Staci & Genea
organized their first blog hop after discovering they were both big fans of Alice in Wonderland. I was immediately drawn to the idea, and then shortly thereafter began panicking. I signed up anyway - that's the whole point of a challenge, right? And then promptly procrastinated until last weekend.
When I was 8, my great aunt died and we ended up with tons of her old books. At that age, the one I was most drawn to was the crumbling old copy of
Through the Looking Glass. I must have read it 50 times in grade school and high school. I even recall using the Humpty Dumpty bit for some illustrated project in my senior English class. I knew my mom still had the book, and I got it from her last weekend. Then I went to Michael's and found this double sided glass frame. I'd been drawn to similar frames in the past, but never really had any ideas about what to do with them - but now I had an idea!
I made color copies of a bunch of pages from the book. The color you see is all natural aging - I researched the book online, and it dates from 1908 to the early teens. So that's 100 years of yellowing!
How fortunate that the frame was double sided, because I didn't have to make the decision to go with beautiful Alice, or the funny Tweedles.
It can just be reversed based on the wearer's mood!
After that was done, I had to figure out what to do for the rest of the necklace. I tried many many different combinations, but they were either too severe or didn't match stylewise, or it was the wrong color - you know. I ultimately decided on my assorted stash of vintage AB crystals, picked mostly from little old lady cluster earrings. You know the ones? I've amassed many of those in my Heather Boxes. And while the colors may not be super matchy matchy, what those crystals represent to me is the ultimate little-girl-pretty fairies in the garden sort of magical wonderful storyland of yore. Does that make sense to anyone but me? It wouldn't be the same with new AB crystals, and I know these came from granny earrings - but to me, it conjures the time and place of what it must have been like to be the REAL
Alice Liddell - like she would have loved her "stolen" sparkly jewels that belonged to some older relative. Maybe I'm a little weird. I don't know. So that is why these particular beads work for me with the necklace. I decided to add a couple of Alice Blue colored crystals as well.
I wore it to work today, it was really fun to wear. I wore the Alice side, though I imagine if I'd been in a foul mood, I might have flipped it over. Ever since I made the pendant, I've been saying "Contrariwise!" to no one, for no reason. Constantly!
I can't wait to see what everyone else has created - make sure to check out all the blogs below!
Ginger Bishop
Staci Louise Originals
Genea Beads
Jenny Davies-Reazor
Heidi Post
Donna Bradley
Linda Hanes
Birgitta Lejonklou
Libellula Jewelry & Cicada Silver
Linda Florian
Dyanne Cantrell
Nicole Valentine Rimmel
Jo in Wonderland
Fresh Baked Designs
