Happy 4th Birthday

Somebody turned 4 today.  

This box card folds flat for mailing.  I double-enveloped it because even though it was flat, the bottom was kind of bulky and I didn't want any postal machine accidents.  

Lucky little boy got two sets of wheels for this birthday.  We couldn't celebrate together but got pictures from mom and dad and we were all able to connect via evite this evening to all sing him Happy Birthday and watch him blow the candles out. 

He does wear a helmet when riding - this picture is his model pose!  They usually do a photo session around his birthday which, because of the state we're all in had to be canceled.  I think mom did a pretty good job!  

More Quaran-Tangling

Can you tell that I really don't want to listen to the news?  Well, that and I really do enjoy doing these.  I've found two other CZT's that are also in Spain and doing their own Instagram classes.  Sometimes I get to do them when they are live.  Otherwise, I have to fit them in in the 24 hours before they disappear from their Instagram stories.  

March 28 - Using Umble as the main tangle with lots of variations within.  

I was running low on tiles so I had to start doing them in my Zentangle Sketchbook which is probably not the best background for photos - I'll work on that.  

March 29 - Fracas, Indyrella, Mr. E.

March 30 - Pinrose, Fescue, Mooka, Zinger, Poke Root, Poke Leaf, Flux

March 31 - Patience

This tile below was an exercise that came from the Zentangle Blog - there was no visual to follow, only the voice instructions.  Reminds me of a rubberband ball.  (You can see the ghosting from the tangle the day before through the paper.  I'll have to be more cognizant of that in the future.)

April 1 - Bellah, Crescent Moon

April 2 - Ix, Aquafleur, Mooka

April 2 - Moonpie, Florz

April 3 - Reticulas and Fragments

Bales, Well, Vega

Also April 3 - Pax, MaryJJ, Fife

April 4 - Savera, Hibred/Band, Zinja

As a note - they don't show you what the tile will look like when it's finished so as not to influence how you're going to do yours.  Even though you work together, step by step, there are places where you can choose to "do your own thing".  Adding the eye at the end was planned by the CZT and I never saw it coming - pun intended.  This CZT takes all the posted finished tiles and makes a mosaic out of them on Instagram.  I can't wait to see all the eyes looking out.  It should be very colorful because he just told us to have 4 colored pencils on hand - didn't suggest the colors.  

Going to run now as there is one more session I wanted to get to today.  Hope you all are well.

April Fool's Day and a Little More

I normally have this letterboard on my counter at work and try to change the message every day.  I brought it home with me and have been keeping up with the messages, photographing them at home and sharing with the staff through  e-mail each morning.  This one struck the funny bone of most.

We have Confederate violets blooming along with the marsh marigolds, and spring beauty in this pic.

Two weeks ago - gosh, was it that long already - it was suggested to "chalk your walk" with uplifting messages for people to see when out on neighborhood walks.  Well, we don't have a sidewalk, but we have this macadammed area that used to be a basketball court that was suitable to draw a labyrinth on so I could do some mindful walking.  HWNSNBP was going to Home Depot for wood for some projects he could work on during this quarantine and was kind enough to pick up a tarp to put over this when it rains.  He had another piece of one that was needed to cover most of it.  We've covered and removed it several times already and only the outer edge sometimes gets washed away.  I had him pick up a piece of PVC pipe that would fit the sidewalk chalk so I don't have to  bend over to do the chalking.  Initially I used his measuring tape and had my chalk taped to a yardstick.  I was then able to use my little weeding scooter to reinforce the lines with several colors of chalk making it last longer.  I find myself trying to clear my mind of thoughts of this pandemic and saying Hail Marys for everyone as I walk.  It helps..... for a little while.  

This is what part of my dining room table looks like right now.  A couple of finished jigsaw puzzles under the chaos which I will be disassembling tonight along with my Lovepop card from HWNSNBP for my birthday, cameras, my kalimba, and various art projects that I'm trying to focus on.  Oh yes, under the earbuds and notebook is my work Chromebook, and just to the right out of the picture is my home laptop (with more stuff to the right of that).  Creative chaos I call it.  (I'm not concerned about the mess, it's not like I'm getting company any time soon!)

How are you all holding up?  I hope you all are well and stay well.  

Quaran-tangling

First things first.   I didn't create that word and I don't know who did because googling it got me nowhere tonight but it certainly is appropriate for the time and what I've been practicing daily.

One of the artists that I follow on Instagram posted a link to a daily free Zentangle class being offered by a certified Zentangle instructor in Spain.  I had to figure out the time change for the feed which turned out to be 12:30 EST - perfect time for me to block out the newscast that HWNSNBP is usually glued to at that time.

It's all in Spanish - of which I understand about 1%, but I can follow along by watching what she is doing.  She usually has some soothing music in the background and listening to her speak is interesting.  I'm trying to figure out some of the words that I hear repeated.  We'll see about that. 

Anyway - if you have an Instagram account you can follow along with @mindandtangle .  You don't need any special paper.  Just start with a 3.5 x 3.5 inch square.  Grab a fine line marker, a pencil, and a tortillon or q-tip (used for blending the pencil) and you're good to work along.  She goes very slowly so you don't need to rush through.  And the live feed cuts off after an hour, but just tap in again to rejoin. 

So here's what I've gotten done so far and the tangles used  -

3/19/20

Baton, Tripoli, Membranart

3/20/20

Ixorus, Pearly, Sez, Dex

3/21/20

A-Dalfi, Fiore, Diva Dance, Dragon Scales

3/22/20

Amun, Sails, Florz

3/23/20

Fe-Ba, Edie, Frunky

3/24/20

Banderole, Diamond & Square, Log Jam

3/25/20

Feathers, Paizel, Tunnel Vision, Tipple

3/26/20

Panthe, Panepinto, Palrevo

3/27/20

Camelia, Mazorito, Moving Day

And the four with the diagonal stripe together.

Please do join in if you'd like to give it a try.  

Jingle Belles - Fa La La La La

There's a musical theme to our Jingle Belles Challenge this fortnight.  I had several ideas brewing but after going through a bunch of ideas and pulling out a bunch of supplies, I finally chose to go with this Concord & 9th Turnabout stamp set using the Andy Williams holiday tune for my sentiment.  

And since I didn't get a card done last week, I did two this time.  

I'm going to hop on over to the Jingle Belles blog to check out the other melodic entries.  You can join me by clicking here.

Zentangle Project Pack 8 - Tangling with Moonlight Gellyrolls

The folks at Zentangle teamed up with the folks at Sakura to introduce their Sakura's new Moonlight gellyroll pens and how awesome they are to work with when tangling.  The kit included 5 of the new colors, a Zentangle graphite pencil and white chalk pencil, a couple of tortillons, and all the tiles needed to complete the 8 days plus a few more.  All the instructions are on Youtube to follow along with so even if you don't have these exact supplies, I encourage you to check out the Youtube videos for some inspiration and if you're game, give it a try.  Concentrating on placing lines, relaxing your hand, and breathing do help with anxiety.  I did these while my sister was in the hospital and the week after she passed to try to take my mind off of things.  I'm finding other ways during this world health crisis to do more tangling.  I'll share some of that in the days to come.  But for now, here are my finished tiles for Project Pack 8.

Day 1 

Day 2 

If you can imagine, the center of this design is actually a small triangular tile that is inserted into slots at the corners and the initial tangling was done on that.  Then the outside lines were added.

Day 3

I can see me doing more of these on any kind of tile or just in my sketchbooks.  This was fun.

Day 4

So I screwed up this one.  There were supposed to be four of the lavender shapes and four of the green shapes, but I got distracted and didn't place them correctly so I threw in another color.  

Day 5

Click on this one to get closer.  It really is more vibrant IRL.  As a note: these round tiles come pre-strung - meaning there are faint lines on them making the sections.  You could see the sections clearer in the tile above.  This one not so much as they had us dividing up some of the sections to make more.  I do like the way the gellyrolls give it so much life.

Day 6

Again using a pre-strung tile.  

Day 7

Something a little botanical.

Day 8

These were pretty cool to do.  There were six of them.  If you notice the design in the center highlighted with the white chalk pencil you can see that 3 are clockwise and the other 3 are counter clockwise.  When alternated and touching points it makes a nice mandala of its own.

Stay safe and healthy everyone!

Happy Birthday Dear

Last week HWNSNBP had a birthday.  I was, admittedly, quickly scrambling for an idea for his card and just happened to pull something together from some things on my work table.  But I do like the way it came out.  I used stamps from three different sets I think and decided to just stamp them in blue and give the center oval all the oceany color.  

Sympathy and Get Well Wishes -

Boy, this has been quite a year so far hasn't it!  I've lost two cousins, a great aunt, an aunt, and my sister since the beginning of January and I'm kind of hoping that I don't have to make any more sympathy cards for a long time.  

One of our school nurses fell at school a couple of weeks ago and had to have surgery to fix her broken leg.  There is a shortage of school nurses already which makes not having her in the district ever so much more of a challenge.  I thought I'd send her a card to cheer her up.  

Tonight we were notified that tomorrow will be the last day of school for our students until April 14th.  Our teachers are using Monday and Tuesday to prepare remote class lessons.  What this means for those of us who work in the office is yet to be determined.  There's only so much of my job that can be done remotely.  I'll keep you updated.  

In the meantime, make sure to wash your hands and keep your hands away from your face.  And let's all hope that these quarantine practices will slow down this virus.  

Jingle Belles - Stuck On You

The goal this fortnight was to use stickers on our Jingle Belles card.  I had these cute stickers that someone sent me for Christmas.  I love the colors and the whimsy of them. I was lucky enough to have some of these papers out on my work table from the last challenge and they seemed to go together pretty well.  I may have to redo that sentiment though.  It seems a little out of proportion to the stickers on the circles.  

Here's a little closer picture of the stickers in all their cuteness!

I managed to get a little pink into this card to match the llama and fox.  Always good to have a little pink for Christmas.  And always good to see what the others have come up with for this challenge.  Won't you take a look by clicking here?

Happy Flying Pig Day!

I'm having a hard time writing this post today.  I know that I should have prepared it earlier, but the last month has been a bit more stressful than usual.  My sister was in the hospital and on life support at one point, rallied and she was then sent to rehab.  She has COPD and Lupus and they believe pneumonia was what put her in the hospital.  I won't go into the details, some of you close to me know the situation was difficult to say the least.  Unfortunately I got a call very early this morning that she passed away at the rehab facility.  The situation is still difficult, but we'll get through it.  I am sad, but she was suffering and I have to believe that she is at peace.

The window in the rehab room she was in had a broken catch on it so it wouldn't close completely.  She was okay with that because it let in a little cool air and she was always hot.  I had called about them fixing that window a few days ago when it was raining, but it was still slightly ajar when we got there this morning to say good-bye.  I couldn't help but hope that her angels, whether pigs or not, lifted her up and helped her escape through that broken window to a place with no more pain or suffering.  A place where my father and my other sister, and her two little babies that she lost would be waiting to welcome her into their arms.  

I will keep on celebrating Flying Pig Day in spite of the memory that I now associate with it.  I gives me a chance to show my support to my "Pig Ladies" and thank them for all the support that they've given me.  We all need that, don't we?

I had a few Friendship plants that I handed out for FPD.  I hope they multiply and are shared over and over again.

Love you guys!