Well I feel productive! (and a new challenge template!)

Ok, I said the other day that I needed to get busy and catch up with challenges... and so I did.
I competed a bunch of the challenges put out weekly by Laura Harms over at I am the Diva (If you don't follow her or participate you totally should!)
But I was behind since.. sometime in early summer. So in the last few days I completed... not 1, 2, or even 3, but 8 of hers!
177-185
Wow. Really, she's up to 185, and now I am too! (I still haven't posted all the first ones that I went back and did, I should make that a project this fall!)

So without further babbling...
177- Truffle. I like the way this one turned out so organic. It makes me feel like I fell into Alice in Wonderland or the garden or something!

177- Use the Tangle Truffle

 178- Duotangle by the letters, using tangles with the first letters of your name.
So, K & B
Two of my favorites Krli-Q and Bales!

178-Duotangle by the letters

 179- Be like Bijou, Tiny tiles! This isn't actually a tiny tile, or "twinchie" because I don't have any. I actually ended up doing this in the corning of my Marketing homework!

                   179-Be like Bijou

 180- This is a UMT- (Use my Tangle) This one is called MacDee, and I love it, cause it's PLAID! I love PLAID!!!

180-UMT MacDee

181- Water.
I am not sure about this, but my daughter loves it. It's to use water as an inspiration. This is different than many of my other pieces but it's kinda fun and hey... COLOR!

181- Water

182- Stripes. A fun opportunity to use a bunch of tangles!

182- Stripes

183- UMT- X-Did. I don't think I "did" this one right, but I am happy with the result. It was new to me, so you know what that means right? PRACTICE!

183- UMT X-Did

184- New Tangle by Molly. I like it. I'll use it a lot, another one to practice though!

184 New Tangle by Molly

185- Duotangle Phicops & Diva Dance. Not sure about this one but it DOES have a lot of movement to it.

185- Phicops and Diva Dance

AND I'm CAUGHT UP on those!
but...
I also fell off the alphabet wagon. :( Cheryl over at Artful Creations had a cool alphabet challenge going, for Tackle it Tuesday I stopped somewhere around K I think. (I'll have to check) I want to finish that but I'm not sure when... but the fates aligned and the day before  I looked to see how behind I was... she had launched a NEW CHALLENGE! So I am throwing myself in and encourage you to do so too! This week was to use Tangles that started with S, E and P.
Here's mine.
I used Peaknuckle, which I love but never feel like I have quite perfected, Sand Swirls which is a favorite and EEZ.
I'm very happy with this one actually.

So then there's one more thing...
I've been posting challenges here and there for a while, mostly there since my 30 day (Which I WILL be running again in the future!!) but I promised you a new template for fun. So....
We "Grew a Garden"
We "Built Houses"
Now... Let's "Make the Bed"
(Can you tell I have too much housework to get done these days?)
But I think it'll be fun and I actually have something that's been in my head since I was a little girl and read the Princess and the pea for mine.

So here's your template.

I know they don't look like much but it's really the prompt and giving you a few things to work around to make it a challenge... so, what are you waiting for?

DOWNLOAD IT HERE
Please play along and you can share too!

"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.

Middle of the week already!

Yesterday I told you about the cool app Doodling Together that I found the other night after my iphone IOS 7 upgrade and diaster-a-thon. It's fixed, it's better. I'm not cranky anymore... and while reinstalling all my apps I found this!

Anyway there is also facebook group called Doodling Together that is built around this concept and I'm in love with the idea.(I have no affiliation other than I joined and am participating)

You can learn more about it here or get the app.  It's $2, but giving a couple away this week.

Prizes will be awarded on  All you have to do is submit something today and leave a note in comments that says "Enter me!"

Anyway, I finished my 2nd square and here it is! I really like it. I used some of my favorite things. I have Budz, which is my tangle in there, along with striping which makes me think Tim Burton and Dr Seuss got together to have a party, then I threw in some dots

If you are new to the challenge you can find out more here. 

Otherwise, post it up! Show me what you did to create today.

My challenge for you today is to use dots of some kind in whatever you make! 

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.

More catching up and Ooohh... a Starbucks project!

So let's get to it!

2 catch up's bring me current on the Tackle it Tuesday challenege (Cheryl by Artful Creations runs this one and it's so much fun!) so I'll be ready for tomorrow!

Here is my J compilation.

I had only used one of these before, and I think I messed up a couple but I do think it was a fun one and I'm VERY proud of my circles.

• Jonqal
• Jilli
• JaJazz
• JalouiseJambalee
• Jax
• ssicup
• Jetties
• Jawz
• Jeewes
• Joy

And here is my K as well!
 I'm actually super happy with this one, I was going to go with more tangles, but as it came together I thought this was just about right!

I had only used Keeko before, but 2 are my new favorites!

• Kuke
• Kelp
• Keeko
• Krli-Q

Now what is this Starbucks thing? Well, the other day a friend told me that Starbuck was running a White Cup contest and I wanted to play since this is the type of thing I do anyway! I ended up with a half dozen plain cups and broke out my pens. My goal was to submit one every day til it ended, but you know.. time and stuff.

Here were the 3 I ended up submitting.

This one I just went freeform to get a feel for drawing on a cup. It's harder than it looks.

I think this is my favorite. It's the most detailed and Starbucks actually is adding it to their Pinterest board for the contest. 

I really liked this one too.

So there we go. I have a few others to get around to uploading, but 1 post, 5 projects. I think I'm back on track.
Hope everyone is doing good! What cool projects is everyone else working on? I really want to know!

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.