Quilted Paper Halloween Alice

I am so in awe of any of you who quilt!  The current Blue Moon Challenge at Gingersnap Creations is to be inspired by quilt blocks to create a project.  I decided this would be a perfect way to use more of the yummy Graphic 45 Halloween in Wonderland paper pack I bought.  I used the Aunt Dinah square from McCall's Quilting, which you can see here.  It was lots of fun to cut out the pieces, see the whole thing come together and then add a few bigger visuals.  But it was much harder than I thought! And the whole thing is still not really square.  But, still, it's a fun challenge if you want to give it a go!
And ,while I was at it, I made his Halloweeny birthday card for my niece who was born in October, in response to this week's Something Completely Different challenge to use purple and green:

I'll add a birthday greeting on the front before I send it off!

March Class Review

Who am I? (collage)

I took two classes this month: Shimelle's Something From (almost) Nothing and Connie Andrew's Collage Challenge Class.  I'll start with Shimelle's class, although my comments may not make me too popular.  And I welcome alternate opinions.

Shimelle's class was designed to get you to use up scrapbook supplies from your stash and to create pages.  I enjoyed it, and I definitely got my money's worth.  I think the basic structure was good, and there were some wonderful ideas for ways to use up supplies like ribbon, metal and alphabet stickers. Also, it helped me realize that there are some things I will never use.  I'm going to be getting those out of my stash and into the donation pile!  On the other hand, there were a few disappointments in the class.  For instance, I would have preferred for there to be a more definite theme and journaling prompts for for the optional album. I am happy with the album I made (especially because it was just sitting in my stash), but Shimelle is such a journaling guru that I would have loved to have gotten a bit more in that regard.  Second, I thought that a couple of the prompts were not that innovative.  For instance, the flower and chipboard prompts didn't seem to offer many new ideas. The page protector prompt was also a little odd to me  because I don't generally want to "use up" my page protectors.  Luckily, I did find some off-size page protectors that I wanted to use up and have found them very useful for holding newspaper clippings and other memorabilia. Finally, the class did not go as scheduled.  Shimelle added a few "inspiration" posts, featuring classmates' blogs, and challenges.  These were additional, not in lieu of the regular prompts, but they did change the timing of things a bit.  I really loved and enjoyed the challenges.  To me, they were a definite, unexpected value-added.  On the other hand, I found the inspirational posts less interesting. While I like a class to run on the advertised schedule, I'm willing to put up with a little slide in the schedule (especially in exchange for an added value like the challenges).  However, I find the slide in the schedule for this class to have become long enough to be annoying.  The final post is now scheduled to come on Monday (almost a week late in a class that was originally scheduled to only go three weeks).  On the whole, I give the class a thumbs up because it was unbelievably inexpensive to begin with; however, I don't think it was up to Shimelle's usual high standards.

Connie's class was a terrific experience.  Like everyone else, I arrived at class with only brushes and a pair of scissors. The goal was to make a collage by the end of the three hour class, using materials and a theme provided by Connie.  She gave each of us an 8x10 canvas and told us that the theme of the collage was "Alice in Wonderland."  She then passed around images and phrases for us to use as a starting point.  After that, we were free to create whatever we wanted, using the huge array of paints, acrylic mediums, and collage supplies she brought with her.  Everyone jumped right in and created terrific pieces.  You can see them all at her blog here.  I loved the opportunity to create without having to haul out all my stuff, and I was thrilled with the collage I created.  My collage is up top, and it features photographs that Lewis Carroll took of the girl for whom he created the Alice in Wonderland stories.  The journaling, taken from the book, reads "Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!  I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, Sir, because I'm not myself you see."  The background is textured gel medium, painted with acrylic paints.  It was really interesting to create a completed collage in three hours.  It taught me a lot about what I can do, and I'm thankful for the experience.  I'll definitely take her next collage challenge class!

Alice AJ Page and Update

In response to this challenge at The Scrappy Tree, I made this Alice in Wonderland art journal page.  In terms of variety and creativity, there's been a terrific response to my Alice challenge.  So far,in blog land, there have been entries from:
Jacky who made these invitations to tea;
Mel who created this awesome mini book;
Cherry who made this amazing art journal page;
and Cindy who made a wonderful pin.

Folks who sent me pictures or posted in forums include:

Ruth Ann who created a terrific frame (above); and

Holly who made this magical digital ATC (above).

With one hour left to go, updated to add these blog posts:
Karen posted this rockin' card;
Gayle posted a terrific art journal page;
Connie jumped on to the House bandwagon and made this beauty;
and Deb posted this beautiful card with paper flowers.

And Mariana stepped outside her box to make this outside-the-lines ATC card:

There's still time to come and play.  Details in this post.  Entries close at 9:00 p.m. Sunday night.

Alice Art Challenge

Did you hear about the Alice art challenge I'm running?  It has a terrific prize - everything you need to make a couple of altered row houses.  Entries are due by Sunday night, 9:00 p.m. California time. Rules are posted here. Artwork today is a sample of Alice in Wonderland ATCs' I received in a swap I hosted.
Wishing you a creative weekend!

Alice Art and Images

Alice ATC's

I'm running a give-away for those who create some Alice in Wonderland art (theme loosely defined; any art format acceptable). You can find the details and how to enter at this post.  What if you want to enter, but don't have any Alice images?  Here's a few ATC's to help spur your imagination. Some are color copies or prints off the internet.  Some are not specifically Alice-related, but still work. Grab an Easter bunny stamp, a clock image, shout "I'm late!" and you're good to go! Pair a crown with a heart or grab a Queen of Hearts playing card, then yell, "off with her head!"  The possibilities are endless.
For those of you looking for real Alice images to use in art, here are some interesting links:
lovely vintage images 
long necked Alice (this whole site is fabulous!)
Disney images
Tiny pictures (may only be useful for digital stuff?)
Hope you come and play!