The Altered Alice Chapter 8 Challenge, Week 1 Celebrating The Mad Hatter, With Twinkles!

 The Hatter shook his head mournfully. `Not I!' he replied. `We quarrelled last March--just before HE went mad, you know--' (pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,)
`--it was at the great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing 

"Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!

How I wonder what you're at!"

You know the song, perhaps?' 

`I've heard something like it,' said Alice. 

`It goes on, you know,' the Hatter continued, `in this way:-- 

"Up above the world you fly,

Like a tea-tray in the sky.

Twinkle, twinkle--"'

-- Chapter 7, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Here at The Altered Alice we celebrate Mad Hatter's Day twice a year as the date is taken from the price on his hat - ten schillings and a sixpence or 10/6. That means it is on October 6 here in the United States, and on June 10 in the United Kingdom. But mainly it is just a great reason to party with the Mad Hatter twice a year! Your challenge is to celebrate the Mad Hatter, and as OPTIONS you can use something that twinkles or shines AND/OR you can bring some spookiness into it since we are all having a "Twinkle twinkle little bat" sing-along around our mad tea table!

Our prize this month is an A5 sized unmounted stamp set from IndigoBlu (a £13 value), or an equivalent amount of A6 stamps. IndigoBlu is a fantastic new British stamp company that makes "Quintessential English Rubber Stamps" right here in the UK.

In fact IndigoBlu is sponsoring The Altered Alice for October AND November, and the Design Team will be working with these two fantastic Alice stamp sets, titled appropriately "Alice I" and "Alice II".

In addition, the Head Honcho Alfie says The Altered Alice readers can take 10% OFF during the challenge; just use coupon code AlteredAlice in the voucher code box at checkout! Thanks Alfie!

I decided to alter a book this time around for my monthly dose of Alice, altering a book I found for less than a pound. I created a niche inside my book and aged the pages with tea and Distress Ink vintage photo.  I added the wonderful Mad Hatter image to the inside of my niche along with Alice peering down the niche. My hare was stamped onto white card, coloured, cut out and added to the page along with a twinkly watch, not too twinkly as you can see as I wanted the book to have an aged, worn look.

The paper in the background is from Tim's Crowded Attic paper stash which also has numbers in the background to represent the numbers on the Mad Hatters' hat.

The other side of my book has the tea party scene stamped in black archival ink and again coloured only with a muted pallete to add to that aged feel of my piece.  I stamped ALICE onto some old bias binding I had in my stash and added to the centre of my book page.

I coated the front of my book with texture paste and once dry coloured with acrylic paints, wiping away paint from some areas. I added a heart made from clay, embedding a key and again painting with acrylic paints. The fabulous Mad Hatter image was added to the front cover, stamping on tissue paper. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland was added to the top, cut from an old Alice book. ALICE was added using Tim's Alpha Parts.  I applied two coats of varnish to the book to give a subtle twinkle/sheen and to protect from any marks.

I am looking forward to seeing all your fabulous entries this month over at The Altered Alice.

Thanks for stopping by, Tracy.