Spirals!

How appropriate!  Right now I seem to be spiraling off in some direction!  Not necessarily bad - just spinning around and getting no where.  I have so many things that need my attention, and I can't seem to get it together.  Ever feel like that?  Maybe a few days off for my spring break will offer me some repose.  I hope. 

Hope you are having a great week!  Thanks for dropping by!

Every Inchie Monday - figure

Yes this is seriously my inchie for this week's work, figure.  The tangle I used is called "2 / 8's".  It is made from figure eights.  I got a bit crazy with the colors, but it was all springy outside and I wanted it to be spring- like.  We won't get into that today it has snow flurried all day on top of our pretty blooms.  What silly weather!

     Thanks for dropping by!  See you next week!

Challenge #159

     For some reason this has been a hectic week.  I am not sure why.  Nothing seems to be really all that different, but I seem to be moving in slo-mo this week.  Guess we all have them.  For Diva's challenge we had to do something St. Patrick inspired.  I found myself wanting to play with the tangle snugz so it became my focal point. 

The other tile is one I did for Adele Bruno's It's a  String Challenge.    I love that we have to use a certain string and certain tangles.  They are quite often ones I would not choose to use.  But that is the beauty of them.  They make me grow and try new things.

Thanks for dropping by.  One more week until spring break.  Did you hear the shout when I said that?  I can't wait.  Maybe then I can check out the other blogs and leave some comments.  I really miss doing that. 

Every Inchie Monday - Forest

     This week's word was "forest".  I tried to be creative in my interpretation of this word, but it just wouldn't come.  I like my inchie - it is just not very unique.

     I hope you are having a wonderful week.  I am.  The weather is rainy but a bit warmer - spring is in the air.  I also have heat in my house.   We had been without for 5 days.  One of those had a very, very cold night.  But all is well and we now have a new heat/air unit.  Yahoo!  Our other one has probably been retired to a museum somewhere as it was around 30 years old.  Eeek! A dinosaur!
   Thanks for dropping by and leaving me some sunshine!  See you next time!

Sharpie Pens Review

      I love pens.  I love wonderful colors.  So when I opened the package to review from Shoplet I wasn't disappointed.

     Inside were three packages of Sharpie markers and pens.  Of course the Sharpie Neon markers caught my eye first.  The color on those caps alone made me smile.  The package says you can even put them under a black light to make them fluorescent!  I wish I had a black light to check it out.  The second package has gold and silver metallic  markers.  I have to admit I was skeptical about how pretty these would be and how easy they would be to use.  Lots of times I have found those metallic paint type pens to clog  or either pour out.  The last package is a refillable black pen - ink pen sort .
     I decided to give the black pen and the neon pens a work out first since I had a journal page to get done for a group I belong to.  I used the black pen to draw with instead of my normal micron.  I found it to flow smoothly across my cardstock and have a very nice looking fine line.

     The more I drew with this pen the more I liked it.  It feels nice in my hand and I love the smoothness of the line.  I really like that it is refillable, so I can use it without knowing it  will have to thrown away. I go through pens pretty fast so I am hoping this one lasts a long time.  I can get several months out of my microns - it would be nice to do the same with this one. 
     Then I pulled out the colors - oooo, pretty! - and started coloring my page.  Since for the journal we had to have a limited palette, I used only the pink and green.  The pink went on really smooth with no lines showing.  I liked that.  It was a very vibrant color.  (Still wish I had that blacklight).  The green was pretty, but didn't startle the senses the way the pink did. 

     Because I needed some variance on my page, I had to use another marker - for another shade of pink.  You can see the difference in how that marker shows the coloring stroke.

      Then I pulled out the sunglasses Sharpie sent me along with the pens.  They were in bad need of some bling!  Well, at least some really cool colors.  The markers went on the sunglasses well.  I have let them dry for a few hours - probably not at all necessary - and they seem to hold up to my handling them without fading.  We will see what a hot summer day does. 

      I plan on using the pens on some glass ware.  I have some mugs to decorate for future Christmas presents and the gold and silver would be wonderful for that.  I also think I might try using them on Christmas ornaments.  The gold and silver paint does not clog and comes out very evenly.  The point is not very fine to write with - but on large lettering it would be beautiful.

      I love Sharpie markers.  I use them when I work on posters for my classroom all the time.  They are reliable and have nice colors to choose from.  I don't use them for my drawing too much at home.  The colors are good, the sharp point is great - but I can't handle long periods of time with the smell.  Which is a real shame because I like the markers.  But for the long - really long - hours I spend bent over my art work, they just wouldn't work.  For the relatively short time I used them to draw my journal page, I began to get a headache.  Fortunately the Sharpie pen does not have that problem or at least I didn't notice it, because I love that pen.  I will still use the others but I have to limit the time and think about where I am working.  In my large open classroom, the odor is not so noticeable, but in my small work space at home - not so good.
   Check-out these pens over at Shoplet -
                   Premium Pen
                   Neon Permanent Markers
                   Metallic Permanent Markers
      
              





     

Challenge #158 and A Horse

     I love this challenge.  I love crescent moon and Diva dance both.  So this was a fun one.  I got inspired by a fellow tangler's art work on a Facebook group.  Her work is very different than mine, but she did inspire me.  Mine reminds me of muscles or arteries - the sort of thing you are forced to look at while waiting and waiting for the doctor to finally come back to see you.

 

        The other one is one of Ben Kwok's lovely templates.  I always print them, but I am very far behind in doing them.  Perhaps I will have a lot of time over summer.

     Well, fortunately the day is over.  This crazy time change (which does have its benefits)  has really zapped me.  I am ready for weekend.  To top it off, today I had to sub in one of our first grade classrooms.   The children were delightful and it was fun, but not my "element".  I prefer a bit older.
     Thanks for dropping by and I hope you have a wonderful rest of the week.

"Engrave"

    No doubt about it Every Inchie Monday makes you think.  It has become a challenge for my brother and I to come up with something outside the box.  He doesn't do the art but he loves word games as much as I do.  Sometimes we can, sometimes we can't.  Either way it is a challenge. 
    This week the word was "engrave".  The first thing Ray said was "do the stone tablets".  I liked it but wasn't sure I could do that in an inch.  I am beginning to have a real appreciation for just how small an inch is!  But here you go -

      The hand is a bit - off.  But anyway it is recognizable.  Hope your week is going well.  Thanks for dropping by!  Have a great week.

Challenge, Dare and a new tangle

    I have been so busy with tangle projects lately.  I love the challenges and dares as they almost always make me try something new or out of my comfort zone.  They get me thinking.
    Diva had us use the tangle Charlie in our tile this week.  I like this one though I am not sure I like how it fits in my tile.

   Dare # 93 by Erin Olsen was an interesting template.  We had to turn it into something like a snowflake.  That was a major problem for me.  The moment I saw this really gorgeous template all I could think of was bolts.  Yep.  It looked like bolts to me.  My mind just could not see anything else.  I even printed one to do with bolts later on this week when I have time.  So to take a very mechanical looking template - nuts and bolts - and turn it into a delicate organic snowflake?!  Okay.  That was a dare!

    I got to playing with a pattern I saw in an item my brother gave me for Christmas.  It was the border on some paper.   I thought it might make an interesting tangle and so I worked out the steps and then decided to name it "jaracu".  The name comes from the first two letter of each of his names - first, middle, and last.  The tile beneath shows several variations of this tangle.

    Hope your week is going okay!  Thanks for dropping by!

Explosion!!

   That the Every Inchie Monday word this week - explode!  The only thing my mind could wrap itself around was the old Batman TV show where when they got into a fight words like "Pow! Kazam! and Bang!" burst onto the screen.  I really wanted something else but I think this was just the way I was supposed to go.  Sometimes you have to let the paper and pen lead you instead of the other way around.

     Hope you are having a great day and thanks for dropping by.  I have a ton of things to get busy on - some I will tell about later when I see if it all works out.  I will say please keep your fingers crossed for me - I am looking at one of my "dream come true" kind of things. 

Curvy Gridlock

     This is totally weird.   I have been playing around with curvy grids ever since I saw a video by Helen Williams.  I have been trying out other grid tangles in wavy lines in my calendar, on scraps of paper - you name it.  Then Diva gives us a challenge that should have been right up my (current) alley and boom!  I could not think of or produce one interesting idea.  Why?  I struggled and tried to be unusual and nothing.  So I took the best of the worst and decided if I was going o get a post done this better be it.  Not good.  Not as nice as the ideas pouring out over my papers as I sat and ate my lunch this week. 

     I think I have been over-obsessing about some ideas I have for my classroom.  Not altogether a bad thing, but not very helpful to a challenge.  Sometimes the strangest things hit my mind and I just can't shake them - like using QR codes in my room and writing a program for a my kiddos on something called nearpad.  Creative, I guess, but not in the same way.  But I can be very obsessive about an idea.  Until I work it out, I can't seem to put it to rest.  The problem is in my current position ( which I will say a hundred times I love!), I am essentially "an army of one".  I have no grade level team to sit and work out things with.  So I have to muddle through all this alone.  That's probably okay since I might actually drive others crazy! 
     Thanks for dropping by and visiting.  Please leave a comment if you can.  Have a great day!!