Linda Israel

Multi-Media Artist

The theme or challenge for this ATC (Artist Trading Card) was Primary Colors for the OFB ATC swap group. I chose to use a collage technique that I love because it uses up scraps that I have on hand…

So grab some scraps of papers and you can make one too even if you don’t have all of the tools that I have!

The basic idea is to gather the colors you want to use as the foundation of your art. Since this was a Primary Colors theme I chose papers that were red, yellow and blue. Then I pulled out my rubber stamps and black ink and started over stamping on the paper. It didn’t matter if the paper had a design or not, I was adding another texture to the paper. Once I stamped all of the scraps I then cut the paper in to strips, and again the size or width of the strips didn’t matter, this is a random design.

Once all of the strips were lined up I used carpet tape to adhere these into a design. If you don’t have carpet tape a double sided tape would work, or you could just glue each piece down (which will take a little longer and you have to put glue on the entire strip of paper). Then after I got the tape filled with paper I filled in the spaces with glitter. I cut the piece down to the size I wanted the finished art to be and proceeded to embossing.

Embossing with regular powder is easy or even UTEE (to make the artwork shine). If you don’t have either you could use Glossy Accents or Diamond glaze or other finishes that will dry clear and shinny, another favorite of mine Golden Gel medium in low and high gloss.

Take this project and use it to make something out of your scraps or even your trash. It is a great projects for kids – use magazines or junk mail. Free items are great to use in art for kids! Could use a laminator or even packing tape to make the pieces shiny if making this project with kids..

Then let me know what you created. Leave a comment telling me about what you have done. How you changed up your project etc…

Just have fun! There is no right or wrong.

Blessings

Linda

The following ATC was made for the OFB ATC swap group. The them was Actress. I chose to use an image of Nicole Kidman from a magazine that I happen to have at home. This would be a great project to do with kids or a bunch of friends. Grab a pile of magazines that has a lot of photos and choose photos that please the eye and have fun.. I used mainly scraps of paper that I had on hand, that’s what I love so much about ATC’s you don’t have to use a lot of supplies to make one.

I hope you enjoy this project. Let me know if you try making an ATC out of magazine images, I would love to see what you made.

One of the OFB ATC groups theme this week was If I Could Change One Thing About Me.

I decided to do a Google search and landed on the following website successfromthenest and I liked the post it got me to thinking what would I change about myself. Well first I really need to change inward and I decided that my “focus” in life needed to be more on God. I took a photo that I felt depicted what I wanted and I used that as the front of my ATC. I then printed a note I wrote for the inside. I think the rest is easy to figure out what I did to finish up the card, using some stickers and Tim Holtz Distressed ink…

Now back to my change. I have decided that I would read the bible daily and I signed up for youversion Everyday it shows a few chapters to read and I can check these off as complete.. So it is the first step in changing me and then I can start making changes in the environment around me.

So what one thing would you change about yourself? Ready to get started? Please share your thoughts with me.

The following is from the book:

One Hundred and One Legends of Flowers

by Elizabeth Todd Nash

The Christopher Publishing House, Boston, USA 1927

A Greek legend tells of the origin of the sunflower and why it is the symbol of constancy and adoration. “Clytie was a beautiful water nymph of Hellas. One day she left her home among the waves and went to Olympus, where she saw Apollo, the sun-god, and fell in love with him. Apollo,  however, was enamored of Calliope, the muse of epic poetry and paid no attention to Clytie. So she sat on the ground gazing at the sun from the minute it appeared until it dropped beyond the horizon. For nine days Clytie sat and pined away, refusing to return home. Finally her limbs sank into the earth and became roots, her body a slender stem and her beautiful face became a flower resembling the sun and following its course all day long.”

“The heart that has truly loved never forgets,

But as truly loves on to the close

As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets

The same look she turned when he rose.”

~ Thomas Moore.

I picked up the book One Hundred and One Legends of Flowers at the Oklahoma City Friends of the Metropolitan Library book sale a few years ago and have enjoyed reading the legends. The cover has packing tape holding it together, inside there are markings for the various libraries that the book had been housed and more packing tape..  One of my favorite features of the book is the embossed velum pages that are selectively added to the book with illustrations depicting one of the flower legends preceding the image. I paid all of $3.00 for this book and I feel it has so much more to offer for the small price that I paid. Over this next year I’ll share a few of the legends, I hope some will bring joy to you, maybe inspire you or cause you to ponder what you do in your life…

Let me know if you want me to find a story about a particular flower and I’ll look to see if it is in this book and post it on my site… Make sure to leave a comment, ask questions or just tell me that you liked the story…

Blessings

Linda

This weekend I’ve been busy.. If you were around me you might have thought I was nesting.. Well that couldn’t happen if you know my life story… Really I was just tired of my studio looking like a storage room with an 10″ by 10″ workspace.. As It seems I pull everything I own out and since I don’t have a storage place to put extra supplies it piles up around me…

So I gotta have faith that I can get some order in that room! And just so happens I opened a box that had watch tins. The tins were made for watch makers / repairers. The tins would hold the tiny parts needed in watches.. A few years ago I ordered a couple hundred and I stored away those that I hadn’t used or sold.

I started looking at the tin and thought hey why can’t I make this into a miniature art? I measured the tin and the one I chose just happened to be 1 1/2″ in diameter. I found some paper that I had painted and punched a circle. Then I found a oval punch out with the word faith stamped on it and thought that would fit inside… Feeling pretty good about what I was doing I remembered that I cut out some tiny hearts out of aluminum (from a soda can) I found the perfect size and color and proceeded to assemble my mini collage.

I glued the punched out circle in the back with some glossy accents. Then I put an edge of purple around the oval and then put a round pop dot on the back of that. I then put a double set of pop dots on the heart.. I decided that it need a little bit of glitter around the inside edge so I ran a bead of glitter glue around the inside.. Ok so now I wanted some feet.  Henry and I have been going to the gun range and we have picked up the spent brass before we left.. I dug through the bag of brass and found a couple of silver colored shells and thought those would make great feet!  Got out the epoxy and glued it together…

I think it turned out pretty cute for my first one like this.. I have enough to make at least 3 dozen more in different sizes. I think I’ll sell these for $4.00 to $6.00 depending on the size of the tin and what else I put in side..

Let me know what you think of this one.. Do you know of other words you would like to see inside the tin? Got a favorite color?

I like making small things like this because these could be placed close to where a person sits most of the day – near a computer or just on their desk, anyplace you have room for a small work of art…

Thanks for stopping by.. Please leave a comment love to read what you think..

Having Faith is something that everyone needs, and a little reminder never hurts…

Linda

Today has gone to the dogs.. lol.. Well I really just created these cute coasters with a silhouette of a Scotty dog and thought I would share with every one.

I found a silhouette pattern in my craft stash and re-sized the image to fit onto my 6 by 6 block and used Heat n Bond to attach to the foundation fabric. Then I cut a 6 by 6 piece of fabric and 100% cotton batting to make up a sandwich of fabric to sew together. Using a 1/4 seam allowance I left a gap and turned the right sides out, pressed the fabric and then sewed around the edge. Once I had the edge sewn I used my sewing machine to stitch a zig zag around the dog image. I decided that the coasters would last longer if the fabric was protected so I used Scotch Guard on the front and back of each. Finished size is about 5 1/2 inches square. I made sets of four of Blue and White and Red and Blue.

I think these turned out pretty cute. I’m trying to decide if I should offer these for sale online at Etsy or take to Loving Touch Marketplace in Yukon..  Maybe some of my friends can give me some feedback and suggest what I should do with these cute little doggies…  For now I’ll try to keep them away from my four legged creatures, as they would love to have a new chew toy…

Sew, a day gone to the dogs, isn’t necessarily a bad thing… I hope you are having a great day and can find some way to make someone else smile…

It was one of those days that I wasn’t feeling well.. So I found some old craft magazines and flipped through them to see what might inspire me… It is funny what is in these magazines.. Some of these were published in 1996, 1999 and 2000.. Hard to imagine that these were popular crafts and at the same time many of the projects are the same today.. I think we just reinvent things that have already been done, we just put a new spin on them and hopefully make them better. There were a few projects that did interest me and I just might go ahead and make up some of the projects, or a variation of the projects in the future.

So what do you do when feeling a little under the weather? I hope you find your comforts in the things around you and the people in your life as I do and am thankful for.. My dogs were very happy that I stayed home with them today.. lol…

Blessings…

Linda

When I make something I put my whole heart into the process. For the items photographed here I used an unusual source for my heart – an aluminum soda can.
I kept seeing cans being thrown away or just sent straight to recycling and thought there has to be a way that I could make art out of one of those cans.

I found a sharp pair of scissors and started cutting the top and bottom from the can and slit down the side so that I could have a long narrow sheet of metal. I then started cutting hearts, different sizes and wondered how could I texture the shapes… That’s when I found that I could use my Sizzix machine and a cuttle bug embossing folder to get the texture I wanted.

The script was my first embossing folder: I loved the look of the texture and then I started playing with mediums to get the colors I wanted on the metal. I’ll share that process in another post. For now enjoy the photos of these mini works of art, which are available at Loving Touch Marketplace for $3.00 each.

I decided that coasters should be the next project I would share.. I have a lot of scraps of fabric and couldn’t decide what to do with all those little bits when I saw a coaster and though hey there is an idea that I can make… I started cutting bits of fabric into 1 1/2 strips then sewing the strips together. Once I had enough to make what I thought would look nice I cut sewed strips into four so I could make a pretty set.. I’ve completed two sets so far and I have a lot of strips cut for many more coasters. I will have the coasters out at Loving Touch this week. I will create custom coasters in the colors you would like, just tell me what you are looking for – blues, reds etc.. As I make more coasters I’ll upload the photos…

What  have you productive today? Maybe you cleaned out the refrigerator, cleaned out a junk drawer that was getting way over full… Don’t coast through this year, do something productive, even the smallest of things will make a difference, before you know what has happened you will have made a big impact on your life and you’ll be coasting along happier…

Linda

Happy New Year! 2011 is finally here and away we go!  I’ve been busy sewing and I’ve got 2011 in the bag! lol.. I use little bags in my purse to hold small items so I can transfer from purse to purse quicker and I thought I should make and sell some of these little bags… The three in the photo are about 9 by 7 and are lined. The bags will be out at Loving Touch next week.

Now that it is a new year, do you have it in the bag, do you know where you are going this year? I’ve got some big ideas and plans… The biggest for me is to be consistent, to follow through with the plans I have made and keeping doing things on a regular basis.. For example, I want to be consistent in updating my web site with posts, photos and news…

I think I have a great start.. I’ve told someone about my plans and I’ve created a new post.. So I’ve got 2011 in the bag, how about you?

Linda