Alice in Wonderland ATCs
I created the ATCs shown here for one of my own art swaps! You can read all about this ATC swap on the creative swaps blog. This nine for nine ATC swap uses the Alice in Wonderland related images from Alpha Stamps. There are so many beautiful images from this company in various forms of cardstock collage images, clear stickers, fabric images, transparencies, rubber stamps, even paper doll sheets - I simply could not resist hosting an ATC swap with them. You are required to use something 'Alice in Wonderland' (even the tea images) from Alpha Stamps, but everyone who participates will have the chance to win a first prize of an Alice in Wonderland Tarot Card Deck for the most creative ATCs and all participants will receive a custom 'thank you' collage sheet as a gift from Alpha Stamps.
All 4 ATCs shown here started out as plain 2.5" x 3.5" watercolor cards because I wanted something nice & sturdy to paint on a little. I combined Alpha Stamp card stock images with rubber stamps and watercolor crayons (wet) on all of them. The card stock images on the ATC above comes from 2 different Alpha Stamp sheets. The image of young Alice (which I love) is from the image sheet called Mad Hatter's Tea Party #2. You can order this any number of ways, not just on paper! The words come from the I Wonder sheet, which I have used here in the paper version, but have since ordered in a clear sticker sheet. I do have a few more ATCs to make, so look for more examples coming up! I adhered these collage images to the watercolor paper with YES glue which I spread on with an old credit card. Because I wanted to use rubber stamps on my ATCs, I reached for the Caterpillar from the red rubber Alice's Adventure sheet. I attached this rubber stamp to an acrylic block using Tack n' Peel - easy & quick. I stamped the image with permanent StazOn Ink because I knew I would be using a wet brush over it. For the card above I started colouring with a yellow watercolor crayon Lyra Aquacolor and then added red around the edge. I tend to work with a special water brush (water is held in the barrel of the brush) but a regular brush & separate bowl water would of course work too.
This is the wildest of the ATCs I made. The Mad hatter is not my most favorite image, but this drawing was so strong, and had so much 'punch', I was inclined to try it. I found this image on the Mad Hatter's Tea Party #2. It is a black & white drawing. First I stamped the phrases "Drink Me" and "Eat Me" from the Alice Tea Party Clear Stamp Set directly onto the card with StazOn Ink and then I colored the white space with my watercolor crayons in various shades, using my water brush to activate the colors and make them pop. Where the color is more intense, I either used more crayon or less water! The watercolor paper makes a great base for this technique.
Alice & the cards, shown below is my favorite, I think. I just loved this image the minute I saw it. In fact, I had to cut it down and not use the entire image in order to fit it on to the card! Since the image covered the entire watercolor card I decided to try adding my watercolor crayons on top of the card stock image. It worked! The pinkish-red color you see seeping in on the edges is from the watercolor crayons. On all of the edges of the ATCs I used a bit of gold metallic marker, just gracing the edges, but on this card, I added some gold swoops of the marker near all the edges to add to the flying cards. The stamp is actually the title of the red rubber Alice's Adventure sheet. It seemed appropriate!
The last ATC was created in the same way with an image this time from The Red Queen and the queen stamp from Alice's Adventure sheet. It was great to get the Queen stamp to fit right on the ATC where the image of the queen was looking at it! I wanted to add something else to this so I used rub-ons ~ the black vines. I did add brown watercolor crayon and a gold metallic edge to this ATC too. Hope these inspire you!
creatively yours, lenna