Altered Alice Chapter 1 - WEEK 2 Challenge: Dress Form or Changing Forms

"Alice crouched down among the trees as well as she could, for her neck kept getting entangled among the branches, and every now and then she had to stop and untwist it. After a while she remembered that she still held the pieces of mushroom in her hands, and she set to work very carefully, nibbling first at one and then at the other, and growing sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until she had succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height.

It was so long since she had been anything near the right size, that it felt quite strange at first; but she got used to it in a few minutes, and began talking to herself, as usual. `Come, there's half my plan done now! How puzzling all these changes are! I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to another!"
                                -- Chapter 5, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Well, just like Alice we have been through quite a few changes! But our familiar Alice challenges have arrived safely in at their new home although in a new monthly form.

To reflect all these changes, The Altered Alice Challenge is to make something that features a dress form, OR to make something that changes in form!  While it is not required that your project include Alice in Wonderland, we do encourage it. If your project features Wonderland you will get two chances in the prize drawing instead of one, and what a prize it is!

STAMPOTIQUE ORIGINALS is sponsoring our first challenge with a generous $30 gift certificate, and their fabulous design team is playing along! 

Here is my project to inspire you: 

I started my piece with a cover from a book, so the back piece is quite sturdy.  I applied two coats of Gesso to give me a good surface to work on.  I then applied Distress Ink to the background with a sponge.  The images I have used are from The Octopode Factory with a little colour added using watercolour pencils.  My bodices are ceramic pieces which have been sponged with Distress Ink.  I have added pieces of lace to each bodice along with many embellishments, including wooden hearts, Tim's Idea-Ology, beads and computer generated text.

The bodices add some great dimension to my piece as you can see from this picture.  Before adhering the bodice I added small playing cards to the queen (I kept these from a cracker at Christmas) along with co-ordinated fibres to the bottom of the bodice.  I also added a wooden heart to the top of the queen's head.  Alice has a crown added to her head and to complete I added ALICE and QUEEN using scrabble letters.

I hope you are all inspired to play along and take a few minutes to pop over to The Altered Alice blog to see some wonderful pieces of inspirational art to help you along the way.

Now let me explain how this new monthly challenge works:

• 1st Sunday of the month: The new challenge will be posted with the link tool, and a few of the design team samples will be posted.
• 2nd Sunday: Additional design team samples will be posted.
• 3rd Sunday: The last of the design team samples will be posted.
• Last Sunday of the month: A winner will be announced and some of your projects may be given an "honorable mention".

You have a whole month to submit your creations, so we are hoping that a lot more of you will decide to play along!

Enter your links on The Altered Alice before 8 p.m. EST (GMT - 5) on Friday, February 25th.  A winner will be announced on Sunday, February 27th. Check back at The Altered Alice each Sunday between now and then for more inspiration!  Thanks for stopping by and good luck, Tracy x x