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
Hahaha, so much fun(ny) :-) Love it!
ReplyDeleteI love that your pendant is reversible and that you used vintage beads. Pretty!
ReplyDeleteInteresting as its quite different..
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Lucky you.. That sounds like a gorgeous book.. how wonderful you could use it. Love the reversible style and the "contrariwise" comment is priceless! The beads are lovely, too.
ReplyDeletejenni
oh, I love it! I like the fact you can reverse it and the words you use!
ReplyDeleteI'm Jò , the italien partecipant, I had so much fun partecipating!
NICE! We both picked the same image of Alice:) Its great. Love that you threw that little bit of blue in there.
ReplyDeleteI love the language of Alice in Wonderland. Contrawise. Now I will be saying that all day:)
thanks so much for participatin:)
Oh what a wonderful pendant You made and nice vintage beads added love it !
ReplyDeleteBeautiful Pendant and I love that aged paper look. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful piece! I love that you use images from a book that inspired you in your youth, and also that the pendant is reversible! I love it!
ReplyDeleteAren't the original J. Tenniell illustrations the best! I love that you used the Xerox's from the book and gave the piece your own personal history as well. The crystals are perfect. And yes - it all made sense to me...
ReplyDeleteAwesome pendant! Great idea to make it reversible!
ReplyDeleteI love that it's an image in a frame, that in itself seems so "Alice" to me. I really enjoyed this challenge, I had a blast making the beads!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful necklace! I like that you used copies of the orignial illistrations from your old book and using the crystals from old costume jewelry earrings was a perfect choice.
ReplyDeleteTherese
OM gosh I love this! it's so lovely! I had so much fun making my piece and fun hopping from blog to blog!
ReplyDeleteOh how wonderful that you have such an old Alice in Wonderland book with special memories of your grandmother :) I love that you used the old illustrations in your charm with "Contrairiwise" on the back for Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum! Did you see that Staci used the same image for her piece(Alice)?! Great minds think alike!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for participating!
xo Genea
Your necklace turned out perfectly! I totally get what you're saying about the crystals. . . even if they are granny beads ;)
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love the illustrations and aging from the original book and am so glad you got to highlight them, along with some of Carroll's fun language. This worked out wonderfully!
Thanks so much for letting us be apart of your inspiration and design process in this challenge. Love that you used an illustrations from the original book. Double sweet that it's convertible!
ReplyDeleteLynda
This is so delightful! i love the pendant and the crystals just go so perfectly with it!
ReplyDeleteI second Sharyl's comments - delightful!
ReplyDeleteLove it! Wish I had the beads from my Mother's old earrings. Great idea.
ReplyDeleteZan
Wow, how perfect is that. I really love your piece. I'd totally wear it, and the story behind it only makes it more remarkable.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE that frame! It's just perfect with the picture. I totally get what you mean about old lady earrings. I had a bunch of those in my special box growing up from my grandma. I love the back story, it makes the piece so much more meaningful. --Diane V.
ReplyDeleteI love the images you used and that the pendant is reversable! Also love anything vintage, thanks for sharing :)
ReplyDeleteYour work is totally appreciative and informative.
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