Finished!

Yesterday was one of those days where it was pretty hard to get motivated to get things done and that's ok. 

Way back when I first issued the challenge I said it was ok to only do a little bit of something, to just do it. :)

So yesterday I did not get much done and I had to remind myself to give myself permission for that. 

What I did do was finish the Zendala I started over the weekend and wasn't quite happy with.

Often my students will have a tile that they stare at and voice their unhappiness with. I tell them... you know, most art ends up going through an awkward teenage stage. What I find when that happens to me, is that if I put it away and look at a picture of it (not looking directly at it though) often it will tell me what it needs.

Yesterday was a perfect example. Yesterday, I posted the picture of the Zendala I made on Saturday here. It was one of the pieces I liked the IDEA of more than the piece itself... I knew it would morph into what it was supposed to be eventually so I didn't worry too much. Yesterday as I was proofreading my post I looked at it again through the screen and it was very clear.

So that was my creativity yesterday. I took my Zendala and finished it. 

What it needed was to be much bolder than I had made it. When we made this using my lotus pattern string, we all volunteered a pattern and they were harder to make work together than we'd thought. Apparently, we all like round!
So this has one we are calling 61, Flux,, Printemps, FuGu and Ennies.

What it needed was to be much bolder than I had made it originally in order to pop.

So there weren't many changes made but the ones that were made a huge difference and now I like it. 

:)
Today will be much more creative I have a million ideas today!

Simple Mandala

There is a great deal of beauty in simple lines.

I'm reminded of that often when I tangle.
The other day I bought new pens (I know.. shocker... lol) and they're really cool and I've been trying to figure out how I wanted to play with them.

They're pretty cool... but they effect is... distinct and I was afraid it might be too much, so I thought I'd try them on a black Zendala tile and I opted to go with a very simple repetitive line as my pattern.

Sadly, the pen effect is kind of lost on the tile... so I'll continue to try, I think a smoother paper might give me a better result. It's there, it's very subtle but you can't see it in the photograph at all.

It's ok though because I really do love the look I achieved with just lines anyway.

I have decided, for personal reasons that July is RAK month.
I encourage all of you to complete a random act of kindness as often as you can this month. :)
I believe kindness encourages creativity as well as makes the world a better place.

I hope your day is awesome!

Milestones!

So this week, I have reached several huge number milestones.
My blog has reached 50,000 views and I surpassed 500 fans on my facebook page. Wow. I am kind of overwhelmed at those  numbers to tell you the truth.

I'm honored that you are interested enough in what I'm doing, and hopefully inspired to create yourself as well that you are part of my journey.
I'm giving away a piece of artwork on my facebook. You're all welcome to enter.
All you need to do is comment on this post to be entered.

Yesterday I taught 5 people who were brand new to Zentangle® to tangle and I drew this pinwheel which was inspired by another CZT.

So, thank you all, for joining me. We're nearly 6 months into the challenge this year <3 I'm so proud of all of you!

I hope you have a great day!

Happy Friday!

I am working on a new guitar. Well, the guitar isn't new, it's used and well loved, but I'm working on customization of the guitar.

So this is the start I made the other day.

First marks. These are temporary

Then I covered it in a circular pattern, all temporary.  I forgot to take any pictures of that, and then the tangling begins

I haven't gotten very far but my hope is to have it done over the weekend.
The hardest part for me so far on this is whether to add color. 

I also have a pair of sneakers to share with you, they've been done for a while but the owner hadn't seen them yet so I waited. 

I hope you have great plans this weekend and that you make something awesome. 

Zendala

Sometimes when I tangle I hit a point in it where I just am not sure. When that happens, I put it away for a bit, sometimes overnight and then pull it out to finish it.

This one was set aside for quite sometime, what with opening the studio, etc I just didn't pick it back.
But then I did and I was able to see what it needed where I hadn't before. I'm never sure why it works that way but it always does.

I firmly believe you can't force art. It comes when it comes. I think that's why I have my fingers in so many mediums... because sometimes I'm inspired by one thing and some moments I'm inspired by others.
So the best thing for me to do is what I love. Create. Create something EVERY day.
I wish I could find where to get this, it's obviously a tshirt. I tried pretty hard to track down the originator but it wasn't come up anywhere... and I used a few different methods.
If I find it, I'll post because I plan on buying 2. One for me and one to give away here on the blog, but so far no luck.

Either way it's pretty awesome and I love it.

I hope you have a great day and that you do something fun and awesome.

Late post today...

Sometimes I get caught up in what I'm doing and things don't get posted when I want them to. Today was one of those mornings!

I put the final coat of varnish on a pair of bridal sneakers that are going out tonight or tomorrow morning (depending on drying time) and got a ton of stuff organized at the studio.

In between all of that I worked on this, which is a work in progress, but I am happy with how it's coming, I especially like the tangles in the middle. It's pretty significant in size, I was going to center the picture more but I thought the edge of the flowers gave it a bit of perspective.  I think it's about 14" across

So what are you working on today? I can't wait to see! (Can you believe we are in our 6th month!?!?!)

Mandala

I finished my mandala for the art auction.

I'm pretty happy with it, the shading looks cooler in person than it does in the pictures (which is odd, it's usually the other way around)

Today I am going to do some work in the studio, so that will be a different kind of creative. :) 

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

P.ink work in progress

This is a project I've been working on for a local charity art auction. I'm doing chalk art as well as donating for Wasted Space Tattoo Shop's Open House and Silent Art Auction. (You can find their fb here)
It benefits P.ink who's goal is to connect breast cancer survivors with tattoo artists who can provide a form of healing that no one else can. Tattoos are a personal form of expression and whether you are for or against body art you have to love an organization that helps women to celebrate and feel beautiful. They say on their page Breast Cancer doesn't have to leave the last mark and I think that's perfect and deserves support.
So I am in my own small way.

This is my pink mandala for breast cancer awareness in progress. I'll share the completed one probably next weekend when it's on display and being auctioned off. It's being dropped off tonight or tomorrow and I'll let them show it first. :)

It's really sooo pretty! I can't wait for you to see it!

Last night's Zendala class

I have been pretty busy making lots of samples and designs to add to my Zendala collection for the class I had last night. I've posted a few but not really close up because I didn't want to give away anything for my students who might have been peeking.

Here are some of my recent pieces.

The one I struggled with the most? The teaching one. It's just too big for the paper :)

So last night I had 6 amazing ladies for this Zendala class. It was so much fun!!!
I want to show some of the work in progress of my students.. .

And completed

And now onto tile 2.... where they learned to create a Lotus mandala and then we tangled it together!

 And again... complete!

I had so much fun with this class and I'm considering putting together a Zendala series so that we can delve deeper into these in the future.

The fun part is that none of these students have taken more than 2 classes with me! Aren't they amazing? :D

Today, I'm going to drink some tea and plan out 5 pairs of sneakers that I'll be working on this weekend. The creative part of that isn't very visual, but might actually be the hardest part. :)
It's going to be so much fun! (My first pair of bridal sneakers are in this batch!!!)

So enjoy your Friday, do something awesome, make something amazing and if you've got big plans and I don't see you til Monday, have a great weekend!

Zendalas!

I just realized that I have made 200 posts! I guess my blog is not in it's not in it's infancy anymore. LOL
Thank you all for being part of this journey with me!

This morning I'm assembling my board for tonight's Zendala class.  I haven't gotten very far yet. I need a whole lot more tea!

I'll post better pictures tomorrow.
I'm excited about this class, this is one of my favorite things and I'm so happy that I am going to have a group to share it with!

Spoondala!

This is my spoondala from Camerida! It's only taken me over a month to get it completed, but tada!

It has tangles that were chosen by 22 different and amazing CZTs from America and Canada, put together... it creates our beautiful spoondalas.
I made one tiny mistake, I swapped Twing and Demi from where they were supposed to be but otherwise, considering many of these were new to me tangles, I'm really happy with the way it turned out. :)

Today I'll be diving back into the paints and hopefully getting close to finishing my daughter's sneakers.
Unless my son makes me watch Sharknado like he was threatening to. AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!
Save me!

I hope you are having a nice weekend and that your weather is at least above zero.
Go make something awesome!

Valendala

I was so happy to see that Erin at The Bright Owl is back with her Zendala challenge! I combined that this week with Laura's Diva challenge  which was to make a Valentangle.
I turned mine into a Valendala

Zendala Dare #95 with Diva Dare #204-Valentangle

Perfect because yesterday I held a Valentine's day workshop, which was a lot of fun!
Class was small due to weather but we made some cool stuff.
A little card, some bijou tiles and a frame to hold the tiles!

I've also been busy working on a new pair of converse, and trying to get my pictures to look better. If anyone happens to be a great photographer I'd love some input!

Sat morning.. err.... afternoon

Oops.
I'm a slacker this week, sorry I know that many of you look for these in the morning, but I'm really tired this week. I was up and working on several things and it wasn't that I forgot, it was just that the morning kind of got away from me.
I was working on these.

Magic the Gathering Mana

The picture isn't great, but they aren't quite done yet so I'll work on that a little more before I send them out so I have some nice photos for my shop.

I also worked on a new service I'm offering in my shop which is layaway/payment plans. I had to break that all down before I could make it official, that back end stuff always takes more time than I want it to to.

Tomorrow I have a Zentangle class "Tangled Hearts" for Valentine's Day. If you're local to the WNY area and want to come, feel free to shoot me an email. Sadly our weather is supposed to be not great and I had 6 people who were coming in from the south towns cancel, so LOTS of room. I don't want to cancel because those that can make shouldn't have to be disappointed. The good part is I'll have some fun stuff to show you no matter what.

My biggest creative challenge today is what to make for dinner though. I am stumped. Someone please invent a new animal to eat.
Please?

I'm very excited because I just found out (Thanks Ann!!!) that Erin over at The Bright Owl  has a new Zendala dare up. I love love love her dares because I love Zendalas!
So I'll be having to dive into that asap. Well, as soon as I get the chance anyway.
I guess that's all for now, oh! A little bit of Bijou!

Savor

Savor . . . every . . . moment. That's another motto of mine. Most of the journey is (duh) the journey. May as well find something to savor along the way. Wherever I go I create beautiful tangles getting there . . . and I really bask in the warmth that creates in me!

Busy day!!!!

I had a really busy day yesterday.
I did my Tangle a Day calendar, and remembered to post pics of the ones I'd done so far.

4th Mooka, 5th-Hollibaugh, 6th-Printemps

7th-Static, 8th-

I am LOVING this calendar.. it's fun to monotangle each day, I'm trying to create 2 looks with each Tangle I use.

Yesterday I gave the prompt to turn something that was a "mistake" into something new.
I had a tile that I kept for some reason, pen explosion had trashed my idea of a mandala on it...
I saw someone post a string made by blowing ink and thought... BINGO! TRY THAT!
So I took the tile and did exactly that.
I also decided that I would fill it with tangles that I don't use as much as I should.
Here's what I came up with! It was fun and different and forced me to not plan at all.

I am still working on my class, but I have it mostly together. It's going to go on a card.

So all in all, productive day yesterday! Today I am going to work with the tangle I deconstructed so that I can share it with you tomorrow.

I love Fall!!!

I truly think that fall is my favorite season. The colors are beautiful and vibrant, the world seems to be doing it's very best to decorate itself and there is pumpkin and apple flavored EVERYTHING here.
We are lucky enough to have an exchange student visiting and I've gotten to spend time with some of my best friends lately which has kept me busy, but I've also been VERY busy on the creativity front.
I saw a picture of these on the internet, and was reminded that my Gram had taught me to make a version years and years ago... so here are mine.
I'm out of practice, but they're SO pretty!!

 


And then... I made this for me because I really wanted to have my stuff organized and handy and at my fingertips. I was SO happy with how it turned out and I am still just giddy when I look at it!
When I showed it on facebook, so many people wanted one I decided to make them and put them in my etsy shop. (They're only $35 and include the pens for right now if you are interested, you can check it out at www.whimsybykelly.com)
And then I promptly got a ton of orders! YAY!

I also had several orders come in for custom converse and some cute geeky earrings. :)

So, I've been busy working on all of that.

I've done a few other things including this mini-mandala

And then I got to participate in this weeks Diva Challenge 189 which was UMT Yuma. This was my first attempt at this tangle and I struggled with it a little, but I love the idea of them feeding off the leaves, so I used green to add to it. I rarely use color but it seems to fit on this one!

I'm behind one, 188, which is one that I'm actually excited to work on, it's a LGBT alliance tile and I haven't skipped it, I just was short on time last week and didn't want to rush it, so I'll get back to that asap!

In the meantime, everyone have a great week and I'll check in when I can! Now, I'm off to go have some apple crisp or a pumpkin muffin!