Tangle Troves™ launched yesterday and I'm so excited

I've been talking about a project that I have going (I have several that I still can't talk about) that was my top secret surprise!

It launched yesterday.
Tangle Troves™

This is the first subscription box made for Tanglers and also the only boxed subscription services that includes monthly instruction! Something new, something fun in the mail every month!
You'll receive a gem each month, which is top secret instruction you can only get with the access that is granted to subscribers and only the highest of quality materials will be included. 

I've been tweaking the page and getting all set for launch and
*breathes a GIGANTIC sigh of relief* and other than some small hiccups that resulted when international orders were charging people things like $75 dollars to ship a box, it went off without a hitch.
The international thing has been corrected, and all is going GREAT!
It's going so great that I'm going to send a prototype box free to one of the first 50 to subscribe (and there's only a little bit of time before I reach that number so if you are on the fence and want a chance to get a protype, get in quick!)

One of the things I wanted and was hoping for was the opportunity for other CZTs to have the opportunity to showcase their products and that is happening! I have some great instructors who have things they want to share with you, some amazing artisans who have created things you will adore and some really innovative and amazing tools to share with you!

So that's what I've been doing.
I'm a little tired :) but happy and I feel like I've created something pretty awesome and I hope you are as excited as I am. 

It'll be fun, I'm going to create a facebook group for people to share as well, I have a facebook page, instagram and twitter too and we'll be using the hashtag #TangleTroves if you want to check things out. (Not much to see yet!)

What are you working on?

New ideas....

I love to play with things. Seriously, Im much like a child than never grew up in many ways. Put tools and supplies in front of me and not only will you have made my day but I wont be able to resist touching them, trying to make them work together to create something new.

So, that's what happened.
And I got this... which I liked a lot, but it was hard to see.

So... now it looks like this! 

I'll share more about how I got there after I have time to play with it a bit more, really see what I can make it do and where it can go

SO MUCH FUN.

Speaking off, I better run. It's fingerpaint day! :D

Handmade paper jewelry

My last batch of jewelry was very popular and because of that I made some more!

I think this set is my favorite

They're not quite done but they should be by tonight!
Hope you have a great day!

Sneak peek!

This is really exciting! We were so excited that we couldn't wait, so Sara of Goldhawk Pottery took a quick shot in the kiln for me! Keep watching our pages for more! 

There will be more pics to come, and I have a ton of other things to share with you but I couldn't wait to show you!

Skyline series

I have been working on these for a while, and I'm very happy to say that the first is completely done and will be being made into limited edition reproductions as well as notecards. I have 52 others so far that are in my artist queue so other areas will be popping up soon if you are interested in somewhere specific shoot me a message and I'll add it.

Here are close ups of each, notice that I had to watermark them in more than one spot. I'm disappointed to say that I've had people try and pass things off as their own on more than one occasion lately.
:\ Not cool people.

See it on etsy!

See it on etsy

See it on Etsy!

See it on Etsy!

See it on Etsy!

I hope you are working on something great and I'd love to see it!

Colors today!

Not really tangled, but inspired by beloved tangle patterns. Created using watercolors, some sprinkles of salt and my markers.

I really like how it turned out even if I didn't know where I was going with it!

So today I encourage you to reach out and try something new or in a new way.
Have fun!

Diving in to Tints on Tan!

So yesterday I spent part of the day working on the guitar... (pictures to come tomorrow after I do more) and then I discovered that a package I'd been waiting for had been delivered.
TWO DAYS EARLY!!!
I was so excited.
It's my Tints on Tan kit by Deckel Designs. (Seaside Edition)
OOhhh how exciting. For those of you who don't know...
Tints on Tan™ is a technique developed by Marty Deckel using Prismacolored pencils to produce soft tins of color on Renaissance tiles. The Tints on Tan "Seaside Edition" was introduced this past March at Ogunqui Tangle (A Tangle retreat in Ogunquit, ME... which I am so jealous I wasn't at by the way!)
The kit came with everything, pens, marker, colored pencils, Renaissance tiles, shells, a gorgeous mat for my finished piece (I didn't use it yet because I want to play more) and  8 pages of instructions... it was amazing.
The kits are the collaborative work of Marty Deckel and Jenny Perruzzi. Sadly, the seaside kits are all sold out but they have a fall kit in the works for th eend of August, beginning of September and I've already signed up for the notification, because I will need it.
Here is my first tile using these new techniques. I can see a few places I'd like to have done something different, but parts of it I really love.

Not too bad for a first start!
Now I think you already know that I wanted a beachy feel to the studio.

See the shells that came with??!! 

Fits right in!  I am going to have these ALL over the place, you know that right?
So that's how I spent my Saturday night.
What did you do?
Make something awesome?

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. 

Birthday, banner and Butterflies

I'm feeling a little tired, not even going to try to hide it. Today will be a day for mostly catching my breath and making some lists I think.

First off, I'd like to give Kudos to the Physics department of my daughters school for their creativity in designing a program that lets them spend a day at the local amusement park "for science" by giving them a packet about roller coasters to observe. :D Excellent! Making science fun should always be a thing.

Yesterday I taught an amazing group of kids to tangle for a birthday party. How much fun is that?

Looking at the mosaic of their work

Look at how AMAZING their art is! We did them on small canvases. 

Their first tangles. 

Then we made a small starry night garden. 

Everyone had fun and there were cupcakes too! 

Then afterwards, something exciting happened at the studio. 

I have signage!

You can see the colors better in this picture but it still doesn't do it justice. I'll be a better one later this week. 

Oh! These were on my timehop. :) Since they were from so long ago they never made it to my blog and I find butterflies to be AMAZING inspiration.
These were from the island of Minadano in the Philippines. Aren't they beautiful?

Today I'm going to finish a small tangle project to share with you and I'm not sure what else.
I do know I'm going to make and finish some tea. Lots of it.... but otherwise, it's kind of up in the air!

What are you doing today?

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!

Zentangle... My tangles, then and now

So there's really nothing new here today. If you've followed my blog for a while, you've probably seen most of these before. Some of you may know (or maybe you don't) but I'm an admin over on the Zentangle® facebook group. Feel free to come join us if you haven't yet! Anyway, we get a lot of people that question their work or are really hard on themselves.  I totally UNDERSTAND it, I just wish I could make them confident right away. :) But anyway, my point is we all start somewhere right?

I had a request to share some of my older work both there and here, so I'm going to blog about some of it and share it with you and also post it over there so people can see. As my friend (and gifted artist)  Cherryl Moote says, "Don't compare your chapter 1 to someone else's chapter 20."

This is the first piece I ever put together all on my own

So today, I want to share some of my early tangles as well as some of my recent ones, kind of a now and then to show growth.
It's been quite the journey!

I still don't like diamonds. I struggle with them. I find that I avoid patterns that contain them  actually. 

This is one of my "nemesis" tangles. I think because I had such a hard time with Amler, and never really was happy with the results I achieved. This one left me thinking "Can I do this?"

So, I actually GAVE UP on cubine here, I was like.. yeah... NOPE. That was the ONLY paradox I was successful at for the first 6 months and my purk is kinda.... lacking. But, this was the tile that made me realize I was hooked. 

I loved Betweed instantly. LOVED it. Had no idea where I'd ever use it other than Halloween, yet I find it's a mac and cheese tangle for me and I use it all the time!

So those were some of my earliest tangles. They don't look too bad, but I was so hard on myself. I see looking at them how much I've grown and I've decided that over the next week I'm going to redo each of these patterns and showcase them side by side to see how my style has changed as well. :) That'll be fun!

In the meantime, some recent work.

They're posted with their flaws and their uniqueness and the parts I love and the parts I can't "unsee" no matter how hard I try... but they are very straightforward in showing how much I've grown in my skills.

People ask how to improve. :) It's all practice and love and zen.

Deep breath, pick up the pen.
And go...

Spider-man Zentangle Inspired Art

Nerdvana. My daughter refers to our house that way. My son does too. At 17 and 13, they're both pretty comfortable with their self-proclaimed nerdhood. Nerddom? I'm not even sure, but they're into anime and superheros and sci-fi and all kinds of things, the difference is that when I was into all that as a kid, it wasn't nearly as cool as it is now.
I'm so happy that shows like Scorpion are on that point out that the intellect can be a superpower and don't even get me started on how much I love Agent Carter. Haylee Atwell is amazing, if you aren't watching this, you should be. I really hope there will be more than the few episodes that there are.
But I kind of wandered off there for a minute.
Anyway....
Superheros. Sometimes they make their way into my tangles too. I've always thought Betweed looked like it belonged with Spider-man so I put them together.

So what have you been working on this week? It's finally up to double digits here again, I'm not holding my breath but I am a little hopeful we may have seen the WORST of the winter.
We'll see. Later today I'm going to head over to the Bright Owl and see what kind of cool templates she has for us to play with this week! I forgot to look last week because she was gone so long, but that means that there should be 2 for me to play 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!

Zentangle 101

Since I was knocked out of commission yesterday, I wanted to share pictures of the mosiac my class did on Sunday today. :)
It was a great class, everyone seemed to have a great time, and look at the beautiful art they made!

I set up a spot on my display board for our mosiac and I really like doing it that way!
Here is the board I was working on last week. (See the spot?)

I love sharing Zentangle with people, it makes me really happy. 

And today's Bijouism...

Reflect

While I tangle, I often pause and look around at where I've been . . . in other words, I look at the tangle I've drawn. That's easy for me . . . I just twist around my eye stalks! I've seen humans do the same sorta thing when they hold their tile at arms' length and rotate it this way and that (every now and then) while they are tangling.



Can you believe we are almost through our first month?!?!?

Work in progress pic for me today

Normally on Monday, I post later so that I can find, read and complete the Diva challenge before I post. Today hers is a big deal. It's about Weekly Challenge #201: "Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day 2015" and I think it deserves a really focused effort. Today I have some stuff going on and just can't devote the focus to that piece that it deserves so I'm going to show you a work in progress instead and really encourage you to go check out Laura's challenge today, even if you've never done one before. It's worth it. I will share my Moebius Syndrom Awareness tile when I get it done this week. I hope to see lots of yours shared as well. Here's my snowflake picture,

 I'm still working on it... this journal page is an event I tell you!

Thursday- that means a prompt!

Good morning friends!!!!
Yesterday I played with pine cones. I think they're fascinating but I can't paint them. I really WANT to but they never turn out right. I think they are a really cool symbol of a lot of things so it's probably something you are going to see pop up in my work here and there.
Fun fact of the day...
Did you know that pine cones close up to protect their seeds when it's going to rain? So if you are ever in the woods, wondering if it's going to rain and you see a bunch of closed pine cones, chances are you are going to get wet.

Ok, so I mentioned before that I belong to a group that is doing some art journaling which is new for me, because I've always just been a sketchbook kind of girl who keeps a diary to write in. We get prompts every week to help us on our adventure.

I am mulling over this weeks so that I know where I want to dive in.

I did pick a quote for this weeks page yesterday as well. 

“Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make. Good. Art.” ~Neil Gaiman

I think that will be a fun one to work with, I'm fantastic at making what I initially view as mistakes, that often turn out to be exactly what I end up liking best about something! I also just mess up a lot :D

I promised that on Thursdays I would come up with a prompt for you to use if you'd like, or to not.... entirely up to you!

Today, I'd like to encourage you to find a "mistake" in your creative world and change it. Maybe it's a drawing/painting you discarded some time ago, perhaps a technique that you gave up on... a dinner you burnt several times...

Something. Whatever you thought of when you read my little prompt there, that's the thing you should think about working on today!

So, once you have your mistake, how can you turn it into something besides a frustration? Zentangle likes to say there are no mistakes... one of the hardest concepts for me to grasp when I see something on my page that I don't love, but let's embrace it and find a way to turn it into something amazing!

I have a piece of paper that I was going to make a mandala on, I don't know why I kept it because nearly my first mark, my pen exploded. 

It'll be fun to see what I can make out of that.