What a quandary

This week's Diva Challenge is to create a tile using a new official zentangle pattern called Quandary. It's an interesting pattern, keeping one's mind thinking of triangles, or groups of three. It's easy to try to create the flower shapes but then one can get lost. To get back on track I had to remember the triangle. Keep present. Breathe. Enjoy the beauty as it unfolds.

It was certainly a lot of fun to play with. I have a few forms of Quandary, Zedbra, Keenees, a variation of Chillon, and ? (sorry, can't remember the name of the tangle used inside the huge Quandary).

Year of the Snake

In the Chinese calendar, 2013 is the year of the snake. After doing a little research, I found this on hanban.com: The Cosmic Element and Color of 2013 year of Snake
The 2013 year of Snake is Water Snake, Water Snakes are lucky with finances, they always seem to have money flowing their way. They are adventurous spirits and love to take risks. They are also very intelligent and often a wellspring of creative ideas. Water Snakes love to socialize and meet new friends.They are proud of their achievements, and also very thoughtful and considerate of others.
The colour of the 2013 year of Snake is Black. Black color is the Space, Arctic night, darkness on the Abyss, this is a color of deep waters. The Black Snake will bring people unexpected changes, instability, and changeability. That is why it is important in the year of Snake to plan everything beforehand, and evaluate adequately before taking any actions. You need to be more careful and cautious than ever. 

Here is my entry for Diva's Year of the Snake challenge:

I used Scoodle, Golven, and Sand Swirl.

Enjoy.

Nemo in VT

Well, we didn't get as much snow as our southern neighbors, but the 10-12" was good enough to put people back in good spirits. You see, in Vermont we like to see the snow. It means that the skiing, snowboarding, sledding is much better. People come visit to play in our snow at our ski areas and parks. They buy groceries, stay at our inns, eat at our restaurants, buy gas, and go to our unique stores. Everyone seems to get in better moods. We like snow.

I do feel sorry for the folks in MA, CT, RI and southern NY whom are not quite as prepared for the snow (and they got a lot more than we did). I hope that they can get shoveled, plowed out and life can resume as it should. In the mean time, I did see a lot of pictures of people playing in the snow which warmed my heart a bit.

Speaking of hearts, I went for a snowshoe hike on a local lake this afternoon and decided to try another snowshoe art a la Simon Beck. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me (or a high enough vantage point to shoot a picture from), but when I got home I told my husband that his valentine card is at the lake. Hmmmmm. When I got home and got rested, I decide to draw my snow art.

The inner design is what I tromped out in the snow. The outer design (LOVEtangle) I added for the drawing.

Fun in the snow, with an added bonus: exercise!

Dansk Challenge and the helmet

This week's Diva Challenge is a UMT, or Use My Tangle challenge. Margaret Bremner, CZT had entered her own tangle, Dansk, to be used in Laura's challenge and it has been chosen this week.

Margaret said that she got the idea of Dansk from a soap dispenser in a friend's bathroom. You never know when those designs will hit you!

I saw the challenge on Monday morning and then as I was walking in to work I noticed that someone had an interesting shoe sole pattern in the snow. Ha, look at that! It's the beginning of Dansk!

When I got home from work I took out a tile and began my tangling. I decided to do a mono tangle of Dansk.

Last week I told you I was tangling my husband's ski helmet. Well, it's almost finished. All I need to do is apply some automotive clear coat to it and (hopefully) it will be done. He has gone out and skied with it as is and it seems to be holding up quite well. Lots of people have been attracted to the helmet and he has been kindly giving out my business cards. Who knows? Perhaps someone else would love a  hand designed tangled topper!

Egads! I almost forgot! Do you want a chance to win one of Carole Ohl, CZT's Tangle A Day calendars? If so, go on over to Diva Laura's site to enter. I'm in! It's a great calendar for you to tangle in.
Good luck.

Until next time......tangle on!

It's Tuesday...do you believe it?

Ha! It's Tuesday and I have already completed this week's Diva Challenge. Laura's family is sick yet she still rallied to put out the challenge to us all; to use String #3 for our Zentangle. Here's the string...

Here's my tile using Knightsbridge, Pinch, Leaflet, Yoga, and some flowers  :

AND the amazing thing is that this was completed LAST NIGHT......that's Monday night! It's amazing to me because I'm usually thinking about the tile all week and then finally get to it on Friday or Saturday. I'm so glad that this is done because my husband has bought a new ski helmet. It's white and he wants me to tangle it for him. I've started it but it will take a while to get the thing completed. I will be sure to upload pictures once it's done.

I love the way Zentangle brings balance to my life. Who knows, I just might be posting more this week.

Have a wonderful week.

Tangle more.

Moebius Syndrome Awareness

This week's Diva Challenge is in honor of her son, Artoo, who has moebius syndrome. You can check it all out on her webpage. I'm so glad that I have learned about little Artoo and the syndrome. He is such a strong little guy and is lucky to live in such a loving home. Diva Laura is an amazing woman, artist, mother, wife and I am very thankful that Zentangle has led me to her and the many other amazing people in the wonderful Zentangle world. Yahoo!

The challenge was to use the Moebius Syndrome symbol and create a tile with it. Here's mine:

The color purple is also related to the syndrome so I used a purple micron pen for the symbol. Funny how what you first have in your head as you are laying the design out can be completely different than the result. I guess my mind decided to go in a different direction. It's all okay though.

It's just like the seven minute write I had to do at a Wellness Conference earlier in the week. We were given a choice of writing prompts then had 7 minutes to write continuously. If the mind wandered we just wrote what was going on in our heads. I though it was a wonderful exercise. When we were all done there was a "contest" to see who wrote the longest piece. Since it was a fairly large group, we all stood up and read our pieces out loud all together. The last person reading their piece out loud was declared the winner. It was fun to hear everyone reading at the same time.

Zentangle is similar. You put pen to paper and begin drawing patterns. Sometimes you know which direction you'll be going in, other times it seems as though it all has a life of its own. Life is like that. Just roll with the punches and life will be okay. Life can change midstream of what you thought and still something beautiful can come out of it.

I'll be busy tomorrow cross country skiing in a ski-a-thon to help Vermonters in need with their heating bills. The event is called Ski For Heat and I've been skiing and raising money for it since it's inception 13 years ago. Since its inception, Ski For Heat has raised more that $225,000 for fuel assistance! If you'd like to help out, you can sponsor me (even after the event). Just put my name, Jane MacKugler, in the boxes describing the skier to sponsor.  Thank you!!

Have a wonderful week!

Zentangle Challenge #102

Phew! It took me all week to complete this tile. Bunzo was a bit slow for me. We were to make a duo-tangle using Bunzo and Auraknot. For some reason I always seem to go the extra mile and create something that takes me forever to complete. I suppose I like a challenge. Here is what I came up with:

Crazy, isn't it?

I'm glad that I finished it tonight, just in time to get it uploaded. I took a trip to CT yesterday to visit my dear childhood friend and to finally meet her grandson. It was a fun but quick trip. We xc skied on the golf course then I drove back to VT in time to go for a night XC ski on lit trails. The trail with the kerosene lanterns is my favorite. Wonderful..... but my tile wasn't getting done.

Have a wonderful week.

Thanks to Laura for the fun challenge. Go visit her site so you can either join in on the fun or see what others have created.