The Altered Alice Chapter Six Challenge:Painting the Roses RED

I am totally honored and excited to announce that I have joined The Altered Alice Design Team! Each month I've ooohed and aaahed over the fabulous "Alice" projects by the talented artists there and to be able to craft among them is a dream come true. So on to this month's challenge.

'A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily painting them red. Alice thought this a very curious thing, and she went nearer to watch them, and just as she came up to them she heard one of them say, `Look out now, Five! Don't go splashing paint over me like that!'
-- Chapter 8, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Of course you know, that they were painting the roses red to avoid angering the Queen of Hearts, so this month's challenge is to use paint on your project. Each member of the Design Team received some glorious shimmering garnet paint from this month's sponsor, Creative Inspirations [Store/Blog]. The winner of this month's challenge will received their choice of 5 (of the 60!) available colors. WooHoo!

I've altered a $1.00 wooden frame from M's by covering it with DP from Stampin'UP and finishing the edges with velvet rick rack and tiny ball trim. The fabulous Queen of Hearts is a digi image by Mo Manning. She was printed 4 times, colored with Copics, and fussy cut to give the layered decoupage effect.

Here you can get a better idea of the dimension. Many crafters who use this technique color their image once, scan it to their computer and print out the desired number of copies. Nope, I didn't do that but it sure would have saved a lot of time. (Note to self: become familiar with the scanner, so coloring doesn't take you all day) Then, if I could just teach Goliath or Jezzie to fussy cut, I'd be all set.

The queen is obviously very upset about the white roses which have just begun to be painted with the Creative Inspirations paint. The large Grungeboard letters were embossed, gessoed (because they're sort of grey and I wanted the gorgeous clear garnet shade to shine), and painted with 2 coats for a really intense RED.

I wish you could see the beautiful shimmer, but my camera doesn't seem to be picking it up, so you'll just have to take my word for it. To highlight the embossing (Swiss Dots, Diamonds in the Rough, and the Roses European Edition) I used some black acrylic paint, and quickly rubbed most of it off. the paint brush is embellished with ribbon and a Fleur de Lis by Jolee's Boutique (because I thought it looked regal, LOL) The rest of the phrase (black letters) were cut with my Cuttlebug Curls and Swirls Alphabet.

The roses were made from tissue paper using a technique I remembered from my childhood, when the only magazine that had crafting articles was Better Homes and Gardens. The leaves are a stamp from Heartfelt Creations. This particular one does not have coordinating Spellbinders dies so I cut them out too.

The Altered Alice challenges begin the first Sunday of each month, with weekly inspiration posts by various members of the Design Team. Winners are announced the last Sunday of the month and you have until the Friday before at 8:00 pm EDT to submit your work. That means you have until Friday, August 26th to get your "Alice" on. I sure hope you'll follow me down the rabbit hole.