Motion Sickness!

    I hope all my friends out there are safe and dry during this storm that has bombarded our coast.  My thoughts go out to all who are directly affected by Sandy.  It has made our weather much colder, but other than that not too difficult.
   Challenge #93 had us using the new official tangle, Bunzo.  Wow! This is a fun one. I couldn't figure out what do for a string, so I looked through Tangle Patterns wealth of strings and chose one.  Then I thought I would just put a few of these little "bunzos" down in the corner.  Yeah, right,  I drew a few. Drew a few more.  Drew a few more.  The string was disappearing.  Add a few more here.  Some there.  Well, you get the picture.  My string was gone!  And I had to force myself to quit.  I nearly tangled the whole tile (and maybe off to the tabletop!).  This is a really addicting tangle.  I love it!  You do kind of get motion sickness when you are going, though.  I think I would have named this tile - "potato chip".  Remember the commercial that said you couldn't eat just one?  Well, who can draw just one?  Not me.  I dare you to try!

Motion Sickness

    The Bright Owl dare was a beautiful template this week.  It looks like a stained glass window.  I want to do another one when I have time and color it like stained glass.  My one day folder grows and grows. 

Dare #29

    I hope everyone has a safe and happy week.  Thanks for dropping by and as always thank you for your comments.  Also thanks and hello to my new friends this week! 

Playing Catch Up!

I am some what behind on challenges and dares and all that fun stuff!  Arggh!  I let them stack up and then realize I better post or I will never finish.  I draw every evening after school work - it's my therapy.  This week at school we are doing lots of tests - benchmarks and the State Writing Test.  Pressure!  So I need my evening "therapy"!

I didn't get Judy at Creative Doodling's celtic knot challenge up in time, but I am going to post it anyway.  For celtic knot #9, we were supposed to use at least 3 tangles we had never used before.  That was fun.  I chose to use Gella, Piza, and Paradise Flower.  There are some others to balance it out that I love.  Sparkle is one of my new favorites.  It is so much like verve, I have to love it.

Celtic knot #9

Celtic Knot #10

The Bright Owl had a template up that I loved.  It has so much "fun" potential.  I made several copies and put them into my one day basket.  I had finished the one I wanted to use for the dare when my brother looked at one of the blank ones and said it reminded him of something we saw in a computer game we play.  When he said that, I saw exactly what he was talking about and had to do that one also.  It is sort of a steampunk place in the game and when you add the right tangles it looks almost like the one in the game.

Dare #28

Skyrim

     I really liked the Diva's challenge.  We were supposed to do our tile in stripes.  This gave me a chance to play around with some tangles and see how they might look as a border.  But I wanted it to be different than just stripes - well, of course.  So I put my stripes on circles and decided to do several.  It sort reminds me of planets.  Strange.

Challenge #92

  That brings me to the end of my stack.  Whew!  Thanks for viewing.  I do wish I could post each one and get them up sooner.  It just doesn't seem to be possible.  Even now there is a stack (a less therapeutic one) of papers waiting to be graded.  Glad you dropped by and I love reading your comments.  Have a great rest of the week!

Unfinished

     The Diva's challenge (#91)  was to do something to honor Beads of Courage.  This is a fantastic program that offers beads to families that are facing medical challenges with their children.  For every obstacle they overcome (shots, hospital visits, tests run, etc) they add a bead to their strand.  I had to go to the website and check it out and then I had to recommend this to several people at school. 
     For my challenge, I thought of several good ideas - my own encounter six years ago with diabetes was a possibility.  But I couldn't remember all the "pokes and prods".  I thought of a life map.  But whew!  I am so busy with other things that may have to wait.  But it is something I want to give a try.  I finally decided on making a string of beads for every year I have taught.  I have been in the school system for nearly 36 years, but only teaching for 35.  So you will see 35 beads on my string.  However the last one - this year - isn't finished so I decided to not complete the bead. 

Unfinished

     I really like this because it is so personal.  It has a lot of memories on that strand.  I think now that it is scanned I will possibly add some color.  I can't decide, what do you think?  Color or black and white?
     Hope you are having a lovely day and thank you for your comments!  I also want to say thank you for the people who decided to follow my blog!  I remember when I started and was afraid no one would bother to read this - I even cajoled my wonderful assistant principal (Amy, that's you!) to follow it so it wouldn't look so empty over there!  Now I have 23!!  Whoopee!

Dare #27

  What a week!  I am back from fall break and don't think I have had time to catch my breath!  Lots of things happening with me nowadays - some big decisions about my life which I will share when I can.  For now - "Keep Calm and Draw Lines"!!  Right?
     Here is Dare #27.  I really like this template.  I ran several and they are in my later file.  I tried something a bit different for me.  I grabbed a scrapbook brush marker to shade rather than using my normal pencil and blender.  I sort of like the effect.  I may not use it all the time, but for now, it turned out okay.

Have a great week and now I need to get to the challenge and the celtic knot - oh my! 

Fall Break Fun!!

  It has arrived!  Fall break!  Yahoo!  I am so loving the time to draw, get to my new computer program and be totally LAZY.  I am enjoying this year - for the most part - but I need a rest.  So let's post some challenges and dares!

Dare #26

Erin at the Bright Owl loves Halloween and Fall.  So her "dare" this week was to do a Halloween or Fall inspired zendala.  Since I had already done the Halloween thing last week, I decided fall colors would be better.  While my kiddos at school love Halloween, I am not so enthralled by it.  Besides, I used up all my ideas on Dare #25.  I used some goldish colored cardstock to work on and then brown and orange pens.  Fall is one of my favorite times of the year.  I love the colors, the crunch of leaves, the smell of wood smoke . . . . everything about it.  So this was fun!  Thanks, Erin!

 Celtic Knot # 8

      Judy West at Creative Doodling gave us a beautiful template.  Her challenge was to fill it with leaves.  This was fun.  I loved playing in the leaves!  There are a few tiny 'boo-boos" but not enough to change the fact I really like this one.  It is one of my favorites I have done in awhile.  (Considering how many I do, whew!)

 Challenge # 90

The Diva's challenge was to take the first string pattern over at TanglePatterns.com and use it to tangle on.  I had played around with this string when it first came out.  I use my calendar to put those in.  But rather than scanning the earlier tiles, I decided to do one in celebration of Challenge 90.  I love the challenges each week.   Now that doesn't mean I like them.  Sometimes they are hard and I get frustrated, but I always grow and learn something new.  And that I love. 

     In one of her recent posts Laura Harms, the Diva, said she was having trouble with her hands.  I really pray this is easing up for her.  Here recently, I am struggling with using my left hand at times.  I can't tie my shoes some mornings, open things, or pick up small items.  It hurts, but more than the pain, it is frustrating.  I am thankful it is not my right - drawing - hand, but it does make some crafting tough or impossible.  I could not imagine not being able to create at all.  Creativity is such an important element of my life.  So I decided for one of my calendar pages (I am playing catch up again!), I thought I would do a hand.  I traced my hand, tangled around it in black with the intention of leaving the hand white.  Then I decided to fill it, but so it would stand out, I used the brown and sepia pens. 

A Celebration of Hands

  I wish you all a wonderful week!  Thank you for dropping by and for any comments you leave.  Maybe this week I can actually do some more commenting!  Yahoo, again!

Lots of variety today

     I seem to be in full swing at school.  I am having a really great year - great group!  I do wish I could get settled into more of a routine.  I suppose that will happen.  I decided to wait and post when I had all three challenges and dare done.  I guess I am not too wordy today.

Challenge #88

  This challenge was to use the tangle sankegg.  I took heart when I looked at the other posts about this one.  It seems I am not the only one struggling with this tangle. It was just plain hard for me.  If it weren't for my determination not to miss a challenge, this one almost caused me to abandon hope!    I decided to not get fancy, just put on a few and move on!

Dare #25

   I seem to be challenged all over the place.   Erin's dare was tough.   I think it was because the triangles were uneven.  My first thought when I saw it was "candy corn".  And I don't even like the stuff.  So I went with the candy and added a whole lot of other October things.  Sort of crazy looking, but I like it.

Trick or Treat

    The next one is more traditional.  I do need to get a few new black pens.  My pen is getting a bit pale, so sepia it was.  I even used some scrapbooking paper for a change.

     And now on to -

Celtic Knot #7

   All Judy wanted us to do was use some color on her pattern.  I liked that.  Relaxing to just sit and color. 

    I hope everyone is having a great week.  I am glad to be fast approaching week-end.  A bit of rest will be appreciated.  Also a day or two without papers to grade . . . ahh, sounds sweet.  Thanks for dropping by!  Your comments brighten my day!