caged Alice...

Today, May 4th, is Alice Liddell's birthday. If you are an Alice in Wonderland fan, then you know who Alice L is... for those of you who don't know, she is the little girl who inspired Lewis Carroll to write Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alice L would have been 164 today if she had not died in 1934 at the ripe old age of 82. Anyway... in honor of Alice L's birthday I have created a silly version of the Queen's croquet ground... complete with hedgehog balls and flamingo mallets.

I used a wonderful shabby chic birdcage as the base of my croquet ground...

 then added a bit of moss...

some fussy cut collage images...

 some paper flowers and a wonderful resin-faced flower I painted with artist pastels...

then I topped it all off with a cute little hedgehog that's trying to escape the game ;)
If you'd like to create your own version of Caged Alice, you can find my supply list here.
Thanks for dropping in!

the forgotten garden...

For the last three months I have been working on a miniature garden scene. It started out as a simple garden shed, an idea triggered by the arrival of the Wooden Market Stall Kit, but it soon grew to included two Cottage Bases, an arbor, a platform base, stairs, the skeleton of the gardener, a huge wisteria vine, shutters, window boxes, and lots of garden accouterments...

As I was photographing the garden for this blog post I decided I really need to add one more Cottage Base in between the two existing bases so I can add a water feature... Yes, I may have become a bit dotty from inhaling too many glue fumes...

Let me show you some of the things I like best about my overgrown garden...

 The back of the shed has lots of "ivy" growing up it. I cut apart a plastic vine I got at a craft store to make the ivy...

 Inside the shed is a wonderful potting table stocked full of garden supplies. I used "soil" made for miniature railroad enthusiasts to fill my potting soil bag and make a dirt pile on the potting table. I find lots of useful stuff in the miniature railroad department of the craft store!

 I made this heather plant out of Flower Soft, Lycopodium, and floral wire.

 The wisteria vine was made from a plastic flower bush (from a craft store) I cut apart and combined with lots of Fern Garland to make it look overgrown.

 If you look closely you can see a cat peeking through the arbor at that nest tucked into the wisteria...

 A drippy faucet is easy to achieve with a bit of Making Waves Resin Water...

 Take a peek through the window and you will see a little rat watching the cat napping...

You can find my supply list here for all of the great products from Alpha Stamps. Speaking of great products... let me show you how easy it is to put together that potting table...

 I paint my pieces before I glue them together.

 All you need is a bit of white glue.

 Before I glued my table top on I decided to change the color...

 When the glue on my potting table was dry I touched up any spots I missed while painting...

 After the glue dried on the table top I gave the whole table a good sanding to make it appear used...

 

Then I applied a bit of darker brown paint here and there to age it even more...

Such a fun and easy little table to make! It could be used in a garage or workshop too :)

I hope I haven't put you to sleep with this loooong post! Thanks for stopping by and have a great and artful day!

Kitschy Bitch Television Shrine...

New and fabulous at www.alphastamps.com is the Altered Metal Frame - Television! I am in LOVE with this kitschy little shadowbox! It's the perfect shade of mid-century aqua and looks like an old TV with rabbit ears. I adore kitsch, so I begged Leslie to carry this frame from Prima Marketing just so I could create something totally over the top and tacky as all get out. I even created two new collage sheets for the occasion and dug up all the red and aqua treasures I could find in my hoarded stash.

 I think we can all agree the resulting shrine is pretty tacky, gaudy and lots of fun. It was also very easy to create as the back of the shadowbox opens up so you can easily apply paper and other decoration. My favorite thing about this piece is the letterpress letters that spell out kitschy along the top. I used some red acrylic paint on them to make them really pop.

If you'd like to create you own version of this "masterpiece" click here for a list of the supplies I used.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you've enjoyed this little bit of kitsch.

Marie's Boudoir... a shabby chic shadowbox...

If Marie Antoinette were living today, I bet she'd be a shopaholic shabby chic fan...

Using this awesomely shabby chic shadowbox, made by Prima Marketing and available at Alpha Stamps, I created a miniature scene depicting a corner of Marie's boudoir.

I needed lots of bakery, shoe and hat boxes for my scene soooo... I created a new collage sheet full of boxes too. The boxes are super easy to put together and look adorable with a bit of tissue paper or some yummy faux sweets in them.

Here's a list of supplies I used in making my shadowbox. I hope you enjoyed my post and wanna go make your own version of Marie's boudoir or her tea table or her favorite shoe store...