'Why is a Raven Like a Writing Desk'? and other Nonsense from the Hatter!

This is my favourite stamp from the Artistic Stamper Mabel Lucie Attwell Alice in Wonderland Stamps - the Hatter and the March Hare putting the sleeping Dormouse into the hot tea!

My lovely students asked if I would show them how to make canvases yesterday - I had to demo, of course, which is Lucy-speak for 'I fancied making one myself!'. I coloured the canvas with vibrant StazOn colours first, then stamped the Tea Party onto a piece of tissue which I had cut to fit. I added a touch of colour to the images with Inktense pencils. I tore around the piece of book text relating to putting the dormouse in the tea, then tore it on the diagonal so the piece top left and the piece bottom right are continuations of the same piece of the story as I liked this bit! I added a touch of the same StazOn colours to the book text to blend it all in. After I had adhered the whole lot, I added this gorgeous gold tea pot charm which my kind student, Jude, gave me - isn't it perfect? Then I re-stamped just the tea-pot part of the stamp onto blue willow pattern paper, cut it out, edged it in black, and added it over the top of the tea-pot with 3d foam pads and added Glossy Accents, to give a sort of porcelain look. Actually, I don't know if anyone knows the answer to this but I couldn't find anything showing what the tea pot design was meant to be in the original drawings, e.g. stripes or flowers?

Then I tore out a piece I liked from the book about tea-trays in the sky - difficult to choose between this and the bit about 'it's always tea-time', which it is in my house! I didn't colour this as I felt it looked more 'highlighted' compared to the other text if I left it plain. I also gave the characters their names in book text.

Finally I added some white opaque pen to things like the Hatter's 'Harry Hill' collar.

I am a little worried that it is the madness of the 'Alice' story which makes me keep returning to this theme .....