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 "Playing Cards" from Windham Fabrics Windham Fabrics have recently released a good complimentary set of cotton prints with patterns inspired by Tenniel’s illustrations for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The designs were created in collaboration with the Bridgeman Art Library and the Mary Evans Picture Library. Whether you are designing the nursery furnishings or want to make a really craaaazy shirt for your next trip to Vegas, they are definitely worth a look. There are enough pattern variations for a really spectacular quilt, too.
Different combinations of the fabrics are available online from Quilting Treasures and Baum Textile Mills.
 Japanese Pocket Puzzle from ThinkGeek.com And now for something completely different: drive yourself mad with a Disney-themed interlocking pocket puzzle, sold online at ThinkGeek.com. The puzzles are based on the classic mechanical games involving two interlocking pieces which must be separated – only this time you are offered motivation from the Magic Kingdom: help Alice navigate the Red Queen’s maze, extract Winnie the Pooh from Rabbit’s hole, separate Minnie and Mickey (?…).
The vendors says that the puzzles are intended for adults – “kids might be pretty frustrated,” by which I think they mean they will be quiet for hours (good), right until the point they pitch the thing through the passenger side window (bad).
Sugar with your tea? One grain or two? Bas Bleu, online retailer of gifts and accessories for readers, is selling this miniature tea set decorated with quotes and illustrations from Disney’s Alice in Wonderland ($55).
The teapot is 2 1/2 inches high, which is perhaps a little undersized for a truly mad tea-party, but may yet appeal to a small friend or caffeine-loving teddy bear.
This is a new painting (acrylic on canvas) by California-based artist Leonard Filgate, one of the creators of Rip Squeak. On his fineartamerica.com page, there are several ways to purchase the piece (and there’s also a higher-quality image).
-A Giclée Print on either photo paper or canvas (upwards from $32) For a limited edition signed print ($500 plus shipping), or to purchase the original painting (36″-by-24″, for $7,500) contact the artist thru his website filgateart.com.
 Even though it was Humpty Dumpty who first proposed the observance of unbirthdays, it is now of course often associated with Mad Tea Parties. For the crafty: Very Merry Unbirthday Cards and Card Kits sell two craft kits for making “Alice in Wonderland” and “Mad Hatter’s Tea Party” themed greetings cards, and other card-making products. That site also links to MadHatterStamps.com which in 2010 is celebrating Alice for obvious reasons. Both the cards and the stamps are from the classic Tenniel illustrations.
“You Don’t Need a Reason to Send an Unbirthday Card”
Fashion is a weak suit at Let “Universe” Be “Books”, but since Disney declared Alice is the New Black at a Las Vegas trade show back in September, Alice, and the prospect of tie-in merchandise, have been inspiring a number of fashion creations probably worth mentioning. The Los Angeles Times reviewed the playing field on December 6th, name checking designers such as Donatella Versace, Jason Wu, and Antonio Marras, one of whom I have heard of. Mr Tom Binns is also making jewelery around the theme of absolutely smashing tea parties (New York Times photograph below).
Then there’s Swarovski (pictured at top), always hot on Disney’s trail; Fashion Times warns us what is to come in the 2010 Spring-Summer collection:
Rabbits, watches, cups of tea, small muffins and donuts, flowers embellish necklaces, pendants, bracelets, rings and earrings, precious and ironic.
Donuts? Anyway.
The cosmetics brand Urban Decay is coming out with a pop-up make-up box that Lewis Carroll would have been proud of, though he may have been less into the idea of little girls wearing eyeshadow with names like “muchness” (green) and “curiouser” (purple). (Thanks go to Diana Ajih from the blog Hot Beauty Health for locating sneak preview pictures.) Vogue magazine’s naturally prophetic 2003 Alice-themed photoshoot, in which “the world’s most influential designers dress[ed] the original little girl lost in their own visions”, is back for viewing in the blogosphere, while the French department store Printemps has announced that the world’s most controversial designers will be dressing their store windows in one-off designs in time for Paris Fashion Week in February. And for those who need that little blue dress now, Entertainment Weekly provided a short guide to “getting the look” of Syfy’s Alice. Finally, Rock ‘n Roll Bride, “a little haven of kick ass weddingness in the overly poofy, pastel and often puke-worthy wedding world” posts Alice in her Wonderland, a photoshoot vision of a wedding with a difference (clue: the bride gets to eat the cake and the groom is nowhere to be seen). Enough of fashion!
Twenty new cards from Blue Barnhouse called “A Weekend With Alice” re-interpret Sir John Tenniel’s classic Alice illustrations with irreverent captions. There’s also others with the same trick using Oz and other retro illustrations. Available for $5 a pop at the Blue Barnhouse online store.
There’s also four in their Drug department (not just making the obvious jokes, they’re pretty left-field. The illustration of the White Rabbit with trumpet & scroll is captioned “Somebody hold my MFA so I can light this thing.”)
 Northern California artist Susan Sanford has created a 2010 calendar with some very clever images: “Alice’s adventures in Wonderland reimagined as if Tenniel’s illustrations had leaped out of the book and were adventuring in the rose gardens and antique stores in the real world.”
Also, don’t miss her homage to Alice and Edward Gorey. (Hmm, and why *didn’t* that combination ever happen? He illustrated Dracula after all…)
 It appears that somehow I’ve failed to mention the very cool Gorey Details online shop here on this blog. Well, no time like the present, for in addition to their large selection of Alice-related jewelry, rubber stamps, books, cards, artwork, etc. (and this great clock!), they’ve just added t-shirts, buttons, and stationary with new Dark Wonderland designs by Crab Scrambly.
Online gift store The Afternoon carries the intriguing “Haunted Tea Party” tableware line: an appetizer/dessert plate that feature the Hatter, March Hare, and Alice in a witch’s hat at a midnight tea table set with pumpkin teapots; plates that say “Eat Me” and mugs that say “Drink Me” (of course); a punch bowl shaped like a giant tea cup (check out the ladle!); matching napkins; and a rather bizarre caterpillar bowl holder.
Even after much Googling, I can’t figure out what company has created this line, but no matter. What I did find is that another online retailer, Flag and Banner.com, has a matching banner! (Scroll about three-quarters of the way down the page.)
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