Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Wonderland swap

I have been busy the past couple of weeks making things to put into a box for a very special swap. In celebration of the opening of the Movie by Tim Burton, the swap was based on
Alice in wonderland.
I had a lot of fun creating for my partner. Sure hope she likes what I did! Her favorite character is, the caterpillar, and her favorite colors are green and purple. Her and her Husband like to up cycle things, soI based my box on the knaves painting the white roses, in the queens garden, red.
  I made her a very pretty charm bracelet, creating all the charms myself, out of old pieces of jewelry, and then I added some charms that I purchased, to go along with the Alice theme. Unfortunately, I neglected to get photographs of it,and the tray I laid it in, and the choker necklace, and the velvet bag I put them all in. Oh!I included a charm bracelet for her daughter also, and just remembered I forgot to mention that to her!

  The first thing I made for the box was a pennant style banner. This project just kept growing, but I love how it turned out!
  I first down loaded the pictures off the Internet, then I used water colors to paint in certain details that I wanted highlighted. Then I made my lettering by tracing and cutting them out of cardboard three times, and then out of a pattern scrap booking paper the forth. Being that the caterpillar is the favored character, I used the question he asked Alice.
  My partner just applied to continue her education  her Doctorate  degree, so I wanted to give her some office supplies, a journal and an address book, to help her on her way in style.LOL The little boxes are filled with push pins, paper clips, and magnets that I made using glass half marbles for flower arranging and teeny tiny graphics from various illustrations of Alice in Wonderland. I topped the boxes off with fabric flowers, that I have hand sewn. There is also an up-cycled paper weight with a graphic of the caterpillar and a tiny jar of glitter commemorating  this advent and our hostess.
  I then decided that a few treats were needed for a true celebration. What is that ,with out a tea party? So I had this little tea set (I buy them all the time at dollar stores) that I put into a little decorated box, to which I embroidered the top to say "Time for Tea", I also decorated another little  wooden box with the graphic of the hatters tea party. I filled this with different flavored tea bags. Then I baked her some spritz cookies using the heart and the spade in the cookie press. Sprinkled them with decorating sugar in black, red and crystal.Then placed them into this little heart box, that I had on hand. I also made her something that I had wanted to try for some time now. Meringue Mushrooms. I did not post a picture of them, for fear of getting into trouble, lol, tee hee! but they do taste good, they are in the white bakery box. I purchased a bag of purple gourmet M&M's, because she likes purple. I also made her some sugar cubes, they are in the tussie mussie in the cute little bag.

   
The red cello bag contains a jar of my chia tea mix. It is so yummy! She gets the recipe also.
  Next I wanted her to feel really special, so I made her a spa bag, in her favorite colors! I machine embroidered the flowers on the pockets and made extra pockets on the inside. I filled it with little dollar store spa what knots. To go along with the bag I created this crushed velvet pillow and attached the pretty brooch.
  So now, I wanted to get back to the Alice theme, So here is my box to hold my goodies. My partner likes to up-cycle things so I wanted to do the knaves "up-cycling" the white roses. I lined the inside of the box in a playing card fabric, but forgot to snatch a picture of that!

I made a pin cushion mushroom with a caterpillar laying on top. This is my design. I glued some plastic letters to the top of the pin cushion also (I painted them green) which spelled out the question "who are you?"  I made a little "Alice" and a Queen finger puppet. I found this cute little white tea pot, and created a little door mouse to fit inside it. Two tags to go along with the theme, and a cheshire cat ribbon brooch to go into the box.



Last but not least so to speak, I wanted to do something really special. On her blog my partner said she would like to have a pick up truck, so she could go traveling with her puppies, she loves her puppies and the she wants to live in a rural community and grow flowers. So I found a small die cast pick up truck ( not in her color of purple, or in the vintage year but...) filled the back with flowers and two tiny pom-pom doggies. This I glued to a jar I filled with some wild flower seeds, and tied a pair of garden gloves around it!
Sure hope Elisha likes her swap box! Vanessa

1 comment:

Sharon MLS said...

Wow! Very creative! I hope your swap partner will enjoy all the goodies you have created for her! Looking forward to seeing what you receive!