Such A Hearty Week

Valentines Day is approaching and there seem to be a lot of heart-themed tangles coming out to try. The Diva Challenge #204 is to create a "Valentangle". I decided to draw in the round and add some pinks and reds. As you can see, my zendala tile was bent a little, but I wanted to use it. I suppose I could cut around the flower shape. Hmmm, not a bad idea, then I could build up a 3D tile. Or not.

Herzlbee by Beate Winkler, 

I've been wanting to try more of the Bijou in a standard Zentangle tile. I'm still not real happy with it, but I'm slowly getting there. A bit more practice, I think.

Heartstrings by Helen Williams, Diva Dance by Maria Thomas

I also wanted to give a Talavera Tile a go. Getting excited about heading to Santa Fe in April for TangleU (A CZT only event). The tiles we create, and will be swapping, are inspired by the Talavera ceramic tiles. Here's my first attempt.

Talavera Tile

I think that I've been enjoying adding some bright colors since we've been hammered by snow and cold lately. It looks very black and white outside so bringing in some color is very pleasing.

A little of this and a little of that

Weekends are just not long enough with so much to do. Here it is Saturday night and I want to get this written up so I can post my tangle for Moebius Syndrome Awareness Week. It's for Diva's #201 challenge.

I've been keeping up with my Tangle A Day calendar (except for today's, of course) and the last couple of days I've been playing with the Moebius Syndrome Foundation's logo.
I like the 22nd better, but wanted to play with Rixty over and under, so we have the 23rd.

One of my sons gave me a wood burning set for Christmas and I finally got it out and played with it. What fun! I also bought myself a kid's mandala maker a while back and this is what I created today:

I created the above design starting with this kit by Ravensburger.

And just for fun, here's my pup, Scotia, making snow angels and playing fetch. She certainly loves the snow.

Time for bed. I have a big day tomorrow. First it's off to cross-country ski for the morning to help raise money for Vermont folks in need of help with their heating costs. If you'd like to help, you can add a small (or large) donation here.

Catching Up with Hitch/Oke and a whole lot more

Oh boy, it has been way too long since I last posted. Life just marched right along and I must have been caught up in it all. Well, it's 2015 and I'm ready to try to get back to blogging.

I'm going to go backwards a bit here, I hope you can bear with me. The reason I got back into it is because of wanting to tangle this week's Diva Challenge. This week we are to use Heidi Sue's Hitch pattern. Here I used it with Oke by Michele B:

Last month was Christmas and all the preparation that goes with it. I decided to give my mother-in-law an advent calendar that I tangled every "door" and put a photo behind each one. It took a long time but it was well worth it. She enjoyed her present very much. Here's the finished piece (click on it to see larger version). I bought the calendar from Gardener's Supply. You can see a close up of all the tangled doors by going to my Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/MacKugler.

DIY Advent Calendar

I bought 2 calendars but only got around to tangling one this year. I guess that I better start now for next year's. It really was a lot of fun to create and even more fun to share photos of the doors with my friends.

Sometime during this creating frenzy of mine, I bought a cool drawing toy. It's called an Original Mandala-Designer by Ravensburger. I got the classic design. Oh what fun it is to play with! I've been having fun creating fun mandalas. The Zendala tiles fit nicely in the designer.

A bit of zentangle and color added, put it in a frame and took it to the gallery and it was sold! Fun stuff.

I better stop while I'm ahead here. It's good to be back on the blogging scene again. Hopefully I will be chatting with you folks again soon. Thanks for stopping by. Happy new year.

Phicops & Diva Dance

Greetings Folks! I've been such a baaaaad girl and have not been keeping my blog updated. So sorry if you have been stopping by now and then to see if anything has been brewing. Life certainly has its way of getting in the way.

On to the tangling! This week's Diva challenge is to create a tile using the tangle patterns Phicops and Diva Dance. Here's my entry.
















Last weekend I was playing around with a new tangle called Cosmic, created bySharon McKenney, CZT.  How I love this one! It is a lot of fun to draw and play with. In this one I just added a little of Rick's Paradox.

This next one I wanted to see if I could add another couple of petals and put some Ing around the outside of it, filling that in with orbs, spirals, and Shattuck. I like it.

 And finally, I was thinking of dear Bijou and came up with this after seeing a photo of an endearing snail:

B'dylan and the snail

Thanks so much for visiting. I'm hoping that it won't take too long to post another tile.

A little Plaid

Back in the blogging saddle again. Wow, it seems that time just goes whooshing by. Summer is such a wonderful time to get out and enjoy nature's creativity, and time with family and friends. Actually, all year round it's wonderful but it's just easier, perhaps, in the summer.

 

 


You might have heard the big news in the Zentangle world, the introduction of Bijou® tiles. They are 2"x2" tiles, fun to tangle on. The idea is to tangle on your tile like a snail, slowly, simply, pausing often to admire the view, etc. They are available in a tin of 55 tiles with a couple of "Bijouism"s, like Breathe, Relax, Savor, Comfort.

Here is the tin of Bijou® tiles and some characters I made from the packing peanuts (don't ask)

There is so much excitement around these fun-sized tiles. Cherryl Moote, CZT has come out with directions on how to create a cute tile folder, which I had to give a try:                                                                  

 


I took a class on Tangled Labyrinth Journals with Sadelle Wiltshire, CZT with a wonderful group of folks. What fun! We first created a beautiful meandering journal then began to learn to draw different types of labyrinths. I can see making these with some of the kids at school…it just might be good for them!

Meandering book

My first filled in labyrinth

Goddess Labyrinth

This one on the right is called the Goddess Labyrinth and so I decided to create the goddess as well.










On to this week's Diva Challenge #180, using Anneke Van Dam's pattern "MacDee". Being a Mack, then MacKugler, I knew that I'd love this plaid pattern. I was going through my e-books and decided to work with Helen William's Flips, Folds, Ribbon and String book. I'm pleased with the result of this one.

It's spring with Camelia!

Phew, Spring is here. I love to hear the birds and frogs and smell the earth and rain. Spring in Vermont after a looooong, coooold winter is so amazing. Our snow is gone in our yard but the ski trails on the local mountains still have the snow. It reminds me of my oldest son when he was little. He was so excited for his birthday to come (May 16th) and I told him that it wouldn't be his birthday until all the snow has melted. Not yet, Cam! He will be 27 this year, once the snow melts.

I have been neglecting my blog and my Zentangle classes this winter. I guess that life just got in the way, but now I'm back. I spent 3 full days of tangling with over 100 CZTs (Certified Zentangle Teachers) in Portland, Maine at our second annual Tangle University. It was such great fun to see old friends and meet new ones while learning and getting inspired. Such wonderful and talented folks from all over the world!

On to the Diva Challenge #165, a UMT (Use My Tangle) challenge using Camelia by Anne Marks. I've enjoyed this tangle pattern in the past so it's a great one to help me get back into the swing of things. I also bought some Zentangle supplies and broke out the tan Renaissance tiles with brown and red Microns in addition to my black one. This is the first time trying the Renaissance tile and I had fun exploring it.

 At TangleU 2014, many of us had brought our CZT trading cards which we had ordered from Zazzle. When I opened my pack of cards I expected to smell the bubble gum, but the smell was not there. Funny how our brains work. It was fun to trade and collect the cards and later set them out on a table to revisit everyone. Not everyone had a trading card, but enough did to have some fun.
Enjoy your week!

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.

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.

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!