"O" it's Tuesday

Cheryl over at Artful Creations runs a weekly Tuesday challenge for Tackle it Tuesday.

We are working our way through the alphabet and are on the letter O.
That means that all the tangles start with the letter O.

Here is my tile for today.

I used 

• Onamato
• Opus
• Ole

Very few of the tangle patterns that start with O are ones I really like, but I did use Ole for the first time and found it to be really versatile. I think I'll use that one more.

So, we're on day 17, and as much as I am a creative person, and I really do try to work on something every day, wow.. it's hard to do it EVERY day! The guitar kind of took a lot out of me getting it done on time, so I am going to go with something really simple tomorrow I think.

So today's art prompt is:
Round.
Either do something round or circular or with the letter O.

Na na na na na na na na....

I don't really know why, this is my Tackle it Tuesday challenge tile, and once it was done, it makes me think of Batman. Not really sure why... but I'm a huge fan of Batman so, ok.

I thought it needed a tiny bit of color so I added the red and then it called for something in the center too.. hence the heart.

The challenge this week was only patterns that started with the letter N. There aren't that many, I was expecting more.

I used a capital N and a lowercase n for my strings, you can't really tell, which is sorta cool.

My patterns were:

• Ninja Stars
• N'Zepple
• N'velope
• Navaho

Some of these were really time consuming, I didn't expect that.

Anyway, without further ado.

Na na na na na na na na.... 

All the way to L...

I've mentioned a couple times how busy the weeks have been but I also realized I forgot to wish everyone Happy Mother's day! I did get the chance to make my mom a card. Here it is. (It's ok.. .I already gave it to her so it's ok if I show you!)
I do hope everyone had a nice Mother's Day!!!

Now... On to the Tackle it Tuesday challenge!
This week's challenge was L tangles. I looked at Tangle Patterns and instantly thought "OH! There are a lot of them! I'm going to create a string with TONS of spots! And I did.  I was almost sorry I had because this took forever and the kids started begging for food.... but.... then I was glad I did because I ended up with THIS!

And I love it! I love lacing as the string and I just think it's something completely different and other than the few minutes of "what tangles am I going to still use" and "am I ever going to finish this one?I'm hungry!" thoughts I did enjoy doing it!

The tangles I used for this one were (I'll go left to right, top to bottom)

• Lacing- as my string
• Leaflet
• Lazy Eights
• LinQ
• Longwood
• Lanterns
• LilyPads
• Lichen
• Luv-A
• LoobyLoo
• LLilly
• LaBel
• Lacy
• Lines
• Lukiline
• Linked
• Lace Curtains

I didn't do much shading on the background patterns or even a lot of embellishment because it was already pretty busy, but I think shading ONLY the lacing gave it a nice depth.

Now, to figure out what to do next... Hmmmm... so many blank surfaces.

iTangle

Tackle it Tuesday!!!! (Or Tangle it Tuesday as I always think of it!) from  Cheryl over at Artful Creation was an alphabet challenge. Today's tangle is using patterns that start with the letter "I" so I am calling this my "Itangle" since I was listening to music on my ipod, took the pic with my iphone and posted it to my instagram. :D

3 out of these tangles were new for me and I love IX. Love it. I need to practice it some more, but I love way it looks when it's finished. Very layered. 

This is my finished tangle, I don't love it, so I may re-do the one for this week, or I might just let it be. 

My tangles of choice were...

IX

Ixorus

Inapod

Intersection

Ilana

Rixty and H's

I didn't think I was going to be happy with this weeks Diva challenge. It was to use the latest official Zentangle pattern, Rixty.  I sometimes feel constrained by having to put a tangle into something, so I approached it a little different today.

Since it was a new tangle that I had never done before (that happens a lot honestly) I grabbed my sketchbook, threw a string down and just started tangling Rixty and the variations. I figured I'd not plan it and see where it ended up and then slide in whatever else seemed to work.

Here's my final result and I'm actually pleased with it. I also really like this new pattern and think it will be one of my "go-to's" because I like that woven look and really liked the versatility of it.

Anyway, here is my take on Challenge #163.

And how did Tuesday come and go already? This week for Cheryl's weekly Tackle it Tuesday challenge over on Artful Creations, our letter is H.
I used:

• Heartstrings
• Heartrope
• Hibred
• Hollibaugh
• Huggins
• Hopscotch
• Hi-C's

and then.. I filled in with some hatching!

I'm going to start a challenge of my own on here soon I think, a very quick tangle a day I think. If you're interested, follow me or shoot me an email over at WhimsybyKelly@gmail.com and I'll let you know when it gets started!

Alright, I guess that's it for today!
Oh.. one more thing! How many pens are sitting in front of you RIGHT now???

I do love a challenge!

Ok, so I am excited to make one blog post with not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4, yes FOUR different challenges completed. I suppose I could have combined a couple but that never occurred to me until I was typing this JUST NOW.
Hmm. Note to self for next time.

All but the last of these are in my small sketchbook, so at largest 4x6.

I'm going to post the pages that I got the challenge/dare from for you in case you want to join in and play along.

The first one is my first for the Wacky Zentangle Weekly challenge. It's the first time I've participated in one of these and it was a lot of fun. My style is a little looser, I just kind of played with it. The challenge was to tangle Easter Eggs. This year I don't think we are going to do real eggs, (the kids are older, C is in Germany until the day before, it's just weird this year and I'm not really big on celebrating Easter anyhow) so instead I made a card that I will send to a friend of mine for Easter. I think it turned out cute and was fun to do, and that's the goal anyway right?

This next one is The Diva's weekly dare #162. She calls it String Theory- Initial String, and has you use your initials for your string. BRILLIANT! I am always having a hard time coming up with strings. 

Moving right along... 

This is the weekly "Tackle it Tuesday" that's posted over at Artful Creations. 

This one was to use on "G" tangles, I used:

Girdy

Geos

Grid

Gingham

And my last one is from the Bright Owl's Zendala Dare.

She isn't currently posting new challenges, but I came in at the end so I've simply gone back, checked them all out and am slowly working my way through them all. There are close to 100, so that should keep me busy for a while. This is #6 and I've had it ALMOST done for weeks, but just finally finished it. 

This one is larger, probably 6" in diameter. There's a mistake in there that I see every time I look at it so I may redo it another time... or you know, just let it go (cue Disney music here) and remind myself that perfection isn't a virtue. :)

Tackle it Tuesday Letter F and Challenge 161 (Quandary)

I have 2 completed today, for 2 of my weekly challenges.
I have 2 really cool new projects that I'm not talking about yet, but I'm not going to stop doing these!

This from the Laura over at I am the Diva and it was to use Quandary. I can tell you honestly, I've never used Quandary before, and I don't know if I will never use it again. While I do like the way the tile turned out,I did not enjoy doing that tangle. I found it really hard to focus on and my patterns didn't come together the way I wanted them to.
Maybe I will practice it more, maybe I won't. :)
Challenges are good, they push me outside my comfort zone.

This next one I really liked. I didn't realize how many of the F tangles I really like.  This is from the Tackle it Tuesday weekly challenge from Cheryl over at Artful Creations and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! (I may try something new with these in the next few weeks as well... wait and see!

Tackle it Tuesday challenge (E)

And this gets me caught up with these! Whoot!!!
I didn't know many of these so had to look them up. I'm not a huge fan of tangles that start with E apparently.

E Tangles used:
Eke
escalator
Eye-Wa
Emingle
Echoism
Equerre

Tackle it Tuesday "C" & Weekly challenge 160-Spiral as my String

Originally this had different orientation. Tilt your head to the left and you can see how I drew it, but once completed, I felt that it really "goes" this way.

Tangles included in this one were:

• Chainlette
• Ciceron
• Chemystery (one of my favorites)
• CO2
• CLE
• Cadent
• Cruze
• Crossroads
• Cockles, Mussels and Clams (I know that Mussels is an M, but it was included with learning the other 2)
• Confettus

And this one I really love. The challenge was fun and I incorporated some of my patchwork into it as well. The challenge was to use a spiral as your string, the only part I found difficult about that was knowing where each section stopped. I almost instantly knew I wanted a button for the center though!

Tackle it Tuesday "A" and "D"

I went back to do this one because I started late, so it's out of order

A:
Annee
Abacus
Antidots
A's
Ahhh

This one is also out of order... but hey, who has the alphabet has to be... well... alphabetical right? 

D:

I only used 3 in this one and then I ran into shading issues.. I think next time I'd make the grid larger to try this.

Dragonair

DL Nebula

D-Vine

Neither of these took very long, when I work small it has a lot of pros and cons... I am willing to take bigger risks because I don't have much time invested and if it doesn't turn out oh well. I get crankier when it's something big I've been working on for a while and I give something new a shot and hate it.

The con to working small is that the intricate patterns that are my favorite are hard to fit or make look clear.

New challenges to add to my list!

Cheryl over at Artful Creations  has given me more to do! Well, not me specifically, her blog doesn't say, HEY KELLY... JOIN US...  but yes, me. She has created a challenge she calls Tackle it Tuesday and I figure the more of these I do the more likely I am to reach my goal of creating almost every day. I know it's not Tuesday, but hey, I have things to do besides play with paper from time to time.
I missed the first one, which was to use only Tangles that started with A (I will go back and do that asap), but I jumped in with the second one, which is to use only B tangles. This was fun, there are a lot of B tangles, I used some favs and some I'd never touched before.
I used:
Birds on a Wire (new to me)
Betweed (one of my favorites actually, although I used to find it hard to fit places!)
Bales (another fav)
Bask It (this one is showing up in my stuff more and more)
Beadlines (new to me)
Boo-Kee (also new to me, and which I did wrong, but I liked how it turned out so I kept it)
Bronx Cheer
Bulb Lantern (again, new.. this one just makes me think of the movie Tangled! How fitting!)
Bunzo (new)
Bwiya (not quite new but I've only used it once before)

I was writing the list and thinking.. it's not that big, I couldn't have used that many tangles, but I did!
Here's how it turned out.

I've also joined the Ornation Creations facebook group with the amazing templates of Ben Kwok and I am really excited to start on some of those this weekend. He has a giraffe! *le sigh* Happiness!
So I have my new pens, a new sketchbook, wood for my fireplace, lots of tea and some really good food to make and my kids are pretty well occupied. I know what I'm doing this weekend!!!!

(Can we say Pajama weekend??Hibernation! It's what people who hate the cold do right???)
So I hope to have something to share from that by the end of the weekend and of course I have my garden to work on.
I guess that's all for today!