Thanksgiving, challenges and other sundry things

I really like Thanksgiving. Its all about family, being thankful, celebrating bounty...

For my hubby and I, it's another year to remember how lucky we were in surviving the awful motorcycle accident we were in (Again, helmets really DO save lives!), but I personally an thankful every year for him. Cheesy to most people but it really is true. With all the crapola he and I have had to endure, it really is a testament to our commitment and love for each other. I'm happy. and I'm thankful.

Ok, no more mushies, for now at least!

I've been busy making by hand and filling out preprinted Christmas cards, decorating, cooking on Thanksgiving and such, so I'm a few days behind my normal challenge posts.

Here's The Bright Owl challenge, #32. I was feeling rainbow-y and wanting to play with watercolors, so I did 2!

All sorts of tangles, on 6x6 watercolor paper

All sorts of tangles, I was feeling hearts this time around.

On to the Diva Challenge# 96. I'm not too unhappy with this. I need to practice more with Zinger I think!

Zinger is a bit wonky... oops.

And finally, I was playing around with Zendalas and was still feeling Rainbow-y... This is a zendala template from the bright owl and I played around with my stabilo point 88 fine line pens and Bunzo! By the time I was done it reminded me of the song De Colores, hence the title...

Bunzo, rainbow-y bunzo everywhere!

It's after Thanksgiving, so our tree is now up and decorated. I still have to put lights in the windows, but we're pretty well finished with decorating!

Have a great week!

Weekly Challenges plus Halloween is over and "the holidays" have begun!

Halloween was uneventful here. We typically only get a dozen kids, so this year since money is tight we opted to skip giving out candy.The passing of the ghouls, goblins, spooks and other sundry halloween-y things means "the holidays" are upon us. "The holidays" vary depending on background and beliefs... Hannukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, Festivus (Yes, really. And yes I have friends that do so, and yes it is pretty awesome) and others I'm sure exist but I'm not familiar with.. and then we roll right into New Years, and then my birthday! (While may not be one of "the holidays" to you, I've always considered it one!)

This is great. BUT...... WAIT!!! What happened to Thanksgiving?

Case in point. Sunday we went to shopping to pick up some things. Walmart and Menards are in full "holidays" swing. Decorations, music, displays hawking "tis the season" shirts, signs and booze. Yep. there was a booze display touting "make your season bright" with bottles as holiday lights... I was a bit taken aback.

Not by the booze display. That was amusing. But that nowhere (short of in the poultry section at Walmart where they had frozen turkeys) did I see anything resembling Thanksgiving... No turkeys, no pilgrims, no native americans, no cornucopias... nothing.

I'm sad. I love thanksgiving. The ideology is pretty cool. A day to give thanks for all we have?! Heck yes. It's too easy to take it all for granted. Trust me, been there done that. A day to spend with family, eating a feast until you are in a food coma and watching football?! Double heck yes.

And I respect everyone's take on all this, it's cool. But me, personally.... The holiday decorations don't go up until Thanksgiving. I typically start the turkey in the oven, prep everything else I can, and then start working on the decorating. My family always decorated the day after thanksgiving as I was growing up, but I like the idea of working on decorating and visiting and all that other fun stuff since everyone is gathered together anyway... plus if I choose to shop on black friday (though not very likely. I haven't ever, yet. I don't foresee going to either.. too many people.) I can.

To all this (and I suspect there will be a post somewhere over the next  7 weeks regarding the commercialism of "the holidays") I say, RESPECT THE TURKEY!!!

Here's a turkey ZIA I did to decorate my craftroom/office. It's cute, though I'm thinking about adding some color so its not currently shaded... I found the outline online and traced it into my sketchbook to tangle on.

And now for the Challenges!!!!

Here the Zendala Dare from The Bright Owl:

Inapod, Eke, Echoism, Pinwheels

And the weekly challenge from The Diva:
 

Eddy, Pouf, LaceCurtains, Socc, Mooka and one tiny Paradox

Weekly Challenges

So this week's Diva's Challenge is using the new official tangle Bunzo. I like this one! It grows fast, it fills spaces nicely and it looks so organic. It reminds me of the videos of the non newtonian fluid, "oobleck" on speakers and reacting to the vibration. Maybe that was even more geek than usual or a bit odd, but it's the first thing that came to mind when I saw this tangle pattern.

Ballot (filled with other tangles), Chillon, Onomato, Bunzo,
Copada (with Flora), Purk, Dewdrops, Fescu and Betweed

Also I did the Bright Owl Zendala Dare. I love the zendala shape. I'm only "so-so" on my attempt at it. Maybe I'll do another in the future. It just seems "eeehh" like it's a bit flat or blah.

Angelfish, Crossroads (I'm not 100% sure of the name, the one with the black squares),
Bollywood, Bubbles,  Alice, Betweed, Fescu, Awdry

In non Zentangle challenges, our fat kitty seems to be a bit better at least. She's eating again and acting frisky and lovable like normal. We have a follow up urinalysis for her once she's done with the antibiotics to see if she's better. *fingers crossed*

It's also been a butt kicker of a week at work. I'm happy tomorrow is Friday and I have the weekend to decompress... I need it!

Hope everyone is great and had a wonderful Halloween, Samhain, All Saints/All Souls, Dio de los Muertos!

Worrying about my youngest cat...

Pets. For some they are "just a cat" or "just a dog" but for many people I know, they are as much a member of the family as anyone else. For my Hubby and I, our pets are our furkids.

We have 3 cats and a dog. One big happy family!

Our oldest is a 5 year old blue point Siamese boy.

Our middle kids are a female black cat from the shelter who's 4 and a tortoise point Siamese shelter girl who's 3.

The baby of the family is the dog, a 20 month old Schnoodle.

Our tortoise point is sick. She develops crystals in her bladder. It gives her infections, so she's on prescription food to help prevent the crystals. But it seems like once a year or so she gets sick and we have to take her to the vet. She's had surgery once to remove the crystals. One of them was as big as a ping pong ball. I can't imagine how much that sucks.

Well, she's had another flare up. She's at the vet overnight, and I'm hoping the urine test comes back that she's ok and that it's something minor.

My heart is in my throat because we don't have the means to keep trying to get her better. I'm nervous, and I worry about her. I worry it's crystals again. She's having to spend the night at the vets office, in a crate, alone. Instead of being home and being loved on and cuddled, and sleeping on my pillow next to my head…

If we have to make the miserable choice to have her put to sleep, I'll feel guilty for not having the resources to save her, for letting her down. But I don't want her to suffer. And having had a urinary tract infection before I know how bad they suck. Throwing in the unimaginable  feeling of having a ping pong ball sized rock bouncing around in your gut makes me even more positive that I don't want my fluffy girl suffering.

Time will tell. We should know more tomorrow. In the mean time I worry and I cry and I hope she's not too miserable. Cuz I am.

Pardon my putting it out there. Just worried.... and feeling kind of down...

Technology - programs, programs everywhere

So, yep, I'm a techie geek. I love computers and gadgetry. iWhatevers, SmartPhones, I even had a palm pilot back in the day when they were black and grey non back lit screens... As cool as Hardware is, Software can be pretty dang awesome.

I just found out today how very cool Microsoft One Note is. Holy Crow! I can see my work day become so much easier. All things (including words in a picture!!) are searchable by the search box. you can make files into pictures to make things easier to locate (kind of like a screen shot). It will automagically put a link to the file or web page or what ever you copy and paste.

*mini happy dance* Those of you who have seen my handwriting (not the decent Artwork lettering, but my hurried hieroglyphic looking penmanship) know how much nicer typing up notes and things will be. I'll actually be able to READ my notes 2 days later!

I know there's always been the idea that computers could make things paperless, and I'm sure it's still a long way off, but >this woman< is going to try and go as paperless as possible at least as far as important work related notes go... if only for my own ease and convenience!

Woot!

Happy Halloween!!!

Here's a couple Halloween-y ZIA's I made to decorate my office/craft room...

We don't typically get a lot of trick or treaters at our house. I think last year we had 12 kids. And those of you that know me well know how much I adore Halloween.... Jack o Lanterns, witches hats, brooms, black cats, monsters (though I much prefer the cartoon-y and fun Munster like variety, as I loathe scary movies).... Pumpkin pie, candy apples, candy corn (though not to eat... I personally detest the texture and taste of candy corn)... the changing leaves, the cooler weather, the winter constellations coming out.... Yup. I love this time of year. The Great Pumpkin is afoot!

Happy Halloween everyone! :)

Diva's weekly challenge and Glaze pens!

There's a button over there on the right for the Diva's weekly challenge. I finally got up the courage to try my hand at one.

Diva's Weekly Challenge #91, using:
Flutter, Mooka, Dooleedo, Jetties, Bannah,  Munchkin (Kindof),  Ambler, (K)Nightsbridge and Shattuck

A striped Zentangle!

Flutter is only "so-so" and Ambler got squished at the end, but over all I'm pretty pleased with my first try at one of the Challenges!

I don't have zentangle tiles, so I free handed a roughly 4 inch square in my sketch book.

Also, Hubby got me a set of Sakura Glaze pens by surprise over the weekend. They are pretty dang cool. So far I've only used them on paper, but I can imagine how neat they would be on plastic. I see sun catchers in my future.

Here's my first major black paper undertaking:

It didn't scan super well, to show off the glaze pens on the black. They actually show up pretty well. (the yellow is the only one that doesn't, in real life at least. Most of the colors look black in the scan but they are definitely color in standard room lighting. I need to explore shading with white charcoal more...

And here's a white paper piece:

If I could get the scan to show the depth! The glaze pens do make a 3D look, though they warn against porous surfaces because it sucks the ink in some. All the little dots stand up in the above ZIA. I even colored all the "pearlz" with the clear glaze pen after shading. Definitely a neato addition to my Arsenal of Color. (in other words, my pen, marker, pencil and such stash)

Have a great week!

Organizing the tangles, the supplies... and the ART Part 2

Arts and craft storage... It can be overwhelming and expensive.

I was at Hobby Lobby and Michael's craft stores yesterday and perusing the art and craft supplies and supply storage. My hubby was awesome in coming with me and letting me get some organizational items for my Zentangle stuff. Some of the very things I was going to share with you anyway!

An Aside: Before my blog goes much further, I feel the need to point out how I phrase things. Money is tight. I'm sure many people understand how that goes. I say "my hubby lets me" get things, because he and I discuss all purchases, big or small, for me or for him or for us or for the house. I can envision the masses going "Lets her? Lets her?!?! What is she? A wimp?" or getting negative images of my hubby, like he's a tyrant or something. Let me assure you that is not the case, either way. We just have to agree on purchases. It's how we make our money work.... Now that that's been explained... on with the blog!

So, arts and craft storage is SO expensive! Scrap booking totes for materials and supplies can easily get into the 80 plus dollar range. Most specialized storage is outrageous, regardless of if you're looking at paint and canvas, scrap booking or any other media. Even some of the odd specialized things for knitting and cross stitch I've seen get excessively pricey.

Floating around on Pintrest, I found this most excellent idea for organizing tangles at Tanglebucket. By getting a scrap booking paper punch and some coin collecting storage sleeves, you have a easily manipulated tangle index!

Now, I have to explain the terminology to non tanglers:
"Tangle" - the pattern, the design... the shapes drawn to fill space, in pen.
"String" - the guideline you lay down just to kind of get you started, in pencil.
"Tile" - the paper, the object which you're tangling on if you choose other than paper.
"Zentangle" - the official term for the style of art created and marketed by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. Done on an official zentangle tile, 3.5 inches square. Also have a "zendala" option on a roughly 4.5 inch round tile.
"Zentangle Inspired Art" or "ZIA" - Follows the Zentangle form, but is not the basic monochrome idea of "official" Zentangle or isn't on a Zentangle tile. Options include color, Different sized or shaped paper from "official", on clothes or other objects.

I've got a rather paltry collection of tangles, through it quite literally grows every day. The web is a fascinating place, with people sharing new tangles they create all the time. Then there's resources like Tangle Patterns. And while I will always utilize this resource, it is a more than a bit distracting when you're working on a piece and you have to stop and try and find the next pattern.

Following the idea on Tanglebucket, I've begun putting all my patterns in these coin collecting pouches as of last night. Very, very cool. I'll post a pic of the completed (considering it'll be continually growing) project.

Here's some of my craft storage:

Markers, pens and pencils oh my!

This shows my pen, marker and pencil collection, some water color paper, and on the right is my monster paper punch for the tangle index project. The top shelf is my bookshelf. I've got some artwork up there leaning against the books. Behind the box on the left is a jack o lantern ZIA I did. I'll post that in the next post.

Bead storage and little container to the
left is Cross Stitch storage

I love bright colors, so this was a must have. And we caught it on sale last year! Word to the wise, it's a nice little storage container, but it's not worth 30 or 40 bucks. Get it when it's around 20 like I did and it's a good deal. The beads themselves are in baby food jars from the recycle center in the drawers. *Ecological and economical!* Perfect size and it makes it easy to see your options. I keep all my beading stuff in here including the beads; tools, sorter, spare jars, stringing material, beading mats, etc. Its great!

For cross stitch, though I don't do it much anymore because its hard on the eyes and our pets love to attack the string, The floss is wound on the floss cards and then kept in a plastic container kind of like a tackle box. Then the hoops and the current project, plus the floss box and needle container and other materials go in the big box.

Not shown, I also have a credenza that I have all the other sundry projects I work on in. General arts and crafts stuff, sculpey clay, yarn crafts etc. Its easy to find things. Though I admit that I haven't messed with some of it in a long time.

Finally, here's one of my ZIA's:

Halloween ZIA

I like tangling in shapes more so than the traditional 3.5 inch tile with a string. I don't have any of the Official tiles and I like working in a wire-bound sketch book or on water color paper for color infused projects. So I scour the net looking for shapes to tangle in, or I jump over to The Bright Owl and download one of her zendala challenge shapes. I print them off and when I want to tangle with them, I trace them into the sketchbook and tangle away. Also economical and environmental, since I just keep the original print out for future use.

I love my set up. I an super geeked about this organizational idea. Can't wait to finish it and share pics!

Off to tangle some more!!

Organizing the tangles, the supplies... and the ART Part 1

As I said in my previous post, I adore art. Those of you who know me well, also know the kind of persnickety way I am about things being "just so", as far as organized. I loathe not being able to find the things I'm looking for. Regardless of if its at work or at home.

So I organize. Now, that doesn't mean my space is spotless or perfect. Far from it in fact. I have the same level of "life" around my space as anyone else. But I have a desire to group the different aspects of said "life" (note, I do not use clutter, stuff, junk or other words. These things aren't that. They are just part of "life". I only have 2 places that collect Junk - A table and the desk by the garage door. Luckily even that stays pretty well contained to just those 2 spaces.) together.

Example: At work, I have a nifty desk organizer (customizable to a certain extent - from Staples) that I keep my major and important items - filing to be done, things I need to follow up with my supervisor on etc - neatly kept in. I have a "meeting" notebook for all things meeting related. I have a Phone log book to track all the calls and details related to them I receive in. The rest of my desk might look like a tornado hit it at points, but these items are my safe haven, where I know I can find exactly what I'm looking for at any point.

Home is not all that different. I have a "craft room" or office, and my hubby has an office. They are across the hall from one another. Our house isn't huge and we don't have a basement, so our offices serve as our "man cave" and "woman cave". I have things organized here, just like at work. A shelf devoted to books - I don't own tons, I utilize the library quite a bit. I only buy the books that get me hooked that I would love to re-read periodically, just like watching the Wizard of Oz or Goonies when ever they are on TV. I have a neat organizer for my beads and jewelry making items. I have cabinets and drawers where my other craft items are kept...

But as I said before, I'm hooked on Zentangle. So, I have a shelf devoted to it in my credenza hutch. Organizers for office supplies contain my meager (but growing thanks to my sweet hubby) collection of pens, pencils, water colors, artist markers and other related tools. I keep my sketch book and my tangles book there as well as the item (s) I'm currently working on.

I'll keep this here and make this a multi-part post. In my next post I'll explain what the heck a tangle is and share some neat ideas I'd like to implement in my space regarding tangle, supply and art organizing. I'll also pepper the next post with images of my art. :)

Zentangle - proof that I CAN in fact make decent looking art!

So I have a new found addicting awesome and fun hobby. I've always been into crafts. Starting with when I was in Girl Scouts and couldn't wait to get my hands on beads, pipe cleaners, wacky tacky or popsicle sticks all the way through adulthood with cross stitch, crochet, polymer clay and jewelry making, arts and crafts have been part of my life for a very long time. I'd actually go so far as to say they are part of who I am.

The truth is, even if I suck at the craft I'm attempting, I enjoy the creative endeavor it is. I'm obviously much happier if it doesn't suck, but I never know if I can do it unless I try.

Case in point, Zentangle. The official term is Zentangle, which is the name of the marketed art form. Though it's also known as patterning, doodling, zen doodle and a gazillion other terms.  I happened across it while surfing the next about 6 weeks ago. I instantly became hooked. It's SO simple! but I have yet to make an "ugly" Zentangle (or Zentangle Inspired Art piece - a ZIA). I've tangled tons of different patterns, I've filled almost a whole 100 page sketch book. I've just about wore out the fine point pen I use to make the tangles, and I've yet to find a boring point.

Explaining what zentangle is is much too hard to me. I recommend you follow this link if you'd like to learn more.

I haven't uploaded any of my artwork yet. Expect that soon.

I'm headed offline to work on more art. I adore this stuff!

So, this is my second attempt at blogging. The first time around I had grandiose ideas, which undoubtedly fell flat. I put too much pressure on myself, wanting a corner of the web that was entertaining and interesting, drawing the masses to my wit and whimsy. Which in turn overwhelmed me, and when "life" got in the way I stopped blogging all together.

But, trooper that I am, I dust off and start again. The reality of the situation is that most people that will be reading this are family and friends, and you all already know who, what and how I am. I have no need to strive for anything beyond the authentic and real me. Take it or leave it! :)

So, with that being said, I hope you enjoy my little nook of cyberspace. Maybe it will bring back memories, introduce you to new things or give you insights into whats up in my world.