Merry Happy! Challenge #148

This week's challenge is to create a piece for the holidays using Zentangle & the holidays as the inspiration. Since I was in need of creating neighborhood presents, this came in handy. I wish that I had taken a picture of the series of votive covers I made, but I just didn't get around to it. You know….a crush of time to get them done. I also made a few cute birch bark ornaments, but those too, did not get photographed. Ah well. They were well received.

I got a pad of Dura-Lar by Grafix which are like mylar, but not. It was wonderful to tangle on using a Pigma Sensei pen by Sakura and adding some color with either Tombow markers or Prismacolor Premier colored pencils, again, a delight to use.

Here is what is left from the presents: These were used with the markers. They do look better in person, but at least you get the idea.

I wanted to make some more, so I cut up another sheet and created these using the colored pencils. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them, but I do like the light behind them. I lined them up, keeping them flat, so you can see them all.

Merry Christmas!
Happy Holidays.
Merry Happy.

Different challenges

This week I had to focus on my needle felting more so I could have more product to sell at the Mountain Painters & Artisans Gallery. I did get some tangling done as well. I got a pad of Dura-Lar which is like Mylar. It is wonderful to tangle on and colored pencils work well with it. What a joy to play with it. I bought some battery powered tea lights and put three behind my tangled piece. Here it is:


And here are most of my felted pieces completed:

Sled full of Needle Felted Creatures.

Felted stacked barnyard animals…framed.

Pea-Nuckle and Well Challenge

Hi folks!

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone. Our family had a fabulous dinner which was cooked by my husband, 2 boys, and myself. Believe it or not, we had 9 different kinds of animals for dinner, so it was a good thing that the girlfriends weren't vegetarians. Duck, turkey, 3 kinds of fish, cows (butter, beef jerky, cheese), chicken (stock), venison (in stuffing), and pig (bacon). Most of the food was local. The duck was the freshest as my son went hunting Wed. morning, my husband caught the fish, my other son and I harvested the cranberries from the local bog, a friend got the deer, cheese was made by one of the girlfriends, and we all stuffed ourselves. You know, for not knowing what we were going to be doing for Thanksgiving on Monday, we really pulled it off pretty well. I am very thankful for having a wonderful family, friends, and for all the farmers from where our food came from.

Cam's black duck

On to this week's Diva Challenge. It was to create a tile using Pea-Nuckle and Well inclusively. I've been so busy trying to make some needle felted creatures for our gallery, that I haven't had a lot of extra time, but here is what I came up with:

Pea-Nuckle and Well

And here's some tangling I finally got around to. This is my front license plate:

And here's my needle felted santa. I have decorated his tree since this photo:

created by me, Jane MacKugler.

Zentangle Challenge #145

Hi folks!

It's done in the nick of time. Phew. Here's my response to the Diva Challenge this week using Quib. It was drawn fairly quickly, and I used a new tangle pattern I just came up with, "Skyfall" (we were watching the James Bond movie, Skyfall, while I was tangling and I saw the pattern in one of the scenes). I think it has some potential. If it wasn't so late, I think I might have done some more patterning inside the Quib. Perhaps I'll add some later.

Quib & Skyfall

I got some wonderful mail today! I was the lucky winner of the complete set of Sandy Bartholomew's tangling cards from Sue Jacobs' blog: http://www.suejacobs.blogspot.com. I am so excited. Thanks, Sue, and congratulations on crossing the 400,000 page views! These card decks are filled with 40 tangle patterns with their step-outs (drawing directions) plus an awesome 9 card puzzle! I got all three decks: YOGA for your BRAIN, Totally Tangled, and the Kidz Card Decks. PLUS a set of 20 blank tangle cards. I can see that these will really come in handy. Wooo hoooo! Fun, fun, fun.

It's a bug's life…

Well, I'm back. I guess that I needed a break. I took a look at what the Diva challenge is this week and remembered it was about bugs. I used all different kinds of pens and pencils.

This is something that I did two weeks ago. I submitted it to the Frost Mountain Ski Club where my son is ski coach and executive director. Even though I got the most "likes", he has vetoed my design. In all fairness, I got a lot of my friends to vote, so I don't feel so bad. I love the design and think that racers would look awesome in this suit….and they would be VERY FAST!

This is a relatively short post because I'm having problems with either Blogger, or my computer, or both. Hope you have an awesome week.

Tangle on.

Challenge 141: Duo-Tangle

This week's challenge is to create a tile using two specific tangle patterns: Fengle and Quandry.

I have always liked Fengle, but seem to be in a quandary about Quandry. I don't know what it is, but trying to line up the little triangles seems to be beyond me most of the time. As I was playing around with it last night I decided to start with lines and then, BAM!, it worked. Phew.

So, here's what I came up with:

I'm trying to loosen up my drawings a bit. It's not easy, but I think it's working....small steps.

That's the Point!

Weekly Challenge #140! "Monotangle, Pointillism style!"

Well, I was almost going to forego this round, but I finally attempted the pointillism-style zentangle tile and surprise, surprise....I had fun! I didn't quite do a monotangle, but I did use the pointillism.

So, what do you think? Do you see spots before your eyes? I certainly do.
I will definitely try this again sometime. Thanks to Laura for coming up with a fun, different, and creative challenge for us. Yay!

Weekly Challenge #139, Cranberry Picking, and CSA pick-up

I started the day picking up my weekly CSA order from Clear Brook Farm. I was so happy that it included a Romanesco cauliflower among the box of goodies. I love this plant! It is a pattern girl's dream veggie; it's filled with wonderful fibonacci patterning. Click on pictures to enlarge.
On to the Diva Challenge #139: 8s Parte Dos is a new tangle created by Jane Eileen and that is our challenge this week. I enjoyed creating a tile, monotangle style: using just one pattern. It was fun to make each one look a little different. I changed the size and the tangleations.

Today I got back in my kayak after being away from it for a while. My younger son and I went out to a local lake to go cranberry picking for a couple of hours. We have a good time adventuring together. As you can see, Grahame got out of his canoe to go pick. I picked from my kayak most of the time, but did get out and walk in the bog too, mostly because I love walking on bogs. I am happy to report that it didn't hurt as much this time around to get out of my kayak. Yay! I'm seeing (feeling) progress.

The cranberry plant with berries

The bog and Magic Mtn ski area

On the way home from the lake I spotted some more cairns. They seem to be popping up all over our community. Here's what I found: Click on pictures to enlarge.

What a great day!

Watching for borders

Hiya folks!

This week's Diva Challenge is to look around and start noticing potential borders to tangle. I have an old mirror I got at a tag sale and wanted to use the frame as a tangle border. Here's the frame (sorry, I see that it's blurry):

Frame on mirror

It has an interesting pattern and I attempted to recreate it, zentangle style. Here's my attempt:

Mirrormirror border

I might have to work on it a little more, but I do like the idea. We'll see where it gets me.

Earlier in the week I created the following tile, using Kuke: 

Kuke border

I do like the boldness of it. It has a nice balance of black and white.

I wonder what next week will bring!

Tangle on......

Knightipple

It's this week's Diva challenge: Knight over Tipple. We create a tile using Knightsbridge and Tipple. I saw some beautiful tiles come in over the past few days but I still didn't get a chance to create one of my own until last night and tonight. I'm not sure why it takes me so long to get my act together. Perhaps it's the working with 2nd graders that exhausts me so and when it comes to settling down for the evening I tend to put on a movie or something and veg out. I also have what I thought was sciatica but after visiting the wonderful physical therapist yesterday, it turns out that I have a crooked sacrum instead. We're working on getting it back to it's original place.  Jeeesh. Anyway, I finally got to work on the challenge and came up with a different rendition.

Here's my tile:

I played around a  bit with combining the two.

Hope you enjoy it.

Color me Zentangle

This week's Diva Challenge was to create a tile using color. I'm of the traditionalist, liking the black and white look of Zentangle, but I began by taking a tombow marker and a water brush and began to put color down on a blank tile. I then started the tangling. It was basically all one color and bland so I took out some more markers and colored pencils and added more color. Phew!

Here's the end result:

Looks like I should try playing around with color more often; I need the practice.

Last July/Aug I completed my 9 piece Zentangle ensemble to join an ensemble swap with some fellow CZT's. Here's what I created:

I sent the tiles out in the mail to be mixed up with other people's tiles and this past week I got a new ensemble made with 9 tiles from 9 different people. Here's what I got:

How fun is that? It's all so very cool.

Oh Well!

Challenge #135 - Well, well.
Yes, we are to tangle using the new tangle, Well. I had fun playing with this. Once again, I waited to the last minute, but it did get done. My sciatica has been a pain in the you-know-what. Geeesh. I did go for a wonderful massage Thursday after work and that was great for a while. Hopefully I will get a call early in the week for an appointment for the PT. Enough of this already! Okay, enough complaining.

I have been tangling with our second graders. It's great to just chill out and tangle. It seems as though everyone is enjoying it, and they are doing a great job!

Here's my challenge tangle:

Well, Rick's Paradox, Zanzee, and more Well.

I was working on some flowers today:

It's not a great picture, but the flower on the top left is all made from (soy-free) chocolate wrappers, the top right is from mostly recycled art room papers and of course, the bottom one from birch bark.

Have a great weekend and week.

Beamz me up

This week's Diva Challenge #134 is a UMT (Use My Tangle), brought to us by Traci F: Beamz. I seem to do better with the structured tangle patterns. I so want to go organic (like I want my diet to be), but the structured patterns are just easier for me. I had fun with Beamz...it goes a little this way then can be easily turned to go that way, and back again. Add a little tangleation and we're done. I did add some Pippin to go with it.

Good thing this was an easy challenge this week. I'm still not back into the school swing of things. I had to force myself to go for a walk after work today before collapsing on the chair. I shouldn't be this tired! By June I should be used to it all :)

Enjoy the rest of the week.

Tipple over

Challenge #133.....using Tipple. I waited until the last day to get this one done. The reason? School started and I have been very busy and very tired. (Not quite as tired as one of our little 1st graders who fell asleep during Library the second day of school - poor little guy) It certainly is hard to get back in to the routine of school. Up early, going to work, home and exhausted, dinner somehow, a little netflix, then off to bed. Phew! I did have a meeting or two to go to as well, somewhere in there. Yikes. Good thing that we have a three day weekend! We need to ease our way in to this.

So, Tipple. Lots and lots of spheres. Lots of them. I did this one while on the boat while my husband and son, and his girlfriend, were fishing. It's a beautiful lake with Stratton Mtn in the foggy distance. There seemed to be lots of love in the air....so here is what I came up with:

Here's some pics from the fishing trip:

Yummmm Dinner!

More dinner!

Non-domonotangle Challenge

Hei Folks,

This week's Diva Challenge is to create a tile using your non-dominate hand and use only Bales for the pattern, a mono-tangle. I always surprise myself when I try to use my left hand for something important; it's not as bad as I think it will be. It takes more concentration, and is a bit shaky, but it is doable. My hand cramps up and I tend to not blink as much, but I think it was a success. It had fun trying to think of different variations, or tangleations.

Here it is:

Alas, it's my last full week of summer vacation. It seems to be a very busy week as well, but the good news is that we're going to be getting some new windows!! I'm so excited; I think that it will make a huge difference with the look of the house as well as keeping the heat in this winter. Oh yay.

Hope you have an awesome week. Don't forget to take time out to breathe and go explore nature. That's what I'm planning on doing. Enjoy.

A whole lot of Dex

Greetings Folks~

Here it is Saturday night...again. I can't go to bed until I post this. Yikes. I'm tired, I do hope that you bear with me. This week's Diva Challenge was to create a Mono-tangle tile; that is, a tile using only one tangle pattern which this week, is Dex. I like using grid patterns although they look a bit rigid, I know where they are going and I don't have to think too hard. Using a mono-tangle, one just have to figure out how to mix things up a bit, giving them all a slightly different look.

I was sitting at a craft fair with my Zentangle booth, demo-ing how to create a tile for those walking by. It wasn't very busy so I had plenty of time to finish this one up. Here 'tis:

Dex, Dex, Dex, & Dex

This week I've been admiring Kathy Barringer's Lovely Loops and just had to try it out. What fun! Here's the tile:

My little Henna Drum

Wow! What a nice treat to have my tangle pattern chosen this week for Laura Harms' Diva UMT Challenge. It's so much fun to see what people come up with while using a pattern you came up with. Thanks Laura! There are a lot of beauties out there. I wish that I had a little more time to spend tangling this one, but I knew that I had to get something entered in. So, sweet and simple was the way to go.

This was drawn on - get this - elephant poo paper! Actually it was great to draw on; I enjoyed it.

Hope everyone is having a super weekend. The weather is just right here in VT.

Using string #4 for Challenge #129

This week's Diva Challenge is to use the string #4 from Tanglepatterns.com. The string is beginning point in creating a Zentangle tile. I've been busy playing (we are on vacation this week) by kayaking, swimming, sailing, and tangling. The weather has been stellar but today the waves were getting pretty big for my little kayak. My early morning paddle was a bit tiring for my shoulders, but so worth it.

I finally got to the challenge this afternoon, while watching the pending storm slowly move in. You will see that my tile reflects the crashing waves and relentless winds of today.




This is what the day looks like:



Yesterday was so calm, there were white caps today.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Ah, the ol' 2-Pencil String

This will be a quick posting due to getting ready for a little drive...VACATION!
This week's Diva Zentangle Challenge #128 is to create a tile starting with a 2-pencil string. This is drawing a string with 2 pencils banded together so you have parallel lines. Mine isn't very fancy, but it's okay.

Vega, Snail, Kuke, Golven, Shattuck, and I can't remember the name of the background.

So, off we go. Hope this finds everyone healthy and happy.

Opus and Cirquital Challenge

This week's challenge was to endure the heat. Phew! The Diva Challenge this week was to create a piece using 2 specific tangles, Opus and Cirquital. It's the Challenge #127: Duo Tangle v. VII! So I combined both challenges: staying cool and tangling with the duo tangles.

I went kayaking at our local lake, about 5 miles from my house. I paddled around for a bit, then parked my kayak and went for a swim. Ahhhhh, much better. To dry off I walked around the island, picking wonderful wild blueberries, snacking while picking, of course. With enough berries to keep me happy for a while, I sat down at the picnic table and began tangling.

So here's the island on the lake with the picnic table.

MMMMM blueberries!

My view from the table.

My Zentangle!

Since it has been sooooo hot (I'm not very good with heat), I did the same thing yesterday but stayed at the lake even longer, and read instead of tangled. When I was ready to leave, I was paddling in and saw a friend out floating on a tube so I stayed out and floated around and talked, with my feet and hands in the water. Very nice. I then got home and got a call from a friend in need of a swim so off we went to another body of water...the Stratton snow-making pond! That was even more crowded than Lowell Lake, but oh, so refreshing.