Heaven Help Me!

     I have no idea what this does.  I am trying to change over some things to bloglovin.  We will see if it works.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Oh my!  Hope it works.  I am not the most computer savy person on the planet! 

Time for a Challenge or Two

     Laura Harms, the Diva, challenged us to an open tile this week.  I am not sure that that isn't more of a challenge!  She did ask we think of (or perhaps represent in our tiles) Calgary due to the horrible flooding they have endured.  The photos were awful.  Floods kept thousands from their homes.  So much loss - personal things that can never be replaced.  Fortunately, I have never been in a flood.
     I went to the internet to see what might be used to represent Calgary.  I found this cute flag with a large C in the middle and a cowboy hat for the Calgary stampede.  That helped to give me an idea.  I drew the C and the hat and just tangled around it.  I tried using the hat in some border things within the tile.  After I did that, I decided to draw the "step out" for the hat (I am calling it calgaree).  I thought I would share.

Love and prayers for Calgary

     Every Inchie Monday wanted us to use the word "wing" for inspiration.  Whew!  I got out the rubber stamps and stamped one of everything I had that had a wing on it.  Then with markers, paints, and pencils I colored them all.  After that, I positioned my one inch punch over each image and found one I really liked.  So many steps to make sure this little tiny inch is what I want!

     I have lots I could do today.  I doubt I will.  For the past two nights, I have not slept well at all.  Nothing seems to be the problem, I just can't shut my brain off.  I suppose I need to keep some tangling things by the bed to see if it might help me relax.  Only I am likely to get started and stay focused on that, rather than trying to sleep. 
      As soon as my brother gets through mowing, I hope to spend some time checking out a new computer program we downloaded.  I am crazy about the Sims3 and a new addition to it is out.  We have been waiting on this for several months now.  Besides it looks like rain, so it will be nice to stay in today. 
      Thank you for dropping by and visiting.  I hope you have a wonderful week and please leave me a comment if you want. 

So Much Fun!!

     When I opened up Roy's challenge over at Mindful-Creations (see side bar), I could've whooped!  Well, maybe I did just a little bit.  I love betweed.  I can't get enough of that tangle.  In fact I had to there for awhile make a conscience effort to not use it on everything I did.  Now for the monotangle challenge, he asks us to use betweed - and just betweed!  Oh the joys of tangling!!  So I went over to the video on his site just to enjoy the beauty of this tangle and see Maria show how it was done.  I had mostly used it in "loopy" looking shapes.  I hadn't really remembered that it could be so much more - borders and stars and all.   Then I grabbed the pens and took off.  I first did an ATC in sepia and brown tones.  I had to try that border.  From there I used betweed as a border for the star shape.  Last, I randomly put watercolors on some paper and when that dried used the pens of the same color to do the drawing.  I sort of like how I changed the color of the pens to match the colors underneath.

Betweed ATC

     Bright Owl's template was just as much fun!  At first I couldn't figure out where to start with those "eye-shaped" things in the center.  My first thought was the tangle "sparkle".  That is one of my favorites and it was made to fit in such a shape.  While working on the first tile, I began to see the tangle "chordin" and for those shapes, so the next zendala  was built around the chordin tangle.

     As I mentioned before I am doing my own "book study" on the wonderful book, One Zentangle A Day.  I am on the section where we look at organic tangles, so I thought why not?  The third zendala is more organic.  I think of the three this is my favorite.  What do you think?

     Amazon came through with an order - the path they took to get it here was amazing!  Tracking info shows it nearly became a world traveller!  Either way, that didn't matter when we opened it - a new football!  This one is by Chuck-it.  We have discovered toys by this company have a large lifespan even with an aggressive player like Lakota.  He loves anything shaped like a football so he has been in heaven since we got this!

We still have to watch the chewing, but it is one sturdy toy. 

Thank you for dropping by and visiting!  Please leave me some sunshine!  Hope your week-end was grand!  Now off to work on some school stuff and a new inchie! 

An Invitation!

   Just finished my first post on Chalkdust to Smartboards!  That's the name of my new blog - a glimpse into my world of teaching.  I would love it if you dropped by and said hello and if the subject matter interests you, become a follower.  Either way, hope your day is going great! 

Two Tough Challenges

      The ladies of the challenge world have ganged up on me or maybe my brain is on summer shut down!  Seriously.  The last post - Bright Owl's - was hard.  The template gave me fits.  Then the inchie!  The word "light" was our theme.  I just couldn't seem to get happy with any ideas.  My final thought was the one I went with - "the light at the end of the tunnel",  I used markers and colored pencils to do the tunnel, then put a gold gem at the center.  What do you think?

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

     Then I was off to Diva's.  Oh dear.  I am still not certain I understood the directions.  But I had fun.  We were supposed to (I think), do a piece without using tangles or tangleations.  I did. . . I think.  Like I said, it was fun, but it may be all wrong.  I went over to look and see what others had done (see side-bar) and at that time no one had posted.  Either way, here it is.

Gnarled Oak

 

      I am off now to work on blog number two!  Yep, you read that right.  I have two huge interests.  One of course, is my art world.  I feel I have to be creative each day or I can't function.  My hands are constantly busy.  I never just watch TV or movies, I have to be busy while I do that.   My other "world" is my teaching.  For sometime I have followed several different education blogs and wanted to participate in their discussions, but did not feel that I really wanted to connect to here.  This week I am starting a book study with a group on-line (The Book Whisperer) and I needed a place to write about it on.  I also would like to talk about my years in education.  So blog number two is being developed.  As soon as I get it up and running I will post my link.  I would love to have you drop by and say hello - and maybe even follow me there if you share the interest.  You will hear a bit about it here, but I promise not to bore you (too much).
    Thanks for dropping by and leaving me some sunshine.  Hope your week is going well.

This and that

      Summer is cruising along at a slow, steady pace.  Emphasis on slow.  I love this pace.  I have accomplished a few things.  I cleaned the dining room.  That was not a small thing.  It was our "throw it here, we will sort it out later" room.  Well, it got to be "later".  It took the better part of two days, but this room is now clean, rearranged into a second computer room and functional.  Every time I walk through it, I am pleased.  My summer plan is to clean and purge the rest of the house of things not needed. 
     When not scrubbing, I took time to tangle (of course).  Roy at Mindful-Creations (see sidebar) had us use the tangle hollibaugh for the monotangle challenge.  I like this tangle - sort of.  I drew a circle as my string then filled it with hollibaugh.  It reminded me of a rubber band ball I have in my desk at school.  I then used that pencil background technique I used a bit ago on something else.  I also tried to fill in the spaces of hollibaugh trying to make it show depth - not sure that was accomplished. 

      Erin at the Bright Owl was back!  I really missed her last week.  She is a big part of my week.  The template was really a challenge.  I got started and just could not get happy with it.  The first one is not my favorite, but I do like the area I used the tangle - Maelstrom by Linda Dawson.  I am loving that tangle.  So much that I had to use it on the second template try.  I also put to use some of the grid ideas on this one.  Which do you think is better?  I lean toward number two.

      Thank you for dropping by.  I need to go and get my inchie done for tomorrow.  The word is "light".  How do I do that?!  We shall see.  Have a great day!

All Sorts of Fun

     I have been on a creative busy streak!  I started out vacation by pulling out my Gypsy and designing a whole group of cards to use for birthdays next year.  I haven't put them together, but I plan on a day to do that this week.  Then of course, there is time to tangle! 
     I started out with an ATC for a new online swap that Judy over at Creative Doodling has posted.  If you are interested in ATCs check out her site.  I painted the background with watercolors first and then when that dried, I tangled over top of it.  The theme was wavy lines.  The title is "Good Day Sunshine", the title of a Beatle's song and also the theme for our field day at school this past year.

Good Day Sunshine

     The next thing on my "busy" agenda was to get my inchie done.  I love, love, love inchie Mondays.  The challenge for me is to take the word of the week and try to come up with a (off the wall) totally different take on it.  Sometimes I can, sometimes it doesn't happen.  I usually throw out the word to my brother and we sit and brainstorm.  This week the word was "bed".  The first thought was of course, a bed.  Then we started calling out other ideas - truck bed, flower bed, bed of roses, a bed of nails - you get the idea.  At last my favorite - bedrock - Fred Flintstone's home! 

Yabba Dabba Do

      Check out the other awesome inchie artists by hitting on the sidebar button.  They are always so interesting and beautiful!
      Time for Diva's Monday challenge.   We were supposed to play with tangles in a grid.  I first went over to the official Zentangle site to look at the ideas for using the grid.  This was going to be fun.  Once I got started, the ideas came rolling.  For the first one I played with several grid patterns from the chart and altered some of them slightly.  I also "forgot" a few pieces. 

Missing Pieces

      Unable to stop, I also tangled in my calendar and then did another tile.  For the second one, I used my new inchie punch and traced around the inchie overlapping the images.  Then again I just played with the grid patterns.

Spilled Grid

      I am really enjoying the time to get into the book I got for Christmas this past year, One Zentangle A Day.  I hate I missed the book study using this book a while back, but I did get lots of ideas from the posts.  The book is fantastic and I am learning a lot.  So each day, I read the lesson and then work through the exercises.  One exercise was to use amaze, flux, and mooka.  I played around with several ideas, but this one is my favorite.

      This has been a creative few days - but so much fun!  I hope you are having some creative fun this week.  Thank you for dropping by and of course, thanks for leaving me some comment-sunshine.  I love hearing from you.  Now let's link up all this fun and get to commenting myself!

Monotangle #13

     Roy has asked us to do a monotangle (use only one tangle) with "shard".  I like this tangle, but had some trouble trying to figure out what string to use.  I plan on getting this posted then going over to his site (see side bar - Mindful Creations) and checking out how other used this to do a monotangle. 

      It is hard to believe it is the first week of summer.  I haven't really gotten into the vacation frame of mind - totally.  I have accomplished a few things.  We got our new weed eater put together, so yard work is in my future.  I started the One Zentangle A Day by Beckah Krahula.  I am working my way through that book.  I got it for Christmas, but never seemed to find the time I wanted to work on it.  I also am doing some professional reading - Reading Essentials by Regie Routman.  It's funny.  When school is going on, I go to the library and grab my favorite authors - James Patterson, J.D. Robb and the like.  Then when I am on vacation, what do I read?  I brought home a crate of professional development books.  Weird. 
     Hope you are having a wonderful week and thanks for dropping by!

Yahoo! Summer begins!

      Yesterday was inservice.  I got to school at 6:30 a.m. and started the enormous task of cleaning out my room (with 12 years of accumulated junk stuff).  Then it all had to be moved to the other end of the building.  Just take it from me - a VERY long way.  Oh, the first time wasn't far even pushing a heavy laden rolling cart.  Time two and three weren't too bad.  It was about time ten or twelve, I started feeling it.  Everywhere.  My back.  My legs.  But on the positive side, I did finish like I had hoped.  I am in a really pretty room with tons of cupboards.  And I am getting ready to embark on a new adventure next year. 
      The change hit me a bit hard at first.  I don't like change (even if it is a good one).  But the more I have thought and prayed about it, the more excited I get.  Instead of being a classroom teacher of one group, I will be doing reading for grades 2-5.  Students who are struggling will come to me.  I will have a full load each segment and likely my first chore will be simply (uh, simply?) to ignite a passion for reading.  I feel very passionate about reading and words and poetry, so my days have a lot of promise for fun.  I feel if I can get over the mental hurdle of "reading is a chore", the rest will fall into place.  Maybe that is being a bit too simplistic in my thinking, but I honestly don't think so.  I am not a good baseball player because I have no desire to practice baseball.  I 'll keep you posted on how it goes.
      Right now, summer has officially began!  I have great plans for this summer.  My number one goal is to do a major cleaning of my house - throw away anything we haven't used in years.  Then of course, there are the hours filled with scrapbooking, tangling, playing with the wood burner, doing some school planning, and lots of back yard time with Lakota.  No major trips or vacations, but this is the sort of vacation I love!
     I had my inchie ready by Sunday night, but on Monday, I could not even think about putting it up.  After the move, bed was all I could think about.  Every Inchie Monday's word this week was "table".  I like to try to think out of the box.  This, admittedly, isn't too far out of the box.  I thought of table tennis (ping pong).

Table (tennis)

      Diva's challenge #121 was to do a tile with the tangle "birds on a wire".  I put this tangle into my notebook when it first came out, but really did not do anything with it since.  It was pretty, but did not really capture my interest.  I pulled out a tile I had started when Diva asked us to use the tangle "kuke".  I had made a border using that tangle, but did not ever finish it as my ideas went off into a different direction.  So I drew my string inside the border and then focused mostly on using "birds on a wire" with some auras and a bit of "amaze" as a filler.  The more I played with this tangle the better I liked it.  It is very versatile and I really hadn't seen that in its personality before.  I just may have to play some more with this. 

Challenge #121 - Birds on a Wire

      Thanks for taking a moment and dropping by.  I would love it if you would leave a comment - that is sunshine for my day!  Have a great day where ever you may be!

Dare #60

         Erin at the Bright Owl this week asked us to go back and find a template we were not crazy about and revisit it.  For the most part I love the templates, but every now and then, there is a bit of a "stinker".  Template number 50 was a such a template.  I couldn't get happy the first time around with those "claw like" pieces.  So this time I totally covered them.  I like this version better, but in all fairness it is still not a huge favorite of mine.
        Tomorrow hopefully will be my last day before summer break.  I say hopefully because I have a ton of things to clean out and move since I am changing rooms.  I have been in the same room for about 12 years and to make matters worse, I am a bit of a pack rat!  I am throwing away more than most people have in their cupboards.  At the very latest, Tuesday will be the last day - though I still have my fingers crossed for tomorrow.
        Thanks for dropping by and leaving me some sunshine!  Have a great week!