shaped cookie cutter. A length of thin chain is wrapped around the heart and a layer of gold UTEE added to embed the chain into the heart, leaving one end of the chain at the top. A sentiment is stamped onto the heart with archival ink. A jump ring is added to the free end and used to join a length of thicker chain, which is attached to the back of the clock. A few charms hanging from the chain complete the decoration.

Ingredients:

IndigoBlu unmounted stamp set "Alice I"

Adirondack alcohol ink: watermelon

Adirondack alcohol ink mixative: gold

Ranger archival ink: black

Cardstock: gold, hammered for diecuts & white, stamping for rabbit print

Distress inks: Barn Door, Antique Linen, Scattered Straw

Perfect Pearls: Gold

Adhesives: glossy accents, pinflair dimensional glue

UTEE: clear, gold 

thin chain, thick chain, jump rings, beads

I nearly forgot, here's a pair of earrings to match :-)

"Alice Earrings"

Entered for the following challenge:
Altered Alice - hearts

Alice Chess Tag Book

The theme at Altered Alice this month is stripes. Lewis Carroll represented "Through the Looking Glass" as a chess game, and a chess board is made up from sets of perpendicular stripes, so what better subject than Alice Chess for my entry!

"Alice Chess Tag Book"

Lewis Carroll's original chess representation was used for the subject of the front cover, with a gold punched border to turn his chess board into a more realistic one. The background has Tim Holtz stamped images with plenty of gold Perfect Pearls for some shimmer.

"First Moves"

Each double spread represents Lewis Carroll's moves and depicts the characters in the correct squares on his chess board for each part of the story.

"1. Alice meets Red Queen"

I've added numbers to help people who aren't familiar with the chess notation.

"1. Red Queen to King's Rook's 4th"

The red notation is numbered from the opposite end of the chess board!

"Second moves"

Each double page has an Alice move and a non-Alice move.

"2. Alice through Queen's 3rd (by railway) to Queen's 4th (Tweedledum and Tweedledee)"

Ask me nicely and I'll tell you how I made the railway :-)

"2. White Queen to Queen's Bishop's 4th (after shawl)"

The crowns here are stamped and covered in Perfect Pearls. Notice the white queen ends up in the square next to Alice, Tweedledee & Tweedledum.

"Third moves"

The squares have all been coloured by masking and inking with Red Barn distress ink.

"3. Alice meets White Queen (with shawl)"

Most of the images are John Tenniel's original illustrations from the late 19th Century (hence out of copyright), and coloured with promarkers.

"3. White Queen to Queen's Bishop's 5th (becomes sheep)"

I took the liberty of adding my own "Shirley the Sheep" design in here :-). Note the red king sleeping in the square next to where Alice met Tweedlee and Tweedledum. She really is in danger of being taken!

"Fourth moves"

Well, this is as far as I have got so far.

"4. Alice to Queen's 5th (shop, river, shop)"

This is where the white queen turns into a sheep, they end up in a boat, and then go back to the shop. One of the things that has really impressed me looking at John Tenniel's illustrations is that the characters are always depicted on the correct sides for the chess squares! Some day I'll have the time and money to do a big chess board version of this for the wall.

"4. White Queen to King's Bishop's 8th (leaves egg on shelf)"

I hope you noticed all the extra stripes along the way (Alice's stockings, Tweedledee & Tweedledum's shirts, the background in the shop, the railway...). Hopefully, I'll get a chance to add the rest of the moves in a later challenge.

Entered for the following challenges:
Altered Alice - Stripes
Simon Says Stamp...Spots and/or Stripes
The Stamp Man - Use Red

Alice in Christmasland

Altered Alice have a Christmas-themed challenge this month, and there are some fabulous projects on the blog. It's definitely worth a visit if you like altered art. My entry is a tag:

"Alice in Christmasland"

The stamps are mostly from Indigo Blu's fabulous Alice I set.

For the background, the rabbit is stamped with white acrylic paint onto a die-cut white card tag, then the tag is inked with various-coloured distress inks and overstamped with the "Alice in Wonderland" stamp using a ghosting technique in black archival ink. The edges of the tag are distressed with a pair of scissors and inked with Walnut Stain.

The link from the the teapot charm is removed using a pair of sidecutters and adhered to the tag with Pinflair, carefully positioned below one of the rabbit's paws and in Alice's line of sight.

"WISH" is diecut in black using a strip alphabet die, fixed to the tag with PVA, and covered in Glossy Accents for extra dimension. Of course, I was in a bit of a hurry taking the piccies, and the "W" isn't quite dry - hence the bluish tinge.

"Snowflake"

The snowflakes are diecut from empty cat food box using a Sizzix die and covered with two coats of Picket Fence distress stain, drying with a heat tool between coats, before overstamping with the "Curioser and Curioser" stamp in black archival ink. More snowflakes are cut from acetate, covered with holographic glitter glue using a finger and fixed, glue side down, to the tag with holographic glitter glue. Some are adhered to the card snowflakes, and others are glued directly to the tag. A couple of small hearts are punched from white card, coloured with "Barn Door" and "Aged Mahogany" distress inks, and fixed to the centres of the card & acetate snowflakes.

"Alice"

Alice is stamped on grungeboard using archival ink, then cut out leaving a small border and roughly coloured with green & red distress inks before edging in Walnut Stain. Red, green and gold glitter glues are used to highlight areas and make her look a bit more Christmassy. A couple of holly leaf sequins are added to her hair along with some red glitter glue "berries". [aside: I rather like the red, glitter shoes, reminiscent of Dorothy's. Funny how they are both trapped in strange worlds and wanting to find a way home].

"Admit tickets, ribbon & rabbit"

The "admit tickets" are from a Tim Holtz set, stamped in archival ink on cream card. Red promarker is used to colour the border, before the edges are distressed with scissors and inked in walnut stain. Names are stamped in "Barn Door" distress inks using stamps from various sets.

A rabbit charm was attached to a jump ring and a length of green ribbon threaded through and attached to the tag.

"Journal ticket"

The journal ticket is from the Kaisercraft "Up, Up and Away" stamp set, stamped in Barn Door distress ink on cream card and dated "December 25th" by hand, before distressing, folding in half and adhering to the card beneath Alice.

Entered for the following challenges:
Altered Alice - A Lewis Christmas Carroll to all
Simon Says Stamp and Show... Thru' the looking glass - projects with depth (come on, it has to be Alice with a title like that! :-))

Alice and The Blue Caterpillar

Making my card for the Altered Alice Challenge earlier in the month, I came across this fabulous original illustration by John Tenniel of Alice and the Blue Caterpillar, and couldn't resist colouring it for a second Autumn-themed Alice card.

"You're Smokin'"

The image was printed onto cream card and coloured with promarkers. The background branches were punched from various cardstocks using a Martha Stewart Deep Edge punch, then adhered with PVA to a distress-inked background. The lettering was double die-cut in blue and black using a Tim Holtz strip die. Hubby says "it's not very PC...", but I couldn't resist the sentiment (say it like Jim Carey would). :)

Entered for the following challenge:
Altered Alice

Autumn in Wonderland

The theme for Altered Alice this month is a project drenched in fall colours. There are some fab projects, so if you've never visited before, I urge you to pop over and have a look. Luckily for me, I won a gorgeous set of Indigo Blu stamps last month (thank you!), and here they are making a first appearance:

"Autumn in Wonderland"

I used some music-notes card to make a box frame and decorated it with distress inks in Autumn colours.

"Moody Mad Hatter"

The moody Mad Hatter and sentiment from Indigo Blu's "Alice I" set was stamped in brown and masked while the background was covered in distress ink.

"Tablecloth"

My mil gave me some gorgeous old lace hankies last week, and I used one of them to make the edge of the tablecloth draped over the front of the table and dyed with some distress ink to match the background.

"Pocket Watch Charm"

The card frame makes a great, strong ledge for placing items. This large pocket watch charm was fixed in place with Pinflair glue.

"Tree"

Branches to make a tree were punched using a Martha Stewart deep edge punch and fixed up the side of the card.

"Alice"

Well, Alice has to be there somewhere! I love the way the Alice books play with sizes; Alice keeps shrinking and growing so she never knows quite what size she is. These Indigo Blu stamps are so detailed - I didn't want to lose any detail with my colouring so kept it to a minimum, adding just a little blue to Alice's dress and some gel pen highlights to her hair. If you look closely, you'll see her feet don't quite touch the ground. It seems to me that's the way she always walks around :)

"Leaves and Leaf Litter"

The card itself was decorated with distress inks with lots of overstamped leaves. Some extra card was coloured and stamped, then individual leaves cut out, shaped with an embossing tool, and added to the main card with Pinflair for dimension. The "forest floor" is decorated with lots of tiny bits of wood-patterned card cut randomly (they're actually the bits left over from punching the branches cut up really small). If you've ever looked at dead leaves on the ground once they've dried up, they really aren't leaf-shaped at all!

"Mushroom"

There are always plenty of mushrooms here in the Autumn. My friend Lee (CraftyLoops) gave me a silver-coloured mushroom charm saying "wasn't there a mushroom in Alice somewhere?" Well, yes Lee there was - thank you :) Here, I've decorated the mushroom with red & silver glitter glue to resemble a Fly Agaric. Look closely and you'll also see a couple of mushrooms drawn onto the background with a red promarker and white gel pen for the spots.

"The Blue Caterpillar"

Well here's the mushroom on which the blue caterpillar sits. I've turned it into a Fly Agaric to match with the Autumn scene. The hookah pipes are formed from some silver thread stuck onto the image with a little drop of glossy accents. This image is cut from the original John Tenniel illustration which is in the public domain, and was coloured with promarkers & white gel pen.

That's all folks! If you've made it this far, many thanks and please leave me a comment to let me know you were here. x

Entered for the following challenge:

Altered Alice

Hallowe'en in Wonderland

Of the gorgeous things I bought at the Belfast Craft Show last week, the Graphic45 papers inspired me first. I started playing with them as soon as I got home, and came up with this card for this month's Altered Alice Challenge which celebrates the Mad Hatter's birthday in the US (6th October in America and 10th June here, after the 10/6 in his hat!). In the book, the Mad Hatter sings "Twinkle, twinkle little bat..."

"Hallowe'en in Wonderland"

This was also the first card I made with my new Hougie board; the folds for the stepper card were a breeze! I used small pieces of black velvet ribbon tied into the top of each of the Graphic45 tags to look like bats, and the main image is a digitally altered Graphics Fairy image coloured with promarkers to match the tags. The bats were also downloaded from the Graphics Fairy. A couple of bats were adhered to thin strips of acetate and the acetate fixed to the card so the bats can fly.

Also entered for the following challenge:
Crafty Boots

And check out this mega candy

It's all relative - an Alice Project

Lewis Carroll was a wonderful mathematician and "Alice in Wonderland" is full of Maths if you know where to look. This project is all about "Relative" versus "Absolute".

"It's all relative - an Alice project"

It's all a matter of perspective. If you look at things from Alice's perspective she gets bigger...

"Did Alice Grow?"

The front and inside are both frames with lettering from a Tim Holtz' alphabet strip die, and a vintage Alice picture behind.. (Notice the 3d effect on the lettering from using two sets of letters in gold and black). The images today are all free and from the Magic Moonlight blog. The front image is pre-coloured, and the inside one is hand-coloured to match with promarkers.

"Or the Room Shrink?"

It's all a matter of perspective. Looked at from outside the room, the same effect can be achieved by shrinking the room. Until the rabbit turns up again! Has he shrunk too??

"Bottle detail showing shrink plastic butterflies"

I couldn't resist altering a bottle to match this project. The outside is coloured with Adirondack alcohol inks, then covered with some mesh. The butterflies are from shrink plastic, embossed with Cosmic Shimmer gold embossing powder, and decorated with tiny gems.

"Bottle detail showing bottle top"

The cap was decorated with matching gems. It's supposed to resemble a crown, but I'm not sure how successful this is!

"Drink Me Tag"

Finally, the tag was kraft cardstock (thanks Lee!), decorated with resist technique stamped clocks and coloured with distress inks, lace and more of the die cut Tim Holtz lettering.

So there you have it. Alice grows relative to the room (or the room shrinks relative to Alice). Who knows the truth? Only the outside observer...except does observing change the truth? But that's another story...