Zentangle Challenge

 I admin a group on Facebook called

Zentangle All Around.

We focus on tangles that have some element

of roundness in them - 

a curve or oval or circle - anything round at all.

And we are currently doing a year long focus

on strings. The thought being that at the

end of 2016 we will have 366 pieces of

zentangle art with some element

of roundness to them.

Yesterday I offered the challenge to try  Caren Mlot's tangle navaho  with my tangle All Boxed Up. So this is what I did with them. I worked on a square about 4 inches across. The top tile shows my work unshaded. Across the top is Julie Beland's beauchamp mixed with my baubles, then All Boxed Up to the right. Across the middle is my tangle semaphore. Then in the lower right corner you see Caren's navaho. (Sorry, I haven't posted step outs for semaphore yet.)
The second tile shows the piece totally shaded. I don't do heavy shading like some pieces of art you see online, I go for the lighter touch. But even in the lighter touch, you can see the difference shading makes in your art. Caren's navaho stands out a lot more, the beauchamp baubles are more 3D-ish, and All Boxed Up looks like a completely different tangle.

Challenge for you today? Try these two tangles and let me see what you do. You can post them directly on our Facebook wall - Zentangle All Around.
In case you are new to my blog ~ anywhere you see pink, click there. It is a link because . . .  pink = link. SaveSave

Baubles, a Fun Little Tangle!

Are you ready to have a little fun! Here is a relatively new tangle I haven't posted yet. I put it together for the Tangle It! book series. Baubles.  You are only limited by your imagination!

 Super easy steps.

The hardest part is going to be deciding on the embellishments!

 For this particular piece, I decided to forego the embellishments, 

and head straight to the color!

This piece was colored with copics and 

At You Spica glitter pens.

For this piece I went with some basic embellishing. And I mixed my baubles in with some bow*petal for extra zing! From top to bottom you have: curlz, bow*petal and baubles, diagonal², then reverse the order.
(I am having some issues with my blog, so for now I am afraid to link anywhere. If you are one of the people getting pop-up ads on this blog, would you be so kind as to leave me a comment and tell me if you are using an apple product or pc to view this post. Thanks!)
Have fun with baubles! I would love to see what you do with it!
#tangleitjournal

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve. It's here already. This year has flown past. Seriously. A lot of changes have happened in my life, the biggest being the forming of Simalinas. This is a book company consisting of  Ina Sonnenmoser of Germany, Simona Cordara of Italy, and myself. Since September, we have released four books - the Tangle It! series. It has been amazing and fun and intimidating and overwhelming  and busy and hectic and crazy. And fun. I love it! I can't wait to see what 2016 brings to my door.

This particular ATC features several of my tangles: knights of the round table, baubles and bow*petal. So much fun! Background? Cheap school supply watercolors. $1.29 on the school row at Wal-Mart.

Working On Some ATCs

By this point all the Christmas gifts have been opened, all the cookies and cakes and pies have been devoured, Grandma and Grandpa have headed back home, and all the new toys have been played with and left laying around the living room floor.
I hope you had a wonderful holiday spent with someone you love. I am going to prep a few blog posts and schedule them to post over the next couple weeks. They will feature a set of ATCs I've been working on for an upcoming swap. This particular one takes a new tangle called  Beauchamp by Julie Beland, and mingles it with Baubles - a new one of mine that debuts in the Tangle It! Planner. The colorful background is Brushos Color Crystals.
Enjoy the rest of your holiday!

Thursday String Idea #17

It is another Thursday String Idea! I missed last week because I was in Maine and just wasn't prepared. Sorry. But it is all good now, because we have a new string this week! Should you want to print the string above at the  standard 3.5" size, click here.  This is what I did with string #17. I know it is hard to follow, but trust me. The string is definitely in there. I used two tangles - one of mine called baubles, and one of Julie Beland's called beauchamp. They work very well together! You can find those tangles in the Facebook group Zentangle: Tangled and Journaled, Too!
I would love to see what you do with this string! And here is the link one more time if you should wish to print the string. Right here. 
Coming soon - a bunch of photos from Maine!