Last Week for The Altered Alice "Tea Things" Challenge!

I couldn't resist making another project with this wonderful collage sheets from One Crabapple; this is a hybrid project that started off digital and soon moved into the paper and scissors realm! The challenge this month is to have a teapot or teacup on your creation, and you need to get your entry in by Friday, July 29, to have a chance to win 5 collage sheets of your choice!

All elements shown are from these collage sheets - can you find all the elements?

 

I made a digital collage using Photoshop, which was lots of fun as I could resize or flip things to suit my composition. One of the elements was the fabulous nonsense quote, so I used that large in the background and small in the upper right corner. I thought it would be fun for Alice and the Caterpillar to have tea! I also wanted to include the frame as a nod to "Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There".  I lightened up my image a bit as it prints darker than you see it on the screen:

Then I printed out several copies on my *new* color LASER printer - you can color me happy, happy, happy! I have wanted a color laser for years!  I took an 8x10 inch stretched canvas, painted the edges black, and then used gel medium to paste one complete printout to the canvas.  Then I cut up all the elements - Alice with teacup, frame, mushrooms, hookah, teapot, caterpillar, and monogram - after first pasting the sheets to cardstock to make them more sturdy. 

Then I went into a pop-dot frenzy, using both eighth inch and sixteenth inch foam mounting tape to get different levels of dimension. The frame is popped up from the background and other elements are popped up higher. I think this angled photo shows some of the dimension. No where near the dizzying heights that Donna of Popsicle Toes achieves, but still a lot of dimension! ;-)

The completed piece, I am very happy with how this hybrid project turned out. My two One Crabapple projects are my first attempts at digital crafting, and I have discovered that unless the digital project moves into the paper realm I'm not happy - I need the satisfaction of cutting and gluing and making a fine mess!

For those of you thinking about a new color printer, consider a color laser/led printer. I purchased a Brother HL 4570CDW from Amazon and I am thrilled with it. Amazon offers a good discount on the Brother toner cartridges, and the printer is sold from Amazon so I got free shipping and the assurance of Amazon's customer service.  This printer is about $100+ more than the same model without the wireless feature, but I wanted to be able to print from my iPhone and the freedom to place the printer anywhere without needing to hook it up to my router.  Brother has a personal line of color laser/led printers and an office line - this is from the more robust office line which ships with fully charged toner cartridges instead of partially filled starter cartridges. I also love it that it is a duplex printer - I have been making my own double-sided patterned paper!

I did not use my color ink jet very often, so every time I needed to use it I had to clean the print heads to unclog the nozzles, wasting a lot of ink. My cost per page was astronomical as I was only getting partial use of the ink cartridges before they dried up.The toner will be much more cost effective as the toner cartidges won't dry up or clog.  I also discovered it was just as easy for me to print photos through an online service like Wal-Mart or Walgreens, so I don't need an inkjet for photo printing. The other problem with the ink jet was that it was not craft friendly - I couldn't get any glue or decoupage on the prints as it would mar the finish. That is not a problem with the color laser printouts! The toner printouts are more durable - I can use gel medium over them, spritz them with Perfect Pearls, decoupage them, all things that would mar the finish of inkjet printouts.

Winners will be posted next Sunday so be sure to check back on The Altered Alice.  To see the rest of this week's design team inspiration pieces, click HERE, there are some fantastic projects to see!

I'd love it if you'd leave a comment before you go!