Organic wreath

The Diva challenge asks us to use organic tangle patterns this week. I love these type of tangles but don't always use them so much. So I decided to really go to town here. The tangle patterns used are;

Official tangle patterns - Cyme, Fescue, Festune, Pendrills, Poke root, Poke leaf, Punzel and Sedgling,  Other tangle patterns - Artoo, Featherfall, Euca, In-a-pod, Label, Maylea, Mumsy,Vine thanks, and Wartz.

I used a colored tile and shaded with colored pencils.

And just for comparison - Here's before I started shading.

Life is a Circus with color

I promised I would share my tile after I added color to it. So here it is. I have to be honest and say that it wasn't what I had hoped it would be. I had to have my car worked on so I brought the tile and colored pens with me to the dealership. As I was working however, I noticed that the pens were picking up the black from the pen and muddying the colors. Bleech! Yucko!

Well if they say that everything is a learning experience, I know now that the Uni-pin pen and the Spicca gel pens, do not play well together.

Zendala dare 100

The Bright Owl is back to posting again. She has posted many wonderful Zendala templates but had to take some time off for her education. She has come back with a bang now and I need to catch up! The link to get to her site is on the right column under 'links'.

This is Dare #100. I love its ability to be interpreted in many ways. Here's mine.

Life is a Circus

Circus Life - is the challenge this week. I decided to use the tangles LinQ, Tropicana, and Cack. What is especially ironic about this piece is something I talk about in my basic Zentangle classes. I talk about tangleations for basic tangles and demonstrate a few of the options. Then I say, "But pick one of these tangleations because if you use all of them it will start to look like a three ring circus." So as you can see above, I used lots of tangleations - and yes, it looks as busy as a three ring circus!

I think I actually want to use color on this piece too. But I wanted to get it on my blog in black and white first. I promise I'll get it up when it's done!

 My life has been so crazy for the past few weeks that this challenge describes it perfectly. I have been running is so many directions that it's easy for things to fall through the cracks. If I have forgotten to respond to a question or email please forgive me and email me again. 

Simplicity

Simplicity in a Zentangle tile is not always an easy thing to achieve. One of the things that is so fascinating about Zentangle to me is losing myself in the tangles and just going on and on. So for this challenge I had to force myself to think about tangles n their most basic forms and to stop early. So, I stopped - but then I was really into tangling mode so I did one tile after another.

The one at the top left is a simplification of Zhostovo Border. At right it's Striping.

This is Aquafleur.

The tile to the left is Gneiss. To the right is a combo of Ditto and Flux.

Glenview book club ladies

I had a fun group of ladies in Glenview last night. The book club had its monthly meeting at Christi's home and Christi went all out. She suggested that the members dress in black and white to go with the theme. I saw all sorts of new tangles in their wardrobes. Even Christi's little girl was in black and white.

Christi was so creative with the snacks - they all followed the black and white theme. And do take a look at the label of the wine bottle. It looks like a tangler was in on its design too! Chocolate nonpareils and mini marshmallows appealed to my sweet tooth.

This is the class mosaic - such beautiful work with so many wonderful tangleations!

And then there were the Oreo balls for dessert. I think I gained a couple of pounds with all those temptations! Full disclosure by the way - Christi is my daughter!

Shrink art jewelry for Madison

It's been a very busy week here. I've been creating new pieces for my booth at the Zentangle Expo in Madison. It's also been busy getting in new merchandise and packing everything up for my classes. Right now my front hall looks like a disaster zone. Here's a sneak peek at some of my shrink art jewelry. In the background you can see one piece that's before the shrinking process.

I'll be teaching my tricks for making shrink art jewelry too! Today is the last day to sign up on the internet - otherwise you can sign up at the expo on a space available basis.

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July. I usually don't post things that are food related but I had fun this morning and thought I'd share. Is it perfect and ready for the cover of a magazine? Probably not, but it was fun.

These are easy and quick to do. The main ingredient is marshmallows. Just stick a toothpick into it, wet it with water, dunk it into the colored sugar, and set it to dry. I got fancy and did three stripes but you could do them in separate colors and then put three marshmallows on a skewer.

To do the three stripes I dipped my (slightly) wet marshmallow into one color of sugar. Then I flipped it and went into the other color. Sometimes I used a spoon to help the sugar go up the sides. Then I held the marshmallow sideways and sprinkled the sparkly clear sugar around the middle.

The first batch I did I used jello mix - just the dry powder - for the red and blue. The middle stripe is sparkly sugar sprinkles.

Then I did some with just colored sugar. These might be better for the kids - as they won't get food coloring from the jello on their fingers.

Zentangle Expo coming soon!

Heads up! If you are anywhere near the Midwest, you will want to be attending the Zentangle Expo in Madison, WI on July 11th. If you have been postponing your registration - don't delay. Some of the classes are close to being full and walk-ins may be turned away from what they want.

I'll be teaching two classes on Saturday and doing a lecture. The picture here is the Tangled Luminary class. Yup, I'll be busy! And my hubby is coming with so you can buy official Zentangle supplies along with my hand-colored paper in the market.

Here is the link to sign up - http://www.penmarkpatterns.com/zentangle-expo/