Linda Israel

Multi-Media Artist

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.

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

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.

A couple of the tools I used can be ordered from Amazon:

Today I made something that I haven’t made in many years!!! A friendship bracelet! One of my coworkers sent a link to me yesterday and asked? Could you show me how to make one of these bracelets? I said Sure I can! lol… I went home and dug around in my craft supplies and found my box of cross stitch tread and crochet thread and brought some of the items to work today.. Then John came to my office and I showed him how to make a bracelet.

What is amazing to me is that I remembered how to make the bracelet and how many people stopped John and said, hey I remember those, we made those back in school for all of our friends!!! lol…

When I was in school I made them for my friends and then kids asked me to make them for them to give to their friends.. Well I started selling them. I wasn’t going to be making dozens of these bracelets for nothing! So I made a ton of these bracelets for the kids at school and I had money in my pocket most of the time too!

Thanks John for bringing back those good memories. I hope you have fun making the friendship bracelets…

What childhood craft do you remember? Have you taken the time to teach someone else how to make something? If not, it isn’t too late to start today!

Linda

2010 Bedlam game – November 27th 7:00 p.m. in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Final – Sooners win! Oklahoma 47 vs Oklahoma State 41

Living in Oklahoma there is always bedlam between the schools.  I love cheering for both schools throughout the year and decided that I would create some new artwork showing some team spirit.

Medium: Paper, Metal, paint and Creativity…

Each one is unique and different even if I try to make two alike, they don’t come out the same… Currently these can be found at Loving Touch Marketplace 1237 Garth Brooks Blvd Yukon, OK, booth number 817. Let them know that you saw my art on the web and you will get a 5% discount on a purchase from my booth #817.

Thanks for stopping by, make today a great day!

Linda

I was going through some Christmas cards I made and realized that Christmas is almost here. It amazes me how fast this year has flown by me… I feel like I was standing still as the world zoomed by at lighting speed.

I have done a little Christmas shopping and I’m making a few gifts this year. My family is small and we try to keep Christmas a simple affair. Last year we had a huge snow storm that kept us home. Who knows what will happen this year. I will plan to just enjoy the days ahead.

What are your plans? Have you started or finished your Christmas shopping?

Gift ideas I thought I would share:

Hand made greeting cards – Birthday, Thinking of you, Get Well, and just blank cards make a great gift. My mother in law loves getting cards as a gift, although she has a hard time using the cards, so I make sure that I give her several of the same design…

Hand made book mark – I use book marks all of the time, so does my mother. I like to make book marks from paper or wire and beads. I try to personalize the book mark for the person that I’m giving book mark…

Making gifts for guys can be difficult. They usually don’t want frilly, lacy and smelly items.. lol.. One year I made fleece scarfs. I purchased fleece in colors I thought the men would like and made the scarves at least 60 inches if not longer and about 12 inches wide. Then I made fringe on the ends by cutting in one inch increments and two inches along the short edges. If you have access to an embroidery machine or the time to hand stitch you could add their name to one end of the scarf. I even made one for myself and I still use that scarf, it is so soft and warm.

The key to hand made gifts is the thought and love that you put into the item. Almost everyone I know loves getting a well thought out hand made gift. People know that you took great care in making an item just for them. Instead of going to a local retail store and picking from the mass production items that are found and sticking it into a bag… Make this Christmas special by giving a hand made gift.

Linda

Classic black and white movies, the young people don’t appreciate them at all.. The theme for our OFB ATC group was a challenge for some and easy for others… I found this assignment to be a fun one..

Loving Casablanca staring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. I chose to use a close up of the two with the quote, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

I used black card-stock as the foundation and stamped in gold pigment ink around the edges. I had some Christmas ribbon that was narrow and had a little red down the center and thought that would make a nice touch behind the photo. I matted the quote with red card-stock and then went around the photo and quote with a glitter gel ink pen. A classy ATC card…

Linda

The following ATC was made for the OFB Swap group.. The theme was Skulls so I decided to go a little punk rock and use some pink paper and bling… lol..

There are three layers of pink paper, then I punched a pink star and placed rhinestones on the tips. The skull is a stamped image and I filled in the tips of the bones with glitter and placed a pink bow in the top. The you rock is from a Studio G stamp set and I stamped the image in pink ink and then matted with another shade of pink paper.  I punched paper flowers and then used my stylist to give them a 3D look.

I thought it turned out pretty cute…

I think this could be a great girls card just make it a little bigger and use this as the front cover and put Happy Birthday inside.. Lots of ideas could be used with pink and skulls… Don’t limit yourself, you can do just about anything you want!  Have fun!

Linda

There are so many famous women in history it is hard to choose just one. But for the OFB ATC Swap group I chose Mae West.  I just love her tenacity. Plus she has the same birthday that I have, so that makes her totally awesome!

The foundation card is ivory card-stock that I stamped around the edge with Tim Hotz distress ink. The next layer is a piece from my scrap collage art. The image of Mae West is from a clip art CD that I purchased a couple of years ago and that image is mounted on a piece of brown card-stock. I put little rhinestones in the corners and thought that was enough bling…  On the back of the card I put the information that was included with the image.

So who are some of the famous women in history that inspire you?

Thanks for stopping by to have a look.

Make today a great day!

Linda

The theme for this ATC (Artist Trading Card) was Weapon.  Our group – OFB ATC used a wide variety of weapons for this challenge – some used guns, brass knuckles and even a club.. lol.  For my ATC, I decided to use a quote that I thought was perfect. “The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.”  ~Ferdinand Foch

I created a fire out of various colors of paper that I had in my stash. I cut the “flames” by stacking the papers on top of each other and just making random cuts that resembled flames. Once I had a pile of papers I started the assembly.  After all of the flames were glued down with Zig two way glue I went over the whole area with glitter glue and sprinkled more glitter on top.  I cut out the phrase and mounted this on red velum.

The reason I chose this quote? Imagine a person who is excited, emotional and contagious about a conviction in their life. They may be excited about someone they love or something that they do and when they are so excited that you can’t help but want to know more, or want to run away! lol.. That is what it is like to see a human soul on fire and that can be a very powerful weapon.

So what fires you up? What burns deep within your soul? For me; My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the fact that He came to this world, died and rose again to save my soul.  I didn’t deserve anything that He has done for me, and He did it anyway…

Many Blessings…

Linda