Mash Up! Marie Antoinette and The Mad Hatter Tea Cup

 The Alpha Stamps kit this month is Marie in Wonderland!

This one was custom made for me...Marie and Alice and The Mad Hatter and Marie....need I go on????

 I started with a Tea Cup idea, wanting to create a scene inside the cup and have things going on on the outside.  Originally I thought, hey lets hang it from the handle and dangle things off the rim of the cup, but obviously the piece evolved in a different direction.

I know you have seen those darling scenes inside real cups.  Well, I was too scared (remember I was going to dangle things which meant drilling into the cup) and didn't want to buy a cup so I found this fabulous paper mache teacup tutorial and followed it.

 The cup is covered with paper from the Harmony 6x6 paper pad it took a little over one sheet to do the entire cup.  Inside The Mad hatter is featured (Mad Hatters tea party #2 Collage Sheet) sitting at a table with a 3D Bronze Tea Time teapot charm, mini strawberry cake and a mini heart tart cake charm.  The table cloth is a bit of lace (1/2 Inch Natural Scalloped cotton lace).  Some mini rose buds and a raw brass flourish finish off the scene.

 Next came some fun top hats.  Those things are itty bitty...as in 1"!

The hats are covered with paper from the Harmony collection, then adorned with 1/8" Red Satin Ribbon (hides the seam where the base of the hat meets the hat), heart sequin mix, clock face buttons, and mini rose buds.  I affixed them to the cup using 22 gauge wire that I covered with red seed beads.

This is the pattern I used.  I am sorry I can't remember where I got it from but it was originally much bigger.  I shrunk it down in photoshop.  

 Marie herself is an image from the Marie Takes Tea Collage Sheet.  To dress her up I added some 1mm micro pearls and some more of the red ribbon tied in itty bitty bows.  Her center bow was created using the mini bows silicone mold.  I used paper clay and red paint to make the bow.

Even though you can't really see the cup I wanted to dress it up.  Thin looped Dresden boarders are what I used around the rims.  Since it is Marie, a few paper clay Fluer de lis adorn the cups. 

Now lets chat about the handle.  

I was going to use a really awesome resin casting.  If you take the resin piece out before it is really hard it bends!   However when I did that I wasn't ready to attach it yet and it got too hard by the time I was.  So if you want the ice resin handle (shown below) your cup needs to be ready for a handle when you make it.  Bend the piece gently and hot glue into place.  The hot glue will hold the bend and the resin will harden in that shape.

 Notice how it is holding its shape without me even holding it after I bent it.  

 Anyway...

I selected a piece from the Architectural flourishes silicone mold and made it using paper clay.  Next I attached the handle (from the tutorial) using hot glue.  Then came the tricky part.  I took the paper clay out of the mold (still wet), very carefully cut off the ugly bits and then glued it to the handle.  I used a regular glue to glue it.  Now walk away!  It has to dry before you can do anything else with it.  Once the paper clay was dry I painted the entire handle.   

I had a fun time creating this piece.  I also tried a bunch of different items in my molds.  In the next few days I will have an information post up, I used bees wax, hot glue, ice resin, paper clay,  you name it I tried it and some of them are great!  

Thanks so much for stopping by!

This piece is on sale in my Etsy Shop.