Life sure is busy!

I've been playing with some cardboard lunch boxes that I recycled from the last day of school in June. I gelli printed some and I painted some with alcohol ink, then I was wondering what else I could do with the boxes. I looked around my studio, trying to think up some ideas and decided to make a book within the box.

These are all of the boxes. You can see the original in lower left. Click on the pic to get a larger view.
The box in lower right is my book box, the others are empty.

You can see the sewing of the signatures here. I have 3 signatures and
each signature has a cover of gelli printed file folder, folded and sewn.

Another view of the spine.

I opened up the book so you can see my signatures and plain, recycled
packing paper pages.

Here is my book box, all closed up. 

I still want to decorate the inside somehow, perhaps with colorful quotes and marks. We'll see. I'm pleased with it and can see that I will want to make more.

Do you have any other ideas? I'd love to hear them.

Celebrate!!

Well, once again, it has been a long time since I have posted. Hopefully things will get much better now that I have retired from being a special education paraprofessional in a K-8 school. I was there teaching for 17 years. Phew! I mostly loved it but it was time to go begin a new chapter in my life. Soooooooo, what will I be doing????? I will be teaching more Zentangle and Gelli Print classes. I will also be kayaking a lot more, traveling a bit, and if winter cooperates this year, more skiing.
I'll just have to see what turns up. So far I'm having a great time.

Last week I taught a couple of Zentangle Workshops to some Vermont school employees at a Summer Institute given by VEHI (Vermont Education Health Initiative) at Mtn. Top Inn in Chittenden, VT. What a beautiful spot overlooking Chittenden Reservoir! Here are the tiles created from those workshops:

The ladies did a fabulous job and it was great fun introducing Zentangle to them.

This is just a short posting as I'm trying to get one completed. I'll be posting more in the near future. I am also updating my classes, so go take a look.

Happy summer!!

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.