Challenges have been discontinued, but I hope you will enjoy browsing through this wonderful archive of Alice-inspired art!

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Celebrate Mad Hatter Day with a MAD TEA PARTY - Winner & Honorable Mentions

We hope you have enjoyed our Mad Tea Party! I have two more design team projects to share with you, then we will move on to the news you are all waiting for: the winner of The Artistic Stamper's generous prize!



The project from me, Lynne Phelps of Savvy Sisters Studio, is a little dimensional tea party vignette! I wanted to pay tribute to the style of Mabel Lucie Attwell, with her soft yellow skies and orange suns. Her Alice had red hair, and as a red head myself I complete approve of the move away from our traditional blond!


Here you can see the dimension. I drew in a table to extend the stamped image, then scored and folded it at the front and back edges of the table. The dormouse and tea pot were stamped again and popped up. My photography does not capture the 3D effect when you see this piece!  For more detail, and to leave me a comment, please visit my blog, Savvy Sisters Studio! I would really love a visit from you!


Jess Marin of My Scrap Diary made this wonderfully "hatted" easel card! I really love the patterned paper hat and ribbon hatband with the "Mad as a Hatter" charm! Of course the focal point is Jess' vivid coloring; I love her choice of colors and beatiful shading! She has inspired me to give my colored pencils some again, and to remember there are other methods besides Copics, LOL!


Jess' vivid color choices and fantastic shading has been applied to the stack of teacups. I love her touch of a handwritten note, as though the Mad Hatter was just jotting down a few items to remember! Please stop by My Scrap Diary to leave Jess a comment on her wonderful easel card!




Our sponsor, Jennie of The Artistic Stamper, is bringing her favorite teapot to the party. She has done some clever work with her scissors and actually has the Mad Hatter and the March Hare stuffing the dormouse into a real teapot! In case you were wondering, Jennie was counted OUT before I did the drawing, LOL!





Challenge Winner

We LOVE The Artistic Stamper!Our generous sponsor this month is The Artistic Stamper, and the winner will receive a £15 pound voucher for The Artistic Stamper stamps! (Please note the voucher is for The Artistic Stamper stamps, not for other merchandise.) They have a WONDERFUL online store that offers free worldwide shipping on orders over £35 and they carry loads of my favorite brands. The Artistic Stamper Creative Team Blog offers amazing inspiration and interesting challenges, so be sure to visit! 

Drum roll please. . . Random.org has selected #11, and Valerianas Studio from Germany is our winner!


The color scheme is fun and I really love the way it sets off the black and white illustrations! Note that her tea party contribution was some lovely cupcakes!  Valeriana had two entries, the other one being a wonderful digital collage.



Valeriana, you are now entitled to display this Challenge Winner blog badge! Contact me through the email link at the top of the left column, and I will forward your information to Jennie to arrange your prize!

A few Challenge notes

  • Remember, with almost a month to enter, you are welcome to enter more than one project as long as they are on separate posts.
  • You do not need to have a blog to enter. You can also upload your photos to a gallery or album. Splitcoaststampers is highly recommended, it is designed for uploading stamped artwork, accounts are free and include a member gallery, and the permissions allow anyone to view your gallery. They also have forums, tutorials, and other resources for the stamping community.
  • If you link a Facebook photo, we probably will NOT be able to see it! Normal Facebook permissions are either "Friends Only" or "Friends and Friends of Friends" which will not include most of us, and if you have created a challenge entry, we would sure like to see it! For security reasons, we DO NOT recommend that you open up your Facebook permissions, so we also DO NOT recommend that you link your challenge entries from Facebook.
  • Flickr and Photobucket would be a good alternative to Facebook, just make sure your photos are visible to the public. They will also allow us to leave comments! 
  • Entry #18, Sassy Lou, we would have loved to leave a comment but we could not see your entry.

And now, the Honorable Mentions!


This month it was a TWO part challenge. You had to create a project that celebrated the Mad Hatter, AND you had to tell us what you were bringing to our Mad Tea Party!


As usual with Lola Azul's challenge entry, I need to show more than one picture so you can get the full effect! She has created a wonderful wallet which holds set of party invitations featuring realistic photos which she has altered into Mad Hatters; they are really quite extraordinary!


 

And her party contribution is equally extraordinary: SOCKS for the table and chair legs!!! How funny and how madly Alice is that?

I just love this project and party contribution, and I hope you will stop by and leave a comment for Lola on Apuntes des Colores!


Kathleen of Kat's Craft Creations brought a lovely lacy tablecloth for our tea table, which she incorporated into her fab side-step card design! I love all the warm colors and patterns, and the rosettes with the playing cards, price tag, and the watch at the top are the perfect accents!




Hazel of Hazel's Creative Moments has actually recreated the whole tea party, AND brought a piano plus the kitchen sink! Be sure to visit her blog to read about how she made this and to see a close-up photo. She says we can all have a "jolly old sing song and knees up" plus wash up after the party! I love it that she has a tiny kitchen sink teapot on the tiny table, which is made from a small stretched canvas, and the piano tea pot is perfect. I'll just bet it can play "Twinkle twinkle little bat. . . . " Of course I also love it that there are pints of the best brew sitting atop the piano, LOL!  While I drink hot tea all day every day, there are other brews I'm quite fond of!



Nigel of Freebird's flights of fancy captured the moment of the Mad Hatter's party performance of "Twinkle, twinkle, little bat" AND he brought a lovely tea loaf! Yum! We had several slices slathered with the BEST BUTTER! He did a salt technique that gives his night sky a wonderful starry effect. Love the cut and pasted text, not to mention the bat!


Rhea of Starrgazer Creates made a divine altered book cover, and she is bringing some lovely vintage linens for our party table! I really LOVE the way she has arranged the Fragment-covered images and tags around the large rabbit image. The juxtaposition of the large White Rabbit and the teeny-tiny images makes this piece so interesting! 


Blackdragon has brought a teacup, saucer, and teapot to the party in this intriguing shadow box! Of course it has a dark side! Visit her blog for lots of closeup photos. My favorite bit is that Mad Hatter chess piece and the Cheshire Cat in the lower right corner, enjoying the little garden!


I just LOVE the way Artyjen created her own story caption from the image! LOVE this art journal page. Artyjen is bringing a bottle of Cava to the party, woohoo!  Cava is a sparkling wine from Spain, sometimes call Spanish Champagne! Thank for that, Artyjen!


I had to close with this one. Godzoned (Debbie) of Have a Crafty Day! altered a chocolate brownie into Upelkuchen, and warns us that eating too much WILL cause us to grow too large! Too funny!



Those mentioned here today are awarded this Honorable Mention blog badge, and I hope all of you will display it on your blogs with pride! I wish I had time to mention each and every entrant, but I think it would take me until next week to say what I loved about each one. THANKS to everyone for playing along with The Altered Alice!

Thanks again to The Artistic Stamper for being such a great sponsor, and to Hels and Jennie for playing along! Please leave a comment here before you go, we all LOVE reading your comments!

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Celebrate Mad Hatter Day with a MAD TEA PARTY - Week 3



Join Us for a MAD TEA PARTY!

We LOVE The Artistic Stamper!Our generous sponsor this month is The Artistic Stamper, and they are offering a£15 pound voucher for The Artistic Stamper stamps! They have a WONDERFUL online store that offers free worldwide shipping on orders over £35 and they carry loads of my favorite brands. The Artistic Stamper Creative Team Blogoffers amazing inspiration and interesting challenges, so be sure to visit! Jennie has kindly provided our design team with the Mabel Lucie Attwell Mad Hatter Stamp for our projects this month. It will be interesting to see how everyone applies their own style and vision to the same image!

This is the LAST WEEK TO ENTER!!!
The challenge this month is to create a project to celebrate the Mad Hatter, AND to bring something to our Mad Tea Party! 
You have until Friday, June 24 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -4:00) and we'll announce the winner of the £15 voucher for The Artistic Stamper stamps on Sunday, June 26!


Here are the design team's party contributions:


Your Weekly Inspiration:



Donna, a.k.a. "Meme" of Meme's Art Place is shedding light on our tea party with her cleverly decorated a lamp - we could almost call it a Tea Light!  This is just brilliant in a most illuminating way, get it?  Meme stamped the image on tissue paper and carefully colored it in with water color pencils and an aquabrush, then trimmed it closely and applied it to the parchment lampshade using fluid matte medium.


This project is just brilliant, as the lamp looks equally great when illuminated!


The rest of the shade is decorated the same way with all different Alice quotes. Be sure to stop by Meme's Art Place to let her know how illuminating and inspiring you find her decorated lamp project!



The clever Erin Leveille of Stamp till U Cramp made this ingenious Mad Hatter box from a graduation cap template turned upside down!  The brim of the hat is the the lid as originally designed! You can see the way it works here:


On the other side of the hat brim piece is a raised square lip to anchor the top of the hat when closed.


Our Mabel Lucie Attwell image from The Artistic Stamper shows to advantage on the crown of the hat. I just love all the beautiful  vivid colors in the background - gorgeous!



And the sales tag, lovely beaded hat pins, and a lace hatband make the perfect finishing touches! Erin did say she would bring hats to the party and here is another great example! Be sure to stop by Erin's blog to let her know how you like this great hat!


Terri DeVine of DeVine Designs by Terri not only stole some tarts to bring to the party, she also enlarged the image and used it as the background for this beautiful card! The image is colored with Copics and it is gorgeous! The metallic gold rim around the shape and the card base add a lot of elegance, and the coating of Diamond Glaze on the teapot gives it dimension and gloss. I have seen this card in real life and I have to tell you the teapot is AMAZING - be sure to click to see the larger view! Then please stop by Terri's blog and let her know how you enjoyed the stolen tarts!


We have a wonderful bonus project from Tracy/CuddlyBunny; the monochromatic color scheme and the sponged edges really lets the image shine on this great easel card.  If Tracy/CuddlyBunny is sending out these invitations for a Mad Tea Party, I hope I'm on the list! Please visit Tracy/CuddlyBunny's blog to thank her for making this bonus project.

Now I am the one who's watch is running two day's late; due to pressures of work my project is not complete. I'll share next week to kick off our Winner/Honorable Mention post; remember your time is running out!

So find something fun to bring to our Mad Tea Party, and show & tell when you link your project that celebrates the Mad Hatter! You have until Friday, June 24 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -4:00) and we'll announce the winner of the £15 voucher for The Artistic Stamper stamps on Sunday, June 26! And Happy Mad Hatter Day from The Altered Alice!

To enter your creation, use the linky tool below - just click the red link below the thumbnail images. Please list YOUR NAME or YOUR BLOG NAME when you link your entry. The field is long enough that you can also put the title of your piece, but please, please, please put your name first. (Note - if you are viewing this in email or through a reader, you will need to click on the title of this post to view it on the blog.) REMEMBER THIS IS A TWO-PART CHALLENGE: Your Mad Hatter creation, AND tell us what you are bringing to the Mad Tea Party and show a photo if you can!

Please leave a comment here before you go! 

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Celebrate Mad Hatter Day with a MAD TEA PARTY - Week 2




Join Us for a MAD TEA PARTY!


We LOVE The Artistic Stamper!Our generous sponsor this month is The Artistic Stamper, and they are offering a£15 pound voucher for The Artistic Stamper stamps! They have a WONDERFUL online store that offers free worldwide shipping on orders over £35 and they carry loads of my favorite brands. The Artistic Stamper Creative Team Blogoffers amazing inspiration and interesting challenges, so be sure to visit! Jennie has kindly provided our design team with the Mabel Lucie Attwell Mad Hatter Stamp for our projects this month. It will be interesting to see how everyone applies their own style and vision to the same image!

The challenge this month is to create a project to celebrate the Mad Hatter, AND to bring something to our Mad Tea Party! You have until Friday, June 24 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -4:00) and we'll announce the winner of the £15 voucher for The Artistic Stamper stamps on Sunday, June 26!

Here are the design team's party contributions:




Your Weekly Inspiration:


First off, not only is Sue Roddis of JABBERWOCKY bringing the cups to the Mad Tea Party, she MADE the cups! She started by making the cups from card stock using a template, then she covered them with papier-mâché and painted them with hearts and various borders. These are SO cool!


She also created placecards for our Mad Tea Party.  I love it that they all have little Paper umbrellas!  Of course if Wonderland is anything like England I'm sure they'll be needed!  Hmmm. I have usually seen these sprouting from the top of fancy cocktails; I wonder if Sue had to consume a few for the cause?  ;-) Read more about the cups and see additional photos when you leave a comment on this post!




Mad Hatter Day is a pretty big deal around here, so of course Sue documented the event in her art journal! She used our Mad Hatter stamp along with other Mable Lucie Attwell stamps from The Artistic Stamper.


It looks like the background was built up through various stencils, I love the rich layering and warm colors! And of course, we ARE all mad here, LOL!


I also love the waySue has wrapped the text around a circle from each image; this text treatment sure adds a lot of dynamic energy to the design!  You can leave a comment and read more about the art journal pages on this post.




Tracy, a.k.a. CuddlyBunny of Not a Moment to Spare has created this wonderful woodland scene with sheet music, book text, and a very interesting technique with oil pastels. I absolutely love this piece and it is providing me with all kinds of inspiration for my own (yet to be created) piece - but don't worry Tracy, I'll give you full credit!  The way the musical treetops project at various levels from the base gives the piece so much depth; these trees really are sheltering and shading the Mad Tea Party beneath!  I really love the torn edges on the oil pastel painted treetop pieces, and the melty strokes add a lot of texture.


More oil pastel was used to bring the stamped image to life with such a density of color; the cool blues and grays contrast nicely with the warm greens and brown of the trees and the ivory of the book page.  Be sure to visit Tracy's blog and let her know how much you like her creation, and to read about the fascinating oil pastel technique she used to get that amazing melty, glossy texture on the treetops and mushrooms!




Barbara Washington of Magic Delights is bringing the Mad Hatter's Watch to the party, which she made using a Tim Holtz pocket watch case and other bits and pieces!  Of course it wasn't ready when I made the graphic of what everyone on the team is bringing to the party, because the Mad Hatter's watch runs exactly two days slow! That's Barbara's story and she's sticking to it!


Inside, Barbara adhered a picture of the mad hatter, and then added a game spinner, a couple red roses, and various watch parts! Really neat!


Then Barbara made a wonderful plaque with a pyramid-layered set of the images stamped on various colored papers! You can see the depth in the photo above, isn't it a neat effect?


And this is what the plaque looks like straight on! Magic! I love the mix of colored papers, and the background tea-patterned paper could not be more perfect for this project! Be sure to stop by Barbara's blog and let her know how you like her watch and plaque!


Hels Sheriden of Ink on My Fingers is the Creative Coordinator of The Artistic Stamper Creative Team Blog, and she has contributied this fun easel card to our party - not to mention a nice spicy curry! Hels painted in the stamped image with Distress Inks and a waterbrush with some nice sponging round the edges.  I really like the simple, tailored presentation that makes the image the star of the show!


Instead of an Alice quote, Hels has come up with her own quote, and very Alice-worthy it is too!  Dormouse teabags, only Hels (and perhaps Nigel?) would have come up with this sentiment! Hels, thanks so much for playing along with The Altered Alice!  Be sure to visit Hels' blog to let her know what you think of this great, funny card.

Erin is having interenet connection problems this week, so we'll share her project next week instead!

So find something fun to bring to our Mad Tea Party, and show & tell when you link your project that celebrates the Mad Hatter! You have until Friday, June 24 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -4:00) and we'll announce the winner of the £15 voucher for The Artistic Stamper stamps on Sunday, June 26! And Happy Mad Hatter Day from The Altered Alice!

To enter your creation, use the linky tool below - just click the red link below the thumbnail images. Please list YOUR NAME or YOUR BLOG NAME when you link your entry. The field is long enough that you can also put the title of your piece, but please, please, please put your name first. (Note - if you are viewing this in email or through a reader, you will need to click on the title of this post to view it on the blog.)


Please leave a comment here before you go! 

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Celebrate Mad Hatter Day with a MAD TEA PARTY, Altered Alice Style!


Join Us for a MAD TEA PARTY!
There are two Mad Hatter Days every year, and one of them is this month! In the United States, October 6th is Mad Hatter Day as we abbreviate our dates as month/day. In the United Kingdom, Mad Hatter Day is June 10th as they abbreviate their dates as day/month. So what do these dates have to do with the Mad Hatter? In the original Tenniel illustrations, the Mad Hatter has a price tag tucked into his hat band. It says "In this Style 10/6" which, for us ignorant Yankees means ten schillings and sixpence, or half a guineau back in Alice's day! So Mad Hatter Day falls on 10/6, and here at The Altered Alice, instead of choosing between date systems, we just celebrate twice a year!!!

We LOVE The Artistic Stamper! Our generous sponsor this month is The Artistic Stamper, and they are offering a £15 pound voucher for The Artistic Stamper stamps! They have a WONDERFUL online store that offers free worldwide shipping on orders over £35 and they carry loads of my favorite brands. The Artistic Stamper Creative Team Blog offers amazing inspiration and interesting challenges, so be sure to visit! Jennie has kindly provided our design team with the Mabel Lucie Attwell Mad Hatter Stamp for our projects this month. It will be interesting to see how everyone applies their own style and vision to the same image!

The challenge this month is to create a project to celebrate the Mad Hatter, AND to bring something to our Mad Tea Party! You have until Friday, June 24 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -4:00) and we'll announce the winner of the £15 voucher for The Artistic Stamper stamps on Sunday, June 26!

Here are the design team's party contributions:


Your Weekly Inspiration from the Design Team:

This month everyone on the design team will be using the same charming image by Mabel Lucie Attwell that features the Mad Hatter and the March Hare stuffing the Dormouse into the teapot as Alice departs the tea party.

Normally I post the design team projects in the order they submit them to me, but this month I'm jumping a bit out of order because Retta's party ensemble is such a perfect kick-off to our Mad Tea Party!



Retta Fox of Foxy's Weblog begins her party ensemble with this lovely and fun invitation! I love the way she echoed the polka dot pattern on the Mad Hatter's hatband in her choice of papers and ribbons throughout the ensemble!


Of course on the inside of Retta's invitation, we see that it takes place at 6 o'clock, because it is ALWAYS time for tea in Wonderland!   Love the way she reduced her colored image inside the card. The date, of course, is 10/6. So, are you going to show up on June 10th or October 6th?  Ha!



Once we arrive at the party, we find a lovely banner to welcome us to the Mad Tea Party!  Love the way the pompom fringe ties in with the polka dots!


Each pennant in the banner has the image stamped in white on the crimson background, and the doily peeking out behind is a great tea party touch, don't you think?


I am not sure if this is meant to be worn as a party hat or serve as an amazing centerpiece, but either way I LOVE it! This time the image was stamped on white shrink plastic to make a lovely charm for the hat! Aren't those hat pins a great touch?  The thing I love most is the way it perfectly echoes the Mad Hatter's hat in our stamped image, complete with polka dot hatband and price tag! And I don't know about you, but I'm thinking that charm would make a pretty cool necklace to wear between tea parties, don't you?


And what would a party be without gifts?  I love Love LOVE the way Retta has stamped this image on the crimson and just highlighted touches with white or yellow. A custom gift bag is a brilliant way to complete this FABULOUS Mad Tea Party ensemble! Kudos to Retta, and please stop by her blog to leave her some comments on her brilliant inspiration project!


Tracy Evan's large pocket watch plaque is decorated with MANY different versions of the stamped image, but unlike the previous ensemble, these are all part of the same wonderful piece!  I love the soft monochromatic colors Tracy used to unify all the various elements of her wonderful wall art. This piece is all about the details, and as I am very detail oriented the whole thing just makes me really happy!


I love the way Tracy has used circles to frame different vignettes within the same image. We see three large circles of descending size on the right side of the plaque. LOVE the way Tracy has then added a shrink plastic version of the same vignette as an embellishment to each stamped circle!


The little striped top hat projecting from the base is a wonderful touch, and Tracy filled the circle at the top of the hat with another stamped circle, this time with the Mad Hatter's face!


The fringe is made up of eyelash yard and all kinds of great embellishments! Card suits, hearts, a pocket watch cham, playing cards; the whole thing is just wonderful! Be sure to stop by Tracy's blog and leave her a comment!

So find something fun to bring to our Mad Tea Party, and show & tell when you link your project that celebrates the Mad Hatter! You have until Friday, June 24 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -4:00) and we'll announce the winner of the £15 voucher for The Artistic Stamper stamps on Sunday, June 26! And Happy Mad Hatter Day from The Altered Alice!

To enter your creation, use the linky tool below - just click the red link below the thumbnail images. Please list a name when you link your entry, your name or the name of your blog. (Note - if you are viewing this in email or through a reader, you will need to click on the title of this post to view it on the blog.)


Please leave a comment here before you go! I'd love to know how you like the design team projects, and also whether or not you like the Mad Tea Party idea!