CHAPTER 2 Winner & Honorable Mentions!

Winner: Sylvia (Barnie)
Blog Post: BarniesBaustelle
Location: Germany
Prize: $30 Gift Certificate to The Octopode Factory Etsy Shop

Thanks for waiting! The HUGE $30 gift certificate to the Octopode Factory Etsy shop was won by this project by Sylvia, who entered from Germany:

I love all the little details: the Alice in Wonderland words with their dashed curved underlines, the watch dangling from the mushroom, the words around Alice's doorway, the black and white border to frame it all! It looks like she used the same Octopode door that I used for the shape of her door, with the woodgrain texture embossed on it!  Lively and fun!

It looks like Sylvia already owns a few Octopode images such as this Teapot Alice (which also comes in a digi set) and Cheshire Cat (set), and I am sure she will find a few more she'd like to purchase with this wonderful prize from Lily:

Sylvia, please send me an email through the link near the top of the left column. I will forward your contact info to Lily so you can collect your prize and start picking out your digi images or collage sheets!

Since the challenge started, even more Octopode images are now available in rubber stamps! You can email Lily to place your order, see the details on her blog Rubber Stamps page!  Lily just emailed this update:

I've had the rest of the Alice images made into rubberstamps.... see attached.  flamingo available in atc and large size now and lots of elements too. as well as the mad hatter, the white rabbit and the tweedles available in 12.5 cm!

if you'd like any or even the whole set (i can send you image of the full page) contact me please.
thanks for your continue support of the octopode factory.

Lily Chilvers,
The Octopode Factory

See The Octopode Factory Rubber Stamps page for more info!

Prize Drawing Process

I thought I would tell you a little about how I award the prizes. We had twelve eligible entries - I took out the three from the Octopode design team as they had just used the Linky to get me their info, and we showcased their projects during Week 2 of the challenge. I took out one other entry that was an accidental duplicate because she had made an error with the link on the first one and had to submit again.  That left twelve FANTASTIC entries, and ALL of them featured Wonderland this month! Every entry had two chances, so link number one had chances 1 and 13, link number 2 had chances 2 and 14, and so on to link number 12 which had chances 12 and 24.  Random.org was used to generate a random number between 1-24, and 20 was the winning number. Sylvia had chances 8 and 20, so she won!

Honorable Mentions

Let's hear a huge round of applause for our wonderful participants! Thank goodness for random number generators, as I would not have been able to choose, as every entry was a winner. This month I would have liked to comment on each and every entry. Instead I am showcasing a few that I thought were a bit different in a unique way!

First, I have to mention this AMAZING altered pop-up book by a Brazilian  participant Ana Cristina Caldatto of Scrap Da Ana Cristina Caldatto. I have admired many altered books, and have clumsily constructed some of my own pop-up designs, but I never thought of starting with a pop-up book and altering from there! Genius! Take a look:



 I love the use of the back of the playing card as a rug! And when you pull the tab to open the doors, the Queen of Hearts is bellowing in the ballroom!

There are many pages in what I believe started as a Cinderella pop-up book. I wonder if there are any more Wonderland scenes in its future? Please be sure to visit Ana's blog to leave her a comment and to see many additional photos of this lovely creation.

The next entry that really jumped out at me was this Portal #2 in a series of portals by Sarah Cooper of Scrapbooking is Cheaper than Therapy! Sarah has constructed a wooden frame for a reclaimed cabinet door, added an antique doorknob and created this Portal to Wonderland! So the exterior is a completely literal interpretation of the challenge. . .

But the interior is a true Wonderland fantasy assemblage of elements!

I love the Cheshire grinning in the tree! Look at the Duchess' pig below, with a rolling pin for the cook with the pepper! Almost every character is represented in this mad collage!

Another favorite bit is the living flowers, and circuit board grass! Notice the White Rabbit running, late just as in our story, and the chess pieces tucked in at the base!

Hurry over to Sarah's blog to leave her a comment on this entry that was almost too late (perfect for our theme, hah!) and to see all the other pictures showing more of the details of this intricately crafted entry! They are fascinating, you won't want to miss them!

When we open the door of CuddlyBunny's project on Not a Moment to Spare, we find ourselves transported to a bit of Wonderland inside an Altoid's sized tin! You can visit her blog to see more pictures and leave her some love!

Of course the first thing I asked was "Where did you get that rocking Rabbit on a bicycle?!!!" and she was kind enough to point me to this wonderful freebie which you can get HERE! Be sure to say thanks to CuddlyBunny for sharing when you leave a comment on her blog about this wonderful Wonderland tin!

And now we'll "lower the tone" with Nigel's corrugated cardboard housing from his Freebird Flights of Fancy, LOL!!! Never let it be said that a project has to be fancy or drawn out to receive some Altered Alice love; Nigel said he was lowering the tone by the way, that was a quote from his blog post! The projects are simple but effective!

What made me give it a mention here is the torn away bits on the right house which features Octopode's  Edgar Allen Poe of The Raven fame, which seems totally suitable given the Mad Hatter's riddle! (And Edgar also comes in an Ocopode digi set with a cool female Raven that is on my wishlist, and he is living next door to the Teapot Alice!) I have used corrugated cardboard before and often peel away the smooth facing. However, it takes on a whole new, almost sculptural look when it is painted! What a different look, and thanks to Nigel I'll be thinking about how to apply that to future projects!

Susan Allen of Little Imperfections painted the most charming White Rabbit and wrote a fascinating prequel to Alice in Wonderland which tumbles out from behind the door of a baby wipe box!!!

You will have to visit her blog post to read the whole story of the White Rabbit before he met Alice!

When we open Lola Azul's trifold card, it forms a colorful hall of doors - check out all the pictures on Apunte des Colores!

And when we open three of the doors, bit by bit we reveal the complete Alice!

Celina of ScrapVamp made the cover of her new art journal into a door, which is fantastic and you can see it on her blog post, but what really grabbed me was the tremendous sense of depth she created by framing the background illustration from Through the Looking Glass And What Alice Found There with foreground elements coming ever closer with the tree, then the flowers, and finally the White Rabbit! Take a look at the inside front cover:

I could feature EVERY project here but I am out of time!  Here is what I loved about the rest:

• I love the way the the door in the middle of Cath's altered book opens out of a page covered with script, it is lovely! Cath blog is A Divided Island and she joined our challenge from Cyprus, a Greek island!
• A dollar bin wooden key box formed the canvas for this wonderful project from Foxy's Weblog!
• Pat Moore of Still Challenged made a fantastic Wonderland scene using original Tenniel illustrations! LOVE the arm, LOL! You'll have to visit Pat to see what I mean!
• Charlene created a lovely card, and she used an Alice book cover image which is a little door opening to reveal a cupcake!

The Altered Alice design team would like to give Lily Chilvers a HUGE thank you for sponsoring the March challenge. We had a good time playing along with the ladies in The Octopode Factory design team, and appreciate Lily providing us with digital images to use for our inspiration pieces! Sue and Tracy chose to use their Octopode rubber stamps instead, which was so appropriate as we celebrate Octopode's entry into RUBBER!

Please leave a comment for me, the participants, a thank you to Octopode, and the fabulous design team!