Alice In Wonderland

.........Or of course more correctly the title should be  "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". I have a passion for childhood books and also their wonderful illustrations. The original illustrator of Alice was Sir John Tenniel but I have a copy illustrated my one of my favourite illustrators, Arthur Rackman. Recently I was trying to decide on some new ranges of bag charms to sell and I was looking for something which would be typically "English" and one idea that came to mind was indeed Alice in Wonderland.

This is one of my favourite illustrations from the  Rackham version depicting the characters all ready for the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. I also have a collection of miniatures from the now deceased company Hantel who produced wonderful Victorian miniatures from the Alice books.

These all live in a wooden cabinet hand made for me many years ago by my Mother In Law before she died. I really do treasure this cabinet as it was made to measure to hold my Hantel pieces. I have lots of them and this is a few of my Alice collection. They only  measure around  1"tall.

They all have the most marvellous detail. Francis Wilson who developed these pewter models based her designs on the original Tenniel illustrations.

This is some of the range which were available. Sadly Hantel ceased production many years ago but I have many of their lovely miniatures.

This is the front of their catalogue from 1997. So armed with my Alice ideas I tracked down some charms that would suit my theme. I found some lovely artisan one of a kind lampwork glass beads from my stash and then it was time to disappear to my garden studio to play with ideas.
So..here are my first pieces......

Rabbit Herald charm with clock face....."I'm late, I'm late...for a very important date"...;0)

and with a very cute teacup and saucer....

another bead combination with the clock face,,

and the other charms I can use are a sweet teapot and a slice of cake. These have been very popular and to pardon the pun "are going like hot cakes". If you have any specific colour or charm requests just email me. I can make you something one of a kind. These make great gifts and come in a little organza gift bag.

If you want to see what is available in my Etsy shop the link to my bag charms is here

If there are no Alice in Wonderland charms left just convo me via the link on the page.


So with the "Wonderland" theme of my post today my card challenge is a "Winter Wonderland" theme and a recent Christmas creation;

I used one of my beloved Lili of the Valley stamps, Milly Winter Window, as the focal. I also used one of my other fave stamps by Visible Image Stamps to give the shadow of Santa dashing across the sky. I embossed this with holographic embossing powder but the "sparkle" does not really show up in the photos.
I coloured the stamp with Promarkers and Prismacolor pencils and added glamour dust to give more sparkle. I added a lovely festive ribbon. I rather like using contemporary  colours for some of my cards...blues, blacks and silver go well together.
Visible image have just launched a brand new blog challenge so I am excited to join it!

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;



Visible Image; First challenge Sparkle
Lili's Little Fairies ;Snow is falling
Really Reasonable Ribbon #59 Winter holiday
Totally Papercrafts #141 Twinkle Twinkle Christmas Star
Sparkle Christmas Challenge Contemporary Colours #22
Card Crafters Circle #47 Patterned paper
ABC Christmas V is for Vibrant Colours
I love Promarkers #141 Cute
Divas by Design Feeling Festive #59
My Mum's Craft Shop #82 Bold and Bright
Crafts and Me Bling it up #108
The Paper Shelter Anything Goes #88
Hooked on Craft No red or green #26

It's a gorgeous chilly but sunny morning here so I am heading out to do a quick bit of gardening including planting some garlic and then it's some studio time. This evening we will be glued, as always to Strictly Come Dancing......at the moment M and I are learning the Quick Step and boy is it harder than it looks. I just love how easy the pros make it look. Have a lovely weekend everyone, thanks as always for your lovely visits and comments, it's always great to see you here.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x