Digital Me

I just finished updating my yahoo avatar.  It's still kind of boring, but I think it resembles me a little.  For some reason I just can't get into making an avatar that is complete fantasy.  Oh well, it was fun.

Scrabble tile pendants for Relay for Life fundraising

The past couple weeks I've been working on making scrabble tile pendants to sell to raise money for the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life.  Once again, I'll be joining my mom's team for the Bakersfield Relay and volunteering at the Survivor's tent.

Most of the pendants I've made are pink, specific to breast cancer awareness and are from artwork created by Ashley Marie Design (found on Etsy).  My mom suggested making one in purple (the main Relay color) and more generic. So here's what I created.

It's amazing that I was able to find everything I needed for this project on Etsy: scrabble tiles, bails, cords, resin bubbles.  I heart Etsy.

Mini Samplers

Earlier this month I participated in a SwapBot swap where we created 5 different "mini samplers" of different zentangle patterns. These are my 5. I provided the name of each pattern on the back of the cards; unfortunately I didn't copy the backs, and I don't feel like looking them up again.  If there's any you have questions about, please feel free to leave a comment and I'll find the info for you.

What's in a name?

In this case, zentangles are in, around, and on a name.  I participated in a Swap-Bot swap that involved zentangling an ATC that includes the first name of your swap partner. Each person had 3 partners, so I had to do 3 names.  My favorite of the 3 is "Joan", but I'm kind of partial to "Maggie" as well (even if it does look like snakes).

Boring training, day 2

A few tangly bits from today's training. I particularly like the one I named "drunken huggin". It's basically the pattern Huggin, but skewed to the diagonal.

A boring, all-day training at work inspires a tangle

And when I say boring, I mean eyes-glazed-over, fighting-to-stay-awake, making-grocery-lists boring.

I don't know if there's already a named or official tangle that loooks like this, but I call it "Floramooka" because it came out of some mooka practice I was doing.

UPDATE 10/17/2011: I just discovered that Geneviève Crabe provided a link to this pattern in her Tangle Harmony 10/14 Weekly Roundup.  Woohoo!

Some September creations

The Zentangle Inspired Art yahoo group recently had a swap for a fold-up envelope that is sized to hold an artist trading card (ATC, 2.5"x3.5").

ATC envelope back

ATC envelope front

ATC envelope open

I saw these plain, white butterfly masks at the craft store and thought they'd be fun to draw on. The surface is REALLY smooth, so it was a challenge not to smear, but I really like how it turned out. I have 4  more...if you want to give it a try, I'll send you one.

 I love the edging I created on this one; although I think the tangle itself is kind of busy.

There's a new weekly challenge on the ZIA yahoo group: Index Card a Week (ICAW). This week's challenge was to create a monochromatic drawing. 

Weekly Challenge #40: String Theory v.VI: Pinwheels for Peace

Apparently September 21 was International Day of Peace, and there was a movement to have millions of pinwheels spinning on that day.  I didn't get my pinwheel completed in time for that, but in the spirit of peace, and in fulfillment of this week's Diva Challenge, here it is.

Diva Challenge #38: Better than a Pair of Ducks

The Diva challenge has nothing to do with ducks...it is a challenge for a monotangle (a tangle using just one pattern) with "Paradox".  I was going to wait until this weekend to post, but my coworker has been bugging me that I haven't updated my blog recently, so I took a picture with my phone that'll have to do until I have a chance to scan it. 

The more I use Paradox, the more fun I have with it...mostly because I'm better able to control it and can plan the patterns I want to make with it. 

Diva Challenge #37: Kiss my Grids

The challenge this week is to use only grid-based tangles within a tile. I LOVE grid-based tangles, so this challenge was right up my alley.

Diva Challenge #35: Tile on Tile

This was the challenge from the week of 8/15, but I just got around to scanning it. The challenge was basically to create a tile within a tile. I ended up making 2 of these because I wasn't very happy with my first attempt (it bugged me that the inner tangle wasn't obvious).

Attempt #2 - In addition to the tile within a tile, I also enjoyed playing around with inverted patterns on the "outer" tile.

Attempt #1 - I think the inner tile is the egg-like shape in the middle.

Teacups and Keys

The Zentangle Inspired Art yahoo group hosts regular art swaps (you make a card according to the swap guidelines and swap/trade it for a card from another member of the group). I decided to give it a try and participate in two; the themes were (1) Teacups and (2) Keys.

Teacups

I kept them black and white and used a single tangle for the background...sort of like wallpaper. I really like how all three of these turned out.

The background tangles are

• Top left is a variation of Insydout by Mari Masi
• Top right is a variation of Warped Eggs by Livia Chua
• Bottom is a variation of Purzue by Laurie Patterson

Keys

I wanted to try some color. I'm not very comfortable with incorporating color yet (or even shading for that matter), but I'm glad I tried it. Two of them use watercolor pencils and one was Bic Mark-It permanent markers and colored Microns.

The Diva's Weekly Zentangle Challenge #34, "Opposites Attract"

This is my first official submission for the Weekly Zentangle Challenge on I am the diva - CZT blog. The challenge is Opposites Attract and these were the instructions:

Create your string using EITHER straight lines alone, or solely curving shapes and then fill the string with its opposite!
If you used the straight-line string, fill it with curves and orbs and other soft tangles.
If you used the curvy string, try to fill it using only grid-based and angular tangles.

So, I made one of each. Here ya go.

Straight with Curvy

From Zentangle Challenges

Curvy with Straight

From Zentangle Challenges

Zentangles

In July 2011 I found the Zentangle Basics book on the clearance table at a Paper Source store in San Francisco. I had seen a reference to Zentangles on a blog a few months earlier so I knew exactly what they were and they looked like fun to try. I've been completely obsessed ever since.

I'm going to try to post them as I finish them, but to get started I'm just going to do an image dump. Enjoy.

Hello!

For my first post, I'm including some pictures of a butterfly mobile I made for Miss V. The butterflies were all hand-cut from scrapbook paper and there are beads hanging at the end of each strand. I planned to use an embroidery hoop to suspend them from, but then I came across a set of wood circles covered in white laminate that were perfect, and they were marked down at Michaels from like $25 to $1.99! Unfortunately, I can't remember who made them, but they're kind of like these.