Curiouser and curiouser

Hello all, and welcome to the monthly Artistic Outpost bloghop, with an especially big welcome to the new followers - great to have you on board.  The Design Team have been working with the theme of Children's Literature, and there are some wonderful pieces to see, so here are the blogs you'll want to explore:

Gerrie Johnnic, Lisa Somerville, Suzanne Czosek, Tracy Evans,

Linda Coughlin, Alison Bomber, Terry Horrall, Kate Yetter

I'm sharing an Altered Book I made using the Wonderland Collage plate (with a couple of other AO stamps thrown in for good measure of course!).

I had such fun altering my book for the current eclectic Paperie challenge, that it seemed a simple choice to work along the same lines for this theme.  (The eP challenge is still on for one last day - you'll find all the details here - do come and play, you've just got time!)

But I've turned my book the other way up for this one, so it stands up like a rather chunky card - only with the centre on display rather than the front, so... not really like a card at all, then!

And the back is also decorated...  The Distorted Hive mask from Tando was the perfect choice for a Wonderland project - a geometric pattern being pulled curiously out of shape.


I added swirls of branch flourishes using the lovely stamp from the Serenity set, but without inking up the sentiment which is part of the same stamp.













I also used the tiny flourish from the same set.

And since we're talking literature, I also added some print block lettering using the fabulous stamp from the Secretary Pool set, just rolled on in places rather than stamped in full.

For the inside, I started by allowing the book (Mill on the Floss - sorry, I'm prepared to alter George Eliot, but not prepared to alter an actual Alice!!) to fall open where it chose, happily somewhere around the middle.

I then gave the whole interior a thick coat of watercolour ground (this is the gesso-like medium I've been experimenting with).  Sorry, I forgot to take process photos as I went - too busy playing!

I used the Distorted Hive again with DIs in various blues and greens across the whole of the two pages, and then added some leaves in the corners by stencilling texture paste through the Leaf Swirl Border mask from Imagination Crafts.









I built up layers of Fresco paints around the leaves with varying degrees of success.  Couldn't quite get it how I wanted - not going to tell you how many layers are on there!

I finished up eventually with some white paint onto the leaves themselves, and then added a layer of Rock Candy crackle paint and left it do its thing.








I stamped the two main images on some gesso'd pages torn from the book before I painted it, so there is some book text just visible within the images.

I used Distress Stains and a water brush to "watercolour" the images - seems to be my new favourite thing to do (as you'll know if you saw my PaperArtsy samples or the tag with the fabulous Nicecrane Steampunk Girls).








I stuck to a limited palette - yup, green/blue/turquoise with some Vintage Photo for good measure - and the incredibly useful Pumice Stone for the not-quite-white shading on the White Rabbit.

And Alice's crown has had a touch of Metallic Distress Stain in Pewter to add to its lustre.  The strange blue flowers resulting from this limited palette rather please me in a Wonderland-y kind of way.  The little word phrase is perfect to fit the label space underneath.










I just love the White Rabbit image from this set - not only the WR himself, but the delicious clocks surrounding him.  And it's great that there's a separate clock stamp in the set that matches these ones, though in a smaller size.











I was able to stamp the clock over the edges of the pages, thanks to the thick coat of ground.  I particularly like the one with the added Game Spinners, "falling" off the edge of the book in a very curious way (very Lewis Carroll).












There's another one under some of the inked flowers, only visible if the book is lying down rather than standing up, of course, so a secret Dali-clock!









I chose my metal pieces in coppery browns to contrast with the blue/green spectrum.  I've used one of the cool new Chronology clocks from Papermania, as well as a clock hand from the same line, though the others are all Idea-ology.












And on the Alice page, it's all about the key that she can't get in the right place at the right time, as she's struggling to get herself the right size to get through the door into the Wonderland garden in the first place.







The tiny lock and key are brads, and the larger lock is an Idea-ology one.  It seemed appropriately odd to attach it with the flower heads rather than fasteners; likewise the flower at the centre of the clock opposite...

Curiouser, and curiouser!

I do hope you've enjoyed the trip around my Wonderland altered book. I'm going to leave you with a couple of very curious angles on the whole thing...

Hop on around to the rest of the Artistic Outpost team for lots of amazing inspiration - all the details are here.

And have a peculiarly wonderful day!




“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.”









“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to."
"I don't much care where –"
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go.”

“I wonder if I've been changed in the night. Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!”









“It was much pleasanter at home," thought poor Alice, "when one wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn't gone down the rabbit-hole -- and yet -- and yet -- ...”

Extracts from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland

I'd like to enter this in the Metal-ology challenge over at Simon Says Stamp and Show
And also in the Stampotique Designers Challenge, where they would like to see some Text in the projects - it's faint, but it's there in the stamped and watercoloured images!