The Altered Alice Chapter 23: We're All Mad Here, So Anything Goes

Sit back and grab a cuppa because this post is gonna take as long to read as it did for me to finish the project, but I must say, I haven't been this excited about crafting in a LONG while. We'll be having a little reminder post over at The Altered Alice a bit later, but in the meantime, here's another little inspiration from me. There's still time to enter.

 

`In THAT direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round, `lives a Hatter: and in THAT direction,' waving the other paw, `lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad.'

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.

`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'

`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.

`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'

-- Chapter 6, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

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"We're all mad here" is the favorite Alice quote of artist Rick St. Dennis, so in January, anything goes! Be mad! Get cute, get creepy, get crazy, because Rick St. Dennis has amazing digi stamps in all those styles, including many wonderful AIW images! Submit your creations by Friday, January 25th for a chance to win three digital stamps from Rick St. Dennis. All projects are welcome, but those featuring Wonderland will have two chances at the prize instead of one. Multiple entries are welcome, but to be counted as separate entries they must be on separate posts.

The one thing I have been able to do during my crafting slump is color, and the fabulous AIW images are so much FUN to color that I wanted to use as many as possible.  My thought was to have Alice fallling down the rabbit hole and seeing all the characters on the way (wasn't initially sure how I was gonna pull that off ) but I didn't really have an Alice that fit my vision.  Rick to the rescue!  I mentioned it to him and within an hour he sent me this fabulous Alice, exactly how I had described her.  What a GUY!  Now I'm not saying he's gonna go cranking out custom stuff every time, but he does welcome suggestions.  I was particularly thrilled when he put her in the shop with a little mention.  You can grab her HERE.  Thanks ever so much, Rick!  She's just perfect, so I printed her in three different sizes to give the illusion that she's falling and used an ancient Sizzix Spiral die to cut the hole.  I colored it in a checkerboard motif and and thought "Now what?"

My initial thought was to make a book with a page for each character and holes of descending size on each page as Alice fell further and further down.  Yeah, right.  Choosing DP sends me into fits of indecision so that was DEFINITELY out! Besides, having them all together has such greater impact, don'tcha think? My solution was to do a step card which conveniently allowed me to stretch out my hole for the depth I was imagining with room on the side for all the other guys.  I didn't even use DP because I thought the black and white background scheme showed the colored images to better advantage.  Just a bit of embossing for texture and I was good to go. 

 

So on the way, Alice encountered The March Hare,

 

The Tweedles,
 

 

The Queen of HeArts Zentagle Style,
 

 

and the Mad Hatter.

 

They're all colored with Copics and fussy cut, mostly with a craft knife so as not to clip off any of the fabby details.  (A little tip here.  I use my old Cricut mats to cut images with my knife because the little sticky that's left keeps them from slipping and protects any surface).  This took FOREVER, and imagine my dismay when I realized that because of the cheap crap paper I use to print my images, the bleed through required I back them and do it all AGAIN!  (I seriously considered skipping that part and making sure the pix didn't show any of the mess, but once I laid the colored images down on black and saw how the colors popped, I decided it was soooo worth it.)

But wait a minute.  What about the Cheshire Cat?  I'd run out of steps.  Hmmm...  He did seem to appear in the trees so I used a Crafts Too folder and embossed and fussy cut a tree for him to sit in.  I did flip him in my Printmaster Program because he looked better facing the opposite direction of the March Hare and his swirlies are enhanced with metallic gel pens so he sort of sparkles.

My only problem now was making the tree strong enough to hold him and not collapse on the rest of Wonderland.  Fortunately, I planned on backing the tree with black too and inserted a skewer up the trunk before attaching the layers.  Then I folded up the sides (thank God I left the bottom sides long) and glued that to the last step. The black ground is taped directly to the bottom of the last fold and then held on each side with adhesive foam to keep the tree upright. The banner in front was computer generated and cut by hand and I colored some of my pink metallic hearts red, with a Bic Marker to embellish it.  DONE!  and let me tell you I was doin' the "Happy Dance"! 

Now, if you're not snoring, I invite you to pop over to The Altered Alice for more inspiration with Rick's wonderful images.  There's still time to enter and it doesn't even have to be an Alice project, although those who do get a double chance at winning.  I might also mention that Rick has just added some new Wonderland images to his Etsy SHOP so be sure and check those out, too.  I've already snatched them up and can't wait to color some more.

Finally, I'm also entering this in the Sparkle and Glitter with Rick St. Dennis current Challenge which is Anything but a Square.  Pretty sure this qualifies,  the Totally Papercrafts It's Embossing Time Challenge, A Gem of a Challenge Emboss It, The Simply Create Linky Party #18, and the Glitter and Sparkle Sentimental Challenge. Finally, I'm adding it to the Octopode Factory Friday Mad Hatter's Tea Party Challenge because I didn't get a chance to do one with my fabulous Octopode stamps.  So sorry Lily, you know I love you and your work.  Thanks for hangin' in there with me.

Macabre Monday Lurid Landscapes

This week at Haunted Design House our challenge is Lurid Landscapes. I scoured the net in search of someting spooky, but most of the stuff either easn't that scary or had a copyright thingy soo I was in a bit of a tizzy then I remembered my fab Holy City stamps from Smeared Ink. Hey yeah, graveyards are landscapes. WooHoo! I live near San Francisco, and those who travel frequently or live near tourist destinations are certainly familiar with the sort of fold out postcard books available. That was my inspiration.

It all folds up and this is the cover of the project. The skellie is from a Tim Holtz Halloween set and the words are computer generated. I might add that these are RUBBER STAMPS, no digis! Do you believe it?

Again, only the words are computer generated.

All from the same set from Smeared Ink.

In fact, there were only two in the set I didn't use. That a lot of stamps!

I was so excited that I didn't mess up that I had to give you closeups of ALL of it. LOVE how well these fab stamps work.

I thought this was a cute ending. I added the little raven to the skellie's arm. Looks like he wrote the sentiment. Wonder who he's sending it to? Be sure to check out the fab work by the rest of the Minions and check out our fab HDH Blog Candy for our soon to reach goal of 500 Followers, offered by our own Creepy Glowbugg and also check out the fab candy she is offering on her personal blog. (She's doing penance for her last week's DT project. LOL) I'm also entering this in the Forever Night Black and Creepy Challenge, Simply Create Shades of Black, Shopping Our Stash Spooky and/or Orange and Black and the Simon Says Stamp Halloween/Goth Challenge..

Someone to Watch Over me

This week our Macabre Monday challenge at Haunted Design House is Gods and Monsters. You can choose from those of Greek Mythology, a classic movie, or some bizarre divination from a tale from long ago. I'm not sure I'd call this lovely gargoyle a monster, but it's gonna have to work for this challenge. The fab image is the very first I fell in love with from our dear Teri at Delicious Doodles HERE. (P.S. if you're not into creepy, there are tons of just plain beautiful digis at Delicious Doodles as well.) I just love gargoyles.

Besides the architectural purpose of diverting rain from the roof away from the side of a building to keep the water from eroding the mortar, non water spitting grotesques, also known as gargoyles, are said to scare off and protect from any evil or harmful spirits. My little guy is gonna sit on my desk and keep me nice and safe. I'm sort of bummed you can't see the embossing here under the sentiment. I used the Tim Holtz Bricked folder from Sizzix because I thought that was fitting.

This was my first attempt at a twisted easel and I used my Nesties Large Octogons to construct the base. The roses are from Recollections. Everything I've used for this card I've had for WELL over 6 months so I'm entering it in the Simply Create challenge and the monochromatic color scheme qualifies it for the 4 Crafty Chicks challenge as well. I'm also entering it in the Sentimental Sundays Anything Goes challenge, and Simon Says Stamp and Show Things with Wings.

This great image requires no coloring and just begs to be decoupaged. He was printed 6 times and I fussy cut up a storm. Just LOVE the way he pops off the page. The Minions truly enjoyed this one so pop by HDH for some inspiration and be sure to visit often this month. Besides Creepy Glowbugg's post on Wednesday with the Gruesome Twosome announcement and such, we're also bringing you all around cool and spooky stuff to make your October the best month EVER!