Thursday, December 29, 2011

Alice in Wonderland Pen and Ink Series

I've always been a fan of Alice in Wonderland. The silliness and pure imagination within the story appeal to my more whimsical side. In particular, I've always loved the poem, The Jabberwocky, so I set out one day to create a pen and ink drawing of the beast. I could never find the right inspiration to tackle the Jabberwock, so I thought I'd start with depicting portions of the book that particularly lent themselves to visual representation...and the project blew up from there. I could have easily done 20 more drawings, but these took me a year as it was.

While I never actually got to drawing the Jabberwock - I never had the courage to tackle the beast - I did create a wonderful series of art that currently hangs in story order along my stairway at home. Each of the following illustrations can be enlarged by clicking on the picture.

The first shows Alice daydreaming as she first notices the white rabbit rushing by. The second in the series is my favorite. This shows Alice reaching for the orange marmalade while falling down the rabbit hole. The reason this one appeals to me so much is the use of line to depict depth within the rabbit hole.










The next drawing shows the key and the bottle labeled "Drink Me" that starts Alice's adventures in size alterations.









The next drawing shows Alice in her particularly large state, crying as the white rabbit runs away in terror.


The next drawing is another of my my favorites, depicting Alice as three inches tall while asking for help from the caterpillar.









The next character Alice meets is the smiling Cheshire cat talking to her from the tree.







She then finds the Mad Hatter, March Hare and Door Mouse at the tea party.


Then we meet the cards who are working very hard to paint the white roses red!










Next we find Alice meeting the Queen of Hearts for the first time.











Followed by being attacked by the pack of cards at the conclusion of the first book.

At the beginning of the second book, Alice encounters the Red Queen and learns that you have to run awfully fast in order to stay in the same place!








Followed by meeting Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum at the fourth square.








And having an interesting conversation about the passing of time in Looking Glass Land with the White Queen.


Next is the only drawing from the Jabberwocky poem I could gather the courage to create showing momeraths, borogroves and slithy toves.








Finally we see Alice become a queen at the eighth square, suddenly discovering a crown which appeared on her head - another one of my favorites as I seemed to show her surprise on her face.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Baby Gift for my Cousin

My Cousin had her first baby - a girl - this past fall. In anticipation for the baby, my mother and I coordinated homemade gifts to welcome our newest family member.


When going through my mother's plastic canvas books I found an adorable baby item to make and play with. I altered the pattern a little to utilize pastels since she is a girl. I also put their last name on the lid of the box to ensure it is something that can be passed on to more than one child.


Each of the shapes that fit through the hole are filled with a different noise maker - penies, corn kernals, jingle bells, an plastic beads so it enhances playtime with color, shapes, letters, numbers, sound and puzzle solving skillls. In addition to her little blocks and container, I made a few additional blocks for the baby to play with to fill the rest of the box.


It was a time consuming project and I'm not sure I'll have the time to make another one of these again (unless it is slightly modified), but I'm really pleased with how it turned out!





Thursday, May 5, 2011

Chopstick Rest

I've been eating with chopsticks a lot recently to slow myself down when I eat. I have lots of chopsticks at home, but no rests. That had to be remedied.
I made the rests out of sculpy, painted them with the same ceramic paint used for the trivets and made them to match the asian style dish set I already have (Just like the trivets!). I really like how they turned out and am excited to use them when I eat my dinner at night!

Kiss Box

Grandma used to make the kiss boxes is all shapes and sizes. These are the little ones that originally just held hershey kisses. If you squeeze the two sides it opens up to reveal the treat. Grandma made bigger ones also. Those were decorated like gift boxes, reindeer, pigs, etc. and put money inside them! I thought the little ones would be enough. I made them look like gift boxes wrapped in black ribbon and embellished with clear beads.

Tree Ornament

Grandma used to make these christmas tree ornaments with colored sequins and yellow beads on the edges to look like candles. I kept with the black and white theme by changing thee sequins and beads to blackk and white. I really like how these came out, but they were certainly the more time consuming to embellish!

Pointsettia Ornament

The pointsettia ornament is one that my grandmother never made before. I found it as part of one of the plastic canvas magazines where you make a bunch and put them together as a wall decoration. I thought they looked fantastic by themselves so made a bunch of them individually. Not quite in line with the theme, but they look cool!

Picture Frame Ornament

Grandma used to make these picture frame ornaments and put pictues of us kids inside. To make it more generic, I simply used a snowflake picture, but a kid's picture can easily be inserted still!

Bell Ornament

The bell ornament is another one my grandmother always used to make. Again, I used black beads to go with the ornament theme. I also modified the bottom of the bell to make it more elongated since gramdma only used to use a round bead on the bottom.


Snow Flake Ornament

This is one of the snowflake ornaments my grandma used to make. They are pretty simple to make. Instead of using red or green or gold beads in between, I used black beads to go with the themed ornaments.

Icicle Ornament Type 2



This is the second type of ornament that I found in the plastic canvas magazine. I added the beads to the bottom of the icicle to look like dripping water. I was really pleased with how both icicles came out.

Icicle Ornament Type 1

My grandmother used to make the family plastic cannvas ornaments of various types. So in her memory (again I just acquired all of her crafting supplies), I decided to make a bunch of Christmas ornaments to occupy my time while watching TV in the evenings.



I made 8 of each type of ornament with the hope of possibly selling them at a craft fair or online at Etsy. I've never profitted from my crafts before, but I thought it was worth a shot.



I thought I'd make the ornaments in a uniform color to make a kind of designer Christmas tree. The first set of ornaments are white yarn with black sequins, beads and details.



This ornament- just one type of icicle is not one of the ones grandma used to make, but I saw it in one of her plastic canvas magazines and decided to do it!

Dungeons and Dragons

I recently started playing Dungeons and Dragons with a couple of friends. There are a lot of papers to keep track of that maintain your abilities, statistics, and experience points, so I decided to put them in a binder.

The binder was plain white, so I ccreated a drawing of my character - a Elven Hunter to go on the cover made in colored pencil. I haven't drawn in colored pencil in so long so it was a real treat watching this drawing come to life!

Tea Cozies

For Christmas I got an "Alice in Winterland" tea set. It has Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the White Rabbit skating on the set. On top of the tea pots the Cheshire Cat is sitting in a snow man with only it's head showing.

The set has two tea pots in it - an 8 cup and a 3 cup. It's perfect in case I just want a small pot of tea for the night or one to last me all Satruday afternoon. Now that winter is over, I was worried I really couldn't use the wintery set since it wasn't quite seasonally appropriate.


The 3 Cup Teapot

I had some left over material from my table runners and decided to make a couple of tea cozies to hide the wintery pattern so I can use them all year long! The material matches my plate set (red, black and white asian style) so it was perfect to set out in the kitchen.



The 8 Cup Teapot


I filled the cozy with layers of cotton batting and made a hole for the spout. Using a couple of darts, I made it to custom fit each teapot. Keeping the back completely open around the handle, I made it so it would tie on and off so I could easily wash the cozies. I'm really happy with how they came out!


Baby Phoenix

My best friend from college recently had a baby. I couldn't possibly be a good aunt if I didn't make something to celebrate her birth.

My grandmother used to make baby rattle blocks out of plastic canvas for her great grandchildren. Now that I have all her supplies I thought I'd do the same for baby Phoenix!


I made 4 blocks and filled each with a different sound - jingle bells, popcorn kernels, plastic beads, and pennies. Next, I made a customized box to hold all the blocks and embroidered her name on the cover. My friend sent me pictures of the baby's room so I could make it to match, hence the pink and brown color scheme.

I'm really happy with how it came out and every time I pick up the box, I can't help but shake it a little to hear all those sounds!

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

New Baby New Album

A coworker who is on my project is expecting his first child very soon. As my mother did before me, I made a plastic canvas baby album.


They picked a jungle theme for their little girl so I decided to make a pattern for a monkey who is holding a little banana in front of a palm tree. I gave the monkey a little pink bow since it is going to be a girl!



With no name revealed I had to use their last name on the binding. My coworker's wife like the album - especially the little banana.

Kitty Book Marks

More home-made Christmas presents for a new year. Just one this year - it was a busy year.


Two cross-stitch kitty book marks for an avid reader.