Altered Dictionary - S

At The Craft Barn challenge blog, we illustrate for the letter S this fortnight.

I chose sailboat.  I just recently drew a sailboat for a postcard.  Why not give my simple little pattern, that takes no drawing skills, a little extra life.  So here it lives in my altered dictionary forever more.

It's all made of tracing paper.  We had a twist this time that our illustration has to include a shell.  I had a better plan than what you see, but I couldn't find a shell that would fit the plan.  

Happy sailing!

xxx

Annie

Altered Dictionary - D

The letter this fortnight at The Craft Barn is the letter D.

Oh, so many delightful words to illustrate that begin with the letter D.  But for me, the word to illustrate has to be DELIVERY.  I watch for this guy every single delivery day of the week!...to bring in and to take out.

There is a twist to the challenge this time, and that is to use pink.  The twists always scare me that they might not work into my style.  But, so far, so good.

Now I must go and make more mail.

xxx

Annie

Altered Dictionary - G

This fortnight we are illustrating words for the letter G on The Craft Barn challenge blog.  

I had my Ms. Skellie Bride stamp out, and its graveyard section caught my attention.  So I went with "graveyard" for my word to illustrate.

It's the two hundred year old graveyard complete with black cat and bats.

xxx

Annie

Altered Dictionary - R

The Craft Barn letter to illustrate in my altered dictionary is R.

I normally look for my letters from the back working my way forward.  This time I decided to see what would be on the first page of the R words.  I couldn't resist adding the White Rabbit to my dictionary.

When I turned a couple of pages, I found a ripped page and wanted to fix that before the page comes out completely.  The raincoat was not going to be enough to save the torn area, so I taped it with ticket stub Washi Tape first...with the idea that one might be going out to the theatre in the rain.

No new words to have fun with this time, but I'm looking forward to the next letter.  It's just fun looking for images to use as illustrations.

xxx

Annie

Altered Dictionary - L

The alphabet letter assigned to us this time is L

My word is LORGNETTE

I knew of these glasses but I did not know what they were called.  I do now.

The image is from a book titled Butterick's 1892 Metropolitan Fashions.  

(This book has a copyright date of 1994.  It is documenting patterns from 1892 with style description, pattern number, yardage required, some notions suggested and the pattern prices ranging from 10cents to 40cents.)

I couldn't believe my luck in finding this single fashion image with the lorgnette glasses.  She is photocopied to tracing paper, colored with a distress marker and colored pencils and spray glued to the dictionary page.

For the previous challenge I had done the word LOOK.  Here is the open book page spread.

Had I chosen these words in opposite challenges, I might have illustrated a man looking at the woman instead of daydreaming out the window.  She obviously isn't interested in him though!  LoL

xxx

Annie

Altered Dictionary Challenge - F

This fortnight for the Craft Barn's altered dictionary challenge the letter to illustrate is F. And this time with the twist to include a heart.

My word is frippery.

I think she's being showy.

I inked the backside of tracing paper with a mix of distress inks.  On the reverse side I stamped the image with Black Soot distress ink, stamped a tiny heart with Barn Door distress ink and used color pencils to add hints of color.  I cut out the image and spray glued it to the page.  I used a dauber to highlight with Spiced Marmalade distress ink over the word and definition.

I did not know this word before I found it in this dictionary.  I always look for fun new words for this challenge.

xxx

Annie

I don't know what happens to the photos when they transfer to the blog.  When I take them they are clear, but by the time they get here, they look blurry.

Alpha Dictionary Challenge Q

My favorite Challenge is back!

The Alpha Altered Dictionary Challenge

with The Craft Barn

My most favorite ever challenge and I almost missed it.  I did miss getting the first challenge letter into the list of players, but that's no-never-mind for me.  I shall play from here and I'm already caught up.  This is the only year-long Challenge that I ever finished.

The letter this fortnight is Q

My chosen word is questionnaire.

Last time I chose queen and now this page spread is done.  Only like 500 more to go.  LoL

To start the challenge off last fortnight was the letter B.

I chose the word bookish.

I'm up-to-date and current now and so excited to be playing this fun altered dictionary challenge again.

My pages aren't much for artsy, but I am getting the look I want for this altered dictionary.  I think it's a form of art, just not the way others think of this challenge. 

xxx

Annie

Altered Dictionary - I and X

This is it, the last two letters of the alphabet for the

Altered Dictionary Challenge.

 

I and X

 

With all the hustle and bustle of the holidays, we've been given the last two letters together.

 

 I couldn't resist a delicious ice cream cone for the word(s) ice cream.

 

Not many X choices, so I chose X-ray

 

Then just for fun I went back to the beginning of the book where I left off under A and altered the page with the word absurd.

 

Many of you dear followers have put up with me and this challenge from start to finish.  Thank you.  I doubt that I will join the new alpha challenge in 2014, but I'll continue to alter pages in this dictionary and bore you with them a few at a time now and again.

 

It's pretty cool to thumb through this book and happen across the variety of bits of art and altered illustrations.  Although it was rather difficult to take the first step to alter this dictionary, I've not been sorry I did.  This long forgotten book has an amazingly fun new life.

 

xxx

Annie

Altered Dictionary - S

S is our letter for this fortnight and I had trouble deciding on a word...there are so many S words that are easy to illustrate.  But I finally settled on Skeleton.

 

 

Then I went on to stamp as in postage stamp.

 

I also did some stenciling.

 

Two more letters to go!  Finally, this is one of two challenges I took on that I will manage to complete!  Amazing for me.

 

XXX

Annie



Altered Dictionary - Q

It's time now for the letter Q in this

Altered Dictionary Challenge

 

Q is or Queen

 

I found several Q words to illustrate, but first I had to work with the "queen" of all Q words...because I can't resist an opportunity to play with my largish face stamps.

 

xxx

Annie



Altered Dictionary - N

We've been assigned the letter N for this fortnight.

I've chosen the word(s) next-door

 

 

 

Boy was this one fun to do!  I do love making these tracing paper houses.

 

 

xxx

Annie 

 



Altered Dictionary - L

This time the altered dictionary letter is L

and my word choice is Look

 

 

No fancy new word to learn but it was fun putting the scene together.  I wanted to put the word in the window but it was too far down the page to work it out nicely.

 

I've only 5 more letters to complete this year long alpha challenge.  And after that, only about 950 pages remaining to be altered.  hahaha  I've got a feeling my followers will be glad when I'm done posting these (me too!).  But I'm at least back at my sewing machine part of the time too.

 

Enjoy today!

xxx

Annie



Altered Dictionary - J

J

is the assigned letter for this fortnight for the altered dictionary alpha challenge.

 

Jockey is my word choice.

 

 

Off to the races!  Not really.

xxx

Annie



Altered Dictionary - G

This fortnight's letter G is brought to you by

The Craft Barn 

I chose the word

Goggles

This dictionary has so many illustrations of its own that it's challenging to add my own.  I used the stamped chevrons to hide a golfer and a gondola. 

Here's lookin' at ya!

xxx

Annie





Altered Dictionary - Z

Z is for Zeppelin

 

I must post quickly, as a new letter will be assigned on the morrow!  I so wanted to choose the word zip or zipper, but neither is in this dictionary...w h a t ???

 

I procrastinated this time around because first I needed a proper amount of time to grieve for the absence of the word zip.  Besides that, I wanted to sew pinwheels.  In the end I took the easy route and chose zeppelin on the very last page of this dictionary.

 

 

Ok, now back to my pinwheels.......................

 

xxx

Annie 

Altered Dictionary - O

Letter O

is our assignment this fortnight.

 

I found the word

Osculate

which means kiss.

 

 

I printed the most famous osculate and some words onto tracing paper, cut them out and glued them to my page.....as the ostrich looks on.

 

I must say now, that this is a word I could have done without coming across.  If you think of a few sentences and replace the word kiss with the word osculate, I think you'll find it sounds horribly gross and disgusting.  No wonder we use the definition word in our everyday speaking!

 

Don't forget to osculate your loved ones goodnight.

see what I mean?  Eeeww!

haha hahaha ha

 

xxx

Annie



Altered Dictionary - D

I'm barely getting my letter D word done before the next letter is announced, but here it is...

Doctor

including a bit of silliness.

 

 

The image is cut from a Steampunk magazine.  (I found only two Steampunk magazines earlier in the year but have not been able to find any more after that)  I couldn't resist adding this image to my altered dictionary.  A rather bit of poor image placement with that darn dodo bird.  I'll have to keep watch for an inspirational fix.

 

Until the next letter...

 

xxx

Annie

 



Altered Dictionary - T

The Alpha Challenge letter this fortnight is

T

 

My word is telephone

 

 

 

I was going to enlarge a rubber stamp of a telephone, but I started looking at Internet images and suddenly was remembering the wall phone that GrandMaMa had.  We kids thought that was the most fun telephone to talk on.  For many years we had to stand on a little step stool to reach the mouth piece.  And after you dialed a number, I loved the clicking sound the dial made on it's way back to the beginning.

 

So, the page is simple but the memory is big.

xxx

Annie

Altered Dictionary - Y

The letter is Y

And the twist is to use the color yellow.

 

Now, the twists always scare me because my altering style is not like most others where the entire page(s) get painted, and I worry that I won't want them taking place in my dictionary.  So I look for ways to work around them.  So far it's all working out smoothly.

 

I chose the word yardstick (because of the need for yellow).  This one was a creamy color so I took out a color pencil and gave it a yellow tint.  (Looking a bit more orange than yellow)  So I was sure to highlight the word in a lighter yellow.

 

I've been altering a few other words along the way.....

I went to the beginning of the book to choose a word.

Abbreviate.  I stamped a list of abbreviated words.

 

 

I then turned the page and chose the word abode.  I have seen so many cute houses being created and thought this a good time to try one myself.  I DO NOT draw, so I surprised myself with this little 'abode'!

 

 



I then went again to the very next page and chose the word abreast.

 

 

At a time when I was playing with face stamps, I went in search of a word to use this "features" stamp.

 

 

Then there came forefinger.

 

And then I found this awesome bicycle rider on The Graphics Fairy blog and it just HAD to be in my dictionary.  Bicycle already had an illustration and the word rider didn't have a good space for the image, so I went to wheel.  Which also already had an illustration, but what I did not know and learned there was that a bicycle was often called a wheel. 

 





 

And that's how my dictionary alters.

xxx

Annie

 



Altered Dictionary - B

It's a new fortnight and the

Alpha Challenge has assigned us the letter B  

I wasn't much inspired by any odd words this time.  I've chosen Bucksaw as my entry for the challenge.

 

 

This "junior" dictionary is already so full of illustrations that adding more to some pages just makes clutter.  I added some color to help my altering show out more. 

My intention for this book is to alter at least one word on every page.  So I challenged myself to choose a word to alter on the first B page.  I chose Babel.  And I proceeded to learn about The Tower of Babel, which I had not known about before. 

 

I found quite a variety of images of this tower, but this one seemed the most common.  The variety of images was fascinating to look through.

 

Back in the letter F when I illustrated the word Flourish...

 

 

 

my attempt to only lightly ink my stamp was a flop.  I was so disappointed that the ink bled through the page SO badly.  Once I calmed down over it a few weeks later, I began to read the words on the next page to see what possibly I could do with this mess to use it as part of this altering process.

WHAT LUCK!

part of the definition for the word Fluke is "a failure".  And it couldn't have landed in a better spot.

 

And that's how my dictionary alters to date.

 

xxx

Annie