Welcome August

I was getting a little worried that I wouldn't have anything to share with you this week. The days zipped by with so many other distractions going on. I'm beginning to feel that end of summer panic when the days flash by like lightening, here and gone in a blink and before you know it that sweet face that's been glued to the computer screen all summer is gone at school again, living his little life without you and you're left wondering what did we do with our time? Did he have fun? Does he miss me? Just a little? Yeah, no...He's too busy to be missing me...rotten little crack monkey...

But we did squeeze in some creativity time Monday! We went to Michaels with another 40% off coupon and picked up a cammo tie dye kit. I'd bought Bug a t-shirt to tie dye while he was at Lutherlyn this summer, but he went and bought a shirt from the camp store like the rest of the kids--it had to say 'Lutherlyn' on it! I'da done the exact same thing...So, we were left with this extra white t-shirt then and I'd promised him we'd do a tie dye afternoon one day. Monday was that day. He picked the cammo kit, which said it could dye up to eight shirts, so I grabbed one of my old shirts then his stack of undershirts that he wears for jammie tops and figured we'd cammo tie dye a bunch of those while we were at it! Why not? So, shirts all prepped and dampened and twisted and folded and gum-banded, laid everything out on big trash bags on the floor of the back porch and dyed our little hearts out. It was so easy and we were both totally excited to see how they'd turn out the next day--almost felt like Christmas! Here are our results:

I can't wait to do more! Too cool!! And so easy!

So that brings me to the Zentangle challenges for the week. First was Erin's Zendala Dare #16:

Striping, Paradox, Fracas, Ibex, Mysteria

And! Erin guest posted on the Diva's Weekly Challenge #81 with this Zendala dare:


Zenbud, Florz, Cruffle

It took me most of the afternoon to commit to this final design but I'm really happy with it. The center started off so busy with the bud and cruffle swirls, but adding a little color helped separate things and give some much needed definition. I smile looking at this one =0) Success!

I still have to jump back into that art journal again and I have a couple ideas floating about in my head...Maybe I'll get to work on some of that later this week. Thanks so much for stopping by! Hope to see you back again soon!

Diva's Challenge #80-Mi2

I should've just waited for Artful Wednesday--had to get all ahead of myself with this morning's post for the Zendala challenge...but I honestly didn't think I'd get this week's Diva challenge done. Mi2 is a rather intimidating pattern to me (non-tanglers, er Muggles? Haha--that's the lower right hand corner pattern...) So, I thought maybe about skipping it until better sense got a hold of me--if I don't try it, I'm not gonna learn it! And herein lie the results:



Mi2, Nzeppel (reversed sort of, heh??), Shattuck, and Agua, and I don't know what the swirly flower things are called, Lampions maybe?

I kinda like it!! And thanks for stopping back to see what I done did =0)

Random Artful Tuesday

I'm a day early and apparently I had a wee bit of time on my hands this week 'cuz look at all I got done tangling! Woo! My kinda week! I did a few 'random' tangles, playing with the random number generator, then pulling that number from Linda's List of Official Tangle Patterns. Less thinking that way and more tangling getting done. Plus I've found that's a great way to learn new tangles, practice ones that are a little more difficult or 'disagreeable', and then something would strike me as a good tangle for a certain spot and random would go out the window. Haha--so long as we're having fun, that's all that really matters, am I right?? So here is this week's collection-I call it-When Bug's at Camp All Day, Mom Gets to Tangle Play! Hee hee hee....

Bumpers, Crescent Moon, Dyon, Echoism, Fescu, Jetties--almost alphabetical!

 Cruffle, Verve, Paradox, Hollibaugh, Tipple, and Ixorus

A wee bitty tangle I sent to my honey, Tangled Up in Love--can you see the heart? I need to get better shots with my camera, trying to zoom in too much but this was already off in the mail, so....squint when you look at it, it helps! LOL
Nzepple, Hypnotic, Hollibaugh

This was another random tangle: Umble, Ibex, Isochar, Oof, Poke Leaf, and Bronx Cheer

And this eye ball twisting dealio is my first ZENDALA!!! I've been enjoying seeing some other tangle friends' zendala creations and, well, had to give it a shot. This is the Bright Owl's Weekly Zendala Challenge #15. I had so much fun with this (even though it almost hurts your eyes if you look at it too long!) I'm definitely gonna try a few more of these!

Artful Wednesday Has Moved

It's been a surprisingly productive week. Well, okay, Bug is at day camp this week so it really ought to be a productive week, right? I'm only surprised because I've managed to create a little bit in the absence of our usual routine. Okay, and surprised by the fact that, thanks to some wonderful words of encouragement from the girls in our Zia Yahoo group, I took the plunge and completed my first art journal page--and am happy to say I'm really excited about doing more! It was a huge help to have some great challenges up this week, and I discovered a few new websites that I've fallen in love with: A Year in the Life of an Art Journal, Inspiration Avenue, and Daisy Yellow-three art journaling sites with brilliant ideas and lots of sweet eye candy to drool over. A Year in the Life's current journal prompt (they do two a month-one on the first, the second on the 15th) is Summer. So many great ideas sprang to mind, I only wished my art journal was bigger to fit it all in! But, I can always do more than one page, right? This is my very first art journal page:

A few great shots of Bug and his buddies-he's having an awesome summer!

Then the Diva's Weekly Challenge is to be inspired by the Olympic rings. I sketched this out yesterday afternoon, figuring I'd finish it today, but it ate at me until I sat down and finished it last night. My rings are a little wonky, but overall this was a fun challenge!

Challenge 79: Olympics

And I finished one more Auraknot tangle:

The remaining prompts I have to work on are inspired by fruit and love...Having a great week and I hope you are too! Thanks for stopping by!

The buttons are multiplying!!

A Tangle Blog!

I was so excited about this Auraknot challenge that I decided to start a new blog specifically for posting challenge related tangles, rather than waiting and posting them on my writing blog. This way, I can post and link up anytime during the week AND not have to explain patterns or challenges since these posts will only be linked up to site specific challenges, so viewers will already understand what's going on each week (right?)

So, I was completely intimidated by Auraknot when Rick and Maria first posted this new tangle-it looked way too complicated for a novice like me to figure out and I was just going to skip the challenge altogether. Then...I took the time to watch their video demo of how Auraknot is done and Wow!! I got it!! There are so many possibilities for this tangle!! I can't wait to play, play, play with all that it can be....

But first, the Tangle Journal Prompt this week was Triangles, so I overlapped a couple triangles, saw a super star that would be perfect for Auraknot and away I went! The triangles got lost as I Auraknotted outside as well as on the inside and it all rather reminds me of Hibred? So this was two challenges in one:

Auraknot triangles

I also used a regular graphite pencil to shade for the first time ever and dug out the pack of tortillions I bought a couple years back and never used...Oooo! That was fun!! I love discovering new toys!

Then!! As I pondered Auraknot, it occurred to me that Fengle would be an interesting outline to do a little knotting with and so came this:

AuraFengleKnot, Vega spiral, and Floatfest

I shaded again with the graphite and tortillion and it gave a shine on the stemmies along the bottom from the camera flash! I wish I hadn't gone so dark with the Floatfest, but this is how we learn...I'm definitely going to play more over the weekend with Auraknot and maybe more triangles--just having too much fun!!