Challenge #76 - Home

     Oh Diva, you have outdone yourself!! I love this challenge.  I am having a blast going over to the other entries and seeing the places people come from.  It is so much FUN!  The tiles are absolutely stunning (as usual) and so interesting!  The only problem - I can't do a "quick" look on these!  I have to sit and stare and admire forever!  Oh well, I have the time, I guess.
    I live in Tennessee.  It is a beautiful state - mountains and wildlife abound.  Each morning during the school year, I travel a few miles to Georgia to the school I teach in.  The view as I travel is of Lookout Mountain and the surrounding hills.  Awesome way to start the morning.
    When I told my brother about the challenge, we started brainstorming about things I could add to the Tennessee tile.  Our discussion turned to North Carolina, the place where we were born and grew up.  Tennessee is my "now" home, but North Carolina is my home of memories.  It is vacations with family, playing in the backyard, all those wonderful childhood things.  So I changed my mind and decided to do NC. 
     On my ZIA you should be able to find lots of NC things - Grandfather's Mtn. in the Smokies, the influence of the Cherokee and Scottish people in the hills, famous lighthouses, the NC Tarheels, fields of wildflowers, the pines, the rivers,  the state flower - the dogwood, and the Outerbanks.  Can you see them?  This was a lot of fun to do!  I plan on doing the Tennessee tile, but wanted to get this one posted now, in case I don't finish the other one.

North Carolina, 5x7

Hope you are having a great day and thanks for dropping by! 

Zendala Dare #11

    I have often heard it said if you want something done ask a busy person.  Erin, over at The Bright Owl, proves this to be true.  She has a very busy schedule so it seems, and yet provides an awesome template each week and even does a fantastic sample or two.  Thank you, Erin, for taking the time to make such a wonderful dare for all of us!
    I am NOT busy.  It is summer and I am relaxing and just doing "Cathy-things".  I could feel guilty but I know how quickly that will change come September.
    I printed off all three template sizes, as usual.  I started on the largest with drawing a grid for the tangle "ving".  Then my into my brain popped the idea of ice cream cones.  Seriously, it doesn't take much to make me think of ice cream in 95 degree weather!  I didn't feel like taking the large template into this idea, so I grabbed the smaller square one.  After the ice cream cones, there were circus poles with "girdy" and I had to have elephants . . . well, you get the picture, I went a bit off course.  I really like it, it just wasn't at all where I thought I was headed.

Under The Big Top

      Ahh, now that that is out of my system, on to more "normal" zendalas.  I grabbed my tangle notebook and got down to some serious playing!  I love the repetition of zendalas and also the fact that I don't have to develop a string.  It is just pure relaxation! 

     This week while I was roaming around on my computer, I decided to search for a building that I had designed some years ago while in high school.  I worked doing house plans and such with my father.  I love architecture.  I designed several homes around the Greensboro NC area.  I really didn't think I would find a photo of the building since it had been so long ago, but was thrilled to find it still exists - even if changed.  Check out The Flower Pot to see this unique building.
    Guess that is all for now.  I am going to go back to work on my ABC tiles.  I have through E completed.  It has been fun to focus on certain letters and search for tangles that begin with that letter. 
    Have a great week and as always, thank you for taking the time to leave a comment!  You make my day!!

The Flower Pot and a "trip" home

    I was born in North Carolina - the Greensboro area.  It has been a long time since I have been back there and don't have any plans to go in the future.  But it is still home and the source of many happy times and memories.  In playing around on the internet yesterday, I discovered a wonderful site called Greensboro Daily Photo.  This energetic couple have developed a blog for photos taken around Greensboro area.  They publish one each day.  It is like a mini journey home each time I open my e-mail. 
    My dad was a structural draftsman and drew plans for lots of large buildings.  When I was in high school, I took a drafting class and worked with him in my spare time.  Whenever he would get house plans in, I took them over.  I designed lots of the homes in the Greensboro area.  Once a gentleman called and asked if we could design a building for him to use as a florist shop.  He wanted it to be shaped like a flower pot.  Dad said yes and I took over.  
     Yesterday as I was playing around I - on a total lark- searched for the flower pot building.  That led me to the Greensboro photo site, an e-mail correspondence with this couple, and a delightful photo of the building!!  I was thrilled.  

previously The Flower Pot

     Imagine the building painted a like a terra cotta pot with the top filled with brightly colored artificial plants.  A little corny perhaps, but really clever.  What a nice memory for me!
    

Challenge #75 - Cadent

    Wonderful choice, Diva!  I love cadent.  It was one of the first tangles I learned, and proceeded to use it all the time.  I love the "swoopie" feel to it.   It is just plain fun!
     I started out with a big cadent swooping across the tile.  Then decided it should have some support.  What better tangle to support cadent than girders girdy.  Then spilling from all this support are a lot of variations of cadent.  Lots of fun to play with on a hot summer day!

    Of course I am not through playing by a long shot!  So I penciled in "linq" on my next tile and filled it with cadent!  They seemed to just beg to be together.  Before I started drawing the variation in the cadents, I took a second look and thought they looked a lot like the tail of a seahorse.  So I cut a larger (5x7) piece of paper and took cadent for a swim!  It works perfectly and I love the seahorse!  I've never framed any of my tangles, but he may have to find a home in one.

Seahorse

     Now that I have satisfied the cadent-urge, I am going back to my on-going project.  I am doing a tile for each letter of the alphabet.  I have only gotten "A" done, but it is a chance to explore some tangles I don't often use and revisit old ones I love.  Hidden in the tile is a tiny letter A.  I thought I would try to hide the letter in each tile.

"A"

   Thank you for dropping by and now I am off to check out the other entries.  By the way, if anyone could tell me - in very simple non computer talk - how to put a slideshow on my blog, I would love it.  I have tried and it doesn't show up.  What am I doing wrong?  Thanks!
 

Zendala Dare #10

     I love post-its.  I could keep the company in business, single handed.  I use them for school, home, scrapbooking and to mask off areas in my rubberstamping.  The reason I mention post-its is because they got to help out with this week's dare by Erin at The Bright Owl.  More about that in a minute.
     I knew before I ever saw the template I was going to figure out a way to use the tangle "lap" that I had discovered on the computer.  It really appealed to me.  Probably not a good idea to become so committed to using it before I even knew if I could.  So I opened up the dare Friday morning and voila!  How in the world was I going to put a tangle that was giving me a fit into a box that some areas were hidden?  Enter the post-its!  I took the post-its and framed off the box (outer edge) as if it were all in view.  Then I did the tangle going right over the post-it.  Once I pulled the post-it up, it looked as if it went under the edges.  Does that make sense?  It worked perfectly for me.  Of course, the overall zendala has a few (maybe more than a few) "boo-boos" in it.  So when my brother asked what to name the file, I said let's call it "Murphy's Law".  You know, what can go wrong will.

Murphy's Law

      I usually print all three template sizes.  I love that Erin gives us the choice of size.  Murphy's Law was done on the large round size.  I figured I needed it to work out my struggles with "lap".  So next I did the small circle and then the zentangle tile.  At least once, I have to play with color.  One day, I will feel good about the color tiles.  I just don't seem to have the "pizazz" with color I am seeing on the other people's entries. 

garden walk

     Totally unrelated to zentangles - I am constantly looking for something easy and good for breakfast.  I have trouble with cereal, due to the carb count (diabetes and all).  I don't have time during school for fixing a cooked breakfast.  Granola bars can be mostly sugar too.  So when I discovered this awesome refrigerator oatmeal, I had to share.  It can be varied.  It is easy.  And most importantly it is delicious!  Hate to sound like a commercial, but this is really worth a try.
     Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.  

Challenge #74

All of a sudden, I am hearing Three Dog Night's "Going in Circles".  I used to love that song and that group.  So I didn't mind hearing it in my brain when Diva challenged us to use eccentric circles.
     The rain was pouring down today and it was so nice not to have to go anywhere or really do anything except tangle.  And tangle I did!  Once I got started it was one idea after another.  I took Diva's first string to get started and added just a few more circles.  When I finished, it reminded me of a spider, so that's what I named it.

Spiderette

     Then I used her second string for inspiration.  I needed a bit of color on this very gray day, so "strawberries" was born!  Only I signed it, then got to turning it and decided I needed to have it going in another direction.  The initials are off, but oh well.

Strawberries

       Still raining and still inspired, I just drew a bunch of circles and then flipped through my tangle pattern book without a plan.  I opened it to a page, chose one at random and drew.  Then repeated the process.  The process of "no-process", I guess.

     One last go and then on to other things, like catching up on my Tangle-A-Day calendar.  I love dragonflies and the circles worked perfectly for wings.

Dragonfly

     Can you tell it is summer?  I have all this wonderful free time.  Of course, there are projects around the house to complete, but not today.  Today it is just me, my pen, the rain and Three Dog Night.
               "Going in circles,
                Don't really know
                Where I will come from
                Where I will go."
Have a great day and see you next challenge!  Happy tangling!

Zendala Dare #9

     This was a lot of fun this week!  Who am I kidding?  It is a LOT of fun every week!  The moment I saw this template, I thought of guitar picks.  However, I had no way to use that idea.  But they still remind me of guitar picks.
     For number one, I pulled out my colored pencils.  I want to get better at using them, so I guess the only way is to practice.  I really liked this one until I couldn't get rid of the yellow colored lines - why did I choose that color?  Yuck.  I also wish the pearl in the middle had been a lot different color.  Something more vibrant.  All that said, for numbers 2 and 3, I stuck with that gorgeous color - black.  Simple.  Elegant.  And no chance to botch the mix!

     I wanted to say thank you to LeeAnn for her wonderful tutorial on using colored pencils.  Her work is stunning and I would love for my colors to look half as awesome.  But just as importantly as any knowledge I got about coloring, was what she said about using her cheaper set of RoseArt pencils.  I too would love a set of Prismacolor, but just can't get them right now.  My pencils are a roseart and crayola mix.  I just didn't want to work with those.  However, she has inspired me to work with what I have and not give up.  Thanks, LeeAnn.  Your work is absolutely tops!
     Have a great day and thanks for dropping by!

Challenge #73 - Bridgen

      Yahoo!  My summer has officially started!  The last two days were spent cleaning and moving furniture and lifting books.  Not my idea of fun.  Also a bit hard on my back, which seems to be a bit bothersome as of late.  I really enjoyed relaxing and getting involved with Diva's new challenge.  We had to use the tangle "bridgen".  I fell in love with this tangle.  It is so peaceful and relaxing.  I started out by going to Tangle Patterns and checking out the new strings posts.  I chose string #3 to get me started.  By the time I finished, it is a bit hard to tell where it is!  Bridgen is like that - it sort of takes over and does its own thing.  Now I am in the process of working in my Tangle-A-Day calendar (Carole Ohl) to get it caught up.  

        Thought you might enjoy seeing my group's tangle work.  One rainy day recess, I decided to teach my classroom how to do a few tangles.  They loved it!  It was fascinating to see how involved they were - even my more active ones!  From that day on, they begged "teach us more tangles" and some even started going to my blog and on to Tangle Patterns for ideas!  Awesome! 
      Hope you are having a great day!  Thanks for all your comments!

All you need is LOVE!

      I speak with total authority - there is no language on earth where the word "love" is spelled using just the letters B (betweed), P (pea-nuckle), or K (keeko).   And yes I looked.  I thought I had a way around the dare Erin at The Bright Owl gave us this week - just use other letters for my favorite tiles.  My other thought was simply to go ahead and use the "old tried and trues", and claim a "tangle-typo", but I sort of thought nobody would buy that.  Right?
     So I dashed over to Tangle Patterns and praised the fact that they are arranged in alphbetical order.  I also pulled out all my tangle books and checked the index.  The search was fun - took awhile, but fun.  I also discovered some tangles I rarely if ever use.  That is the point anyway, isn't it? 
     I thought red would be great color for my first attempt since it goes really well with hearts and love and all that jazz.  I was moving along really good until I picked up a pen to color in the little circles on "longwood" and guess what, it wasn't red!  Somebody should move the pens she is not using!  So I put a little black circle in the corner of each one of the longwood boxes.  Then I had to add some of the other tangles in black to semi-balance this whole calamity out.  Actually it wasn't too bad when I finished, just not what I planned.

Longwood, OrNot,Veezely, Echoism

      On to zendala number two - first, hide the red pens.  Back to the books and internet and here is my result.  I really prefer the second one.  I guess because I just could get on with the business of tangling and not have to think about how to solve a problem!

Laced, Onamoto, Vibes, Emingle

     School is officially out, except for two in-service days!  Yahoo!!  I am now foot loose and fancy free!