Glue Books - Altered Books - hand made books

I am not quite sure just what to call this new work I have recently completed. It is not an altered book, because I started with blank paper bound together with a plastic spiral. I started to call it a hand-made book but it seemed not quite right. Now someone has suggested that it is a glue book. But whatever you call it I enjoyed making it. I won a competition, an ATC challenge where the winner ( by drawing from a hat) is sent all the entries. I decided that I would use these to make a book so that they would be kept together. A few simple bits of scrap paper added, a few stampings and then I glued the ATC's onto the pages. Maybe you know what I should be calling it? Please do tell if you do, I can't go on making more, as I intend to, if I can't give them a name.

Here is the cover of the book:

As you may have guessed, I called it, "DOLOROUS ODYSSEY"

And her a one or two pages from the book:-

You can see more larger pictures on my Flickr account

I have been quite busy with crafting/art of late, mainly due to enforced time at home after my knee replacement operation. One of the things I have been doing is to update my artist trading card lenses on Squidoo. There are several dealing with topics relating to this subject now but the original series of four have become quite large and a little unmanageable so any more updates will probably be done as completly new lenses. The four if you are interested in seeing them are:

1. Making, collecting and selling artist trading cards
2. Making artist trading cards
3. Collecting and displaying artist trading cards
4. Selling and trading artist trading cards

thanks for staying with me until the end, more eye candy soon.

New Attempt to Earn Money from my Art

I have just opened a sales booth on Bonanza. So far I have posted about 20 collaged ACEO's in what I have called artyfax Gallery, why not take a peek? I hope to be including a widget in the side bar if I can get it to work. Off to do that now, back with more news asap.

BTW have you got a copy of this fantastically creative workshop book yet, just look at the crazy discounted prices from some sellers. I love the techniques that Berni Berlin introduces.

What is a Squidoo Lens?

Ok has that caught your attention? Well let me tell you. A lens is a single page website, so-called because it focuses down on a single niche subject. I have been writing on Artist trading cards, art in general, home cooking, sixties music and one or two odd ( sometimes very odd) subjects. I have always been interested in recording and writing on subjects that fascinate me and so when I came across Squidoo by accident I took it up as a (zero cost) way of writing and publishing articles in which I could get much more detailed than in a blog. So my first lenses were about artist trading cards.

But that was not all, I started to notice that my lenses were earning money not a lot but there it was. I became more interested in this idea and found that some lensmasters were earning 3 or four figure sums monthly. I thought I would give this a go and started to build a portfolio of lenses.In the early days I had set my controls so that any cash I earned went to charity, and over the first couple of years or so, 40 dollars was notched up by four lenses which I had done nothing to promote. Not a major sum but for no work..........

Over the past couple of months, I have been adding to this portfolio. Now - it takes some three months to start seeing any payments and this week should see my first payment of hopefully 6 or 7 dollars. Again not much but I have it on good authority that given time and a few more lenses ( I am aimimg at 100 at least) this could be a little pocket money each month. And if I can make any sales via affiliate sites like Amazon, Zazzle or All-Posters, literally the payments could go stratospheric. Well get better, LOL.

If you would like to help me in this endeavour, please visit my home page at Squidoo.

Of particular interest would be the series of lenses on Artist Trading Cards which comprises four main lenses;-

1. Making Collecting and Selling Artist Trading Cards
2. Making Artist Trading Cards
3. Collecting and Displaying Artist Trading Cards
4. Selling Artist Trading Cards

Hope that you can manage to find time to take a little look, and then perhaps leave me a comment. Thanks in advance for your time.

Newly created ATC's

Not managing to get here as often as I should but physiotherapy is taking its toll of my time.

Here are three new ATC's which are on My Flickr photostream. As of today they are all available for trading, should they take your fancy.

Blue Muse, using an image of Marie Antoinette

Two's a couple

Roses are red

You might be interested in a Squidoo Lens that I have been developing, showing many of the different methods and techniques for creating ATC cards. If you know of any other methods or think that you have a card which uses something a little differently, I would love to hear from you and possily include it into the lens.

Just for information a Squidoo Lens is considered to be a single page web-site focusing on one small niche area of information please take a look I would be grateful for any comments or advice that you may have.

It's That man Again!

Hi, It has been some time since my last post, not because of a lack of interest (LOL) but I have had some serious surgery - a complete knee replacement operation. It has kept me away from the PC screen for anything but the shortest of sessions as I could not comfortably sit at the computer. My PC desk has a cupboard at the front hence nowhere to put my legs.....

I am now at a stage where I am well on the way to recovery and am starting to pick up the pieces. So where to start?

One project ( a swap really plus!). On PDA we are making a book, the project will last 13 months and each page will be swapped between pairs of the artists involved. The themes for all the pages and the partners have all been published so we know where we are going. At the same time we are making a duplicate ( not necessarily the same as the first) which we will keep to use for ourselves. So we end up with two books at the end of the project. Of course how we arrange the pages in our own books is up to each of us individually.The following images show the end covers and their reverse sides.

The first is based on a background, collaged using brightly coloured torn paper. The marbled paper was given to me by a friend, Lynda Gilchuck, find her on PDA. This is the front cover:-

The front inside

The back cover

and the back inside

A little out of the ordinary (?) but definitely a style which is recognisably mine, I think. The second set of covers was more of the sort of thing I imagined that was more traditionally accepted in mixed media art.This is the front cover:-

the front inside

the back cover

the inside back

The last image is slightly spoilt by the reflection of the flash in the metallic charm, a female head - side on. I gave my partner, Kim Newberg, a choice of which set she wanted and she chose the first ( colourful) set, saying that it reminded her of myself.

Apart from crafting, and I have knocked out (?) a number of ATC's and altered pieces this past few weeks, I have been adding Lenses to my tally on Squidoo. Most are art related, especially ATC and aceo, but there are cookery and music related lenses. Too many to link directly here but the links will take you to examples from where you can find all my lenses if you are interested. I will provide a fuller list in the near future.If you don't know Squidoo it is a publishing site for which you get to share in the ad revenue generated and can get royalties on any items that are sold through your own lenses ( Amazon, Zazzle, Cafe Press, Ebay and All-Posters are the main affiliate sites). I am looking forward to generating a small passive income for my retirement. Some members report earnings in the area of four figures each month, but I wouold imagine this is quite rare.

Back with more soon, thanks for reading.

ATC challenges

I am going to be very brief with this post as I need to do some catching up. I am just going to show two ATC collages which were made for challenges on different sites.

This was made for a challenge on Flickr (Artful Ideas), the theme was journey. I decided to make it a metaphorical journey simply because I found and liked this image. Love the facial expression! I took some travel lables (Dover Samples) and used this to represent where ( and perhaps how) the little girl would be when she grows up.

This was made for a Halloween themed challenge ( did you guess?)  on PDA ;full title:- "it's alright for you but I don't like bats in my hair"

the main image is from frannie60  and the bats from jack and cat curio

Do You Squidoo?

Golly, time certainly passes when you are enjoying yourself. I have been creating and updating lenses ( single page web-sites on a niche subjects) on Squidoo.

I love to write about what I am doing as much as painting and collaging, so I am enjoying this at present to the detriment of new art. I am also reading a lot about art and making notes of some new ideas to try! I have updated my lenses on "making, collecting and selling ACEO's". Still have a way to go to complete these and they remain work-in-progress but why hide them away. Actually there is a series of four introduced by the named lens.

I have also added recently, tutorials on:-

making a simple collaged ATC
ready made and easy ATC backgrounds
making marbled paper with shaving cream 
the basics of how to use the colour wheel
and for those of you new to layering in digital work, adding ghost images in Photoplus

Hope you find time to take a peek. comments of course are very welcome - always. especially if they help to improve the content and the manner in which it is presented. Thanks in anticipation.