Day 64, 65, and 66

Day 64    

 More bad weather today.  I really was hoping for a full five day week.  But in all honesty I am super delighted with today.  I was up all night sick and my head feels like a locomotive is inside it.  About 4 o'clock this morning I was pretty sure I would not be going in.  So when the school cast came and said no school, I nearly cheered.  I am planning on spending the day doing some school work - which I did bring home this time.  I also snuck in a few minutes art.  I still feel rather worn out and I am not sure what I will do tomorrow, but today was a blessing.
    Over at Tickled to Tangle we had three tangles to choose from - daggerly, dl nebula and dutch diamonds.  They are all great tangles but I have struggled putting them into the string we had to use.  Yikes!  This was hard!  I decided to pencil a background of Dutch diamonds to keep it from feeling empty.  What do you think?

   Day 65

      No school for me today.  I feel miserable.  I have coughed all night.  I also have had stomach issues to go with it (which does not go well with violent coughs, if you understand).  I absolutely hate to miss school.  I fight staying out.  But I was just too exhausted.  Fortunately we have a principal who is extremely understanding.  I am sure he doesn't like us to be out but he is never unkind about it.  Just wishes us a speedy recovery.  That is a blessing.  When I first started at this school, the principal would yell into the phone and then slam it down.  Made you feel about 2 inches high and even more miserable than you probably already were.  Don't miss him. 
     The facebook group, Square One, gives us one tangle to focus on each week.  It is to be done in the traditional black and white and on the "correct" tile size, 3.5 x 3.5.  While mine isn't on a tile, it is the right size.  I was finding I had stacks and stacks of loose tiles.  I gave them away, I stored them, but they kept growing.  So I decided to use my Tangle A Day Calendar and a sketch book for all of this year's challenges.  I really like seeing them all together.  The tangle this week was "bunzo".  I like this bold little tangle. 

Day 66

     Still coughing and such, but I am feeling a bit better - awfully tired though.  It was nice to just sit and chill out with art stuff.  Journal52's prompt this week was coloring book.  Okay, I am absolutely "silly" when it comes to opening a brand new box of crayons.  I love the bold colors, the waxy smell, you name it!  It excites as much now as when I was a kiddo.  As a child, I had a huge collection of coloring books.  Every time mom went to the store, my parting comment would be bring me a coloring book!  A great memory is sitting with either mom or dad, me coloring on one page and them on the other.  Sometimes visiting, sometimes just enjoying the time.  Needless to say this journal prompt took me back a few years. 

     I started out by drawing my coloring book page.  Then I colored it using the best (and only, in my opinion) crayons - Crayola.  Next I took my exacto knife and cut away the wrapper to make my "crayons" for the page.  I started to draw them, but I wanted them to look more realistic.  I love this page.  To me it speaks of worry-free times and the joy of having my parents in my life. 
       Might be the cold meds, but my eyes are really watery right now.  Guess I will see you later!  Have a blessed day!  Find a child and color for awhile. 
 

Days 62 and 63

     Diva's challenge was to use the tangle "Unbatz".  This was brand new to me so it was a challenge!   I found myself really liking this tangle.  It is a lot easier than it initially looks. 

     The challenge for Mady by Joey was to use the tangle Vonn in a monotangle.  This really cool sunburst type pattern was just begging for some color. 

      They are giving bad weather for tonight.  I don't know whether we will be in school tomorrow or not so I did the smart thing and brought every thing I might need home.  Have a great day!

Day 61 - New to Me Challenge!

    Have I mentioned I am somewhat (some would argue quite a lot) obsessive?  I can be.  For example the challenges I am involved in.  It drives me nuts to skip one.  I am so linear.  Of course, a while back I gave myself "permission" to skip every now and then when life got hectic.  It still makes me a bit nuts, but I have accepted I may not get them all.  Doesn't mean I don't try, though.
    Back to the obsession.  Every time a new tangle is posted - Tangle Harmony, Tangle patterns, and any other place - they immediately go into my HUGE green three ring binder.  I must have thousands there.  Then the ones that catch my eye, I use.  Others get stored away.  That is what is so great about this challenge by Suzy Mosh.  It forces me to look at some tangles that I might not have done beforehand.  My notebook has three sections - open space patterns, grid based patterns, and borders.  Each section in alphabetical order.  So when Suzy introduces a new challenge, I go through each section looking for tangles that are "New to Me".  She only asks that we use one new tangle with the target letter, but ever the crazy that I can be, I try to use only tangles that start with that letter and also try to only use new ones.  Some letters are easier than others.
     This week we were looking for tangles that started with the letter H.  I went through the sections and made "notes" about new ones of to the side of my tile (drawn in my Tangle A Day calendar).  Then I just let the process take over.  I copied the whole page because I thought it might be fun to see what it looked like.

      Thanks for dropping by.  Your comments make my day and I love hearing from you!  Have a great day!  I am somewhat tired today as it is my first day back to school and kiddos in a very long time.  It is going to be a very long week.  Then again, they are saying the "s" word for Thursday!  Oh my!

Days 58, 59 and 60

Day 58

      Another snow day today!  I am going to be totally spoiled and have a rough time getting back into the routine come Monday morning!  And it has been fun.  I spent the entire day working on my Journal52 page for this week.  The prompt was "restraint".  We had to first choose one basic shape - I chose a circle.  Then we needed to choose one color - blue for me.  This was so relaxing and fun.  I do an activity like this with my kiddos at school and often will join in and work with them.  It was peaceful to just have only one color to work with (black and white don't count as colors here).  I also added some tangles around to make it more interesting.

Day 59

      For the Square One challenge (Facebook), we needed to use the tangle SeZ.  This wasn't a new tangle to me, but it is one I rarely use.  I also had time today to play around with another tile.  For this tile I used TanglePattens.com's string 001. 

Day 60

      Really?? Day 60!!  I haven't missed one day - yet.  I know it is coming but so far so good.  Today I worked on my inchie for Every Inchie Monday's prompt of "love".  My first thought was the quote by Charles Schulz, "love is a warm puppy".  I really wanted a picture of Lakota, but couldn't find one that tiny.

     I - finally - got ink for my other printer so now I can print out the templates for Ben Kwok's Ornation Creation group (Facebook).  I won't be trying to complete one of these a week, but they will be fun to pull out and add things to along.  The ice cream cone really took me several days on and off, but since I finished it today, I am counting it as part of today's challenge.

     Thank you for dropping by!  I also want to welcome the new people who have started following my blog - I really appreciate your time and comments.  Now I will go and spend the rest of my day working on things I want to since I again left all my things at school.   My brother says it is planned, now how could I know it would snow??!  However . . . 

Days 56 and 57

Day 56

     Snow is heading our way so we missed school today.  I am going to forget what my kiddos look like!  I also am going to suffer when I have actually work an entire full week.   Yikes!  I will not deny enjoying this time to create stuff and relax, but I do miss being on a schedule - even if at times it is hectic.  I also did not bring anything home (again) so I may be without the ability to do any school work this weekend if we don't return.  Pity me!
      Adele Bruno has a wonderful string challenge going.  This week we had to use the tangles phroz and fassett.  I had not spent much time with these but discovered they were a lot of fun.

Day 57

     Yes indeed we did get snow!  Lots of snow!  So here I am at home yet again, but this time the ground is a gorgeous white.  We had snow cream late last night - yum!  I hadn't made that in years.  Today we went out and played in the snow with Lakota.  He loves this almost as much as we do.  We threw snowballs and he caught them.  Then we had to throw his beat up football and the Frisbee so he could chase them down. 

 

     While inside I did finish up a tile I started yesterday.  This - eeks! - wasn't for a challenge, just for fun. 

 

     Oh, before I forget it!   Guess who won the essential oils package that Erin Olsen over at the Bright Owl was giving away???  Yep, me!!  That was a cool surprise this morning!  Thank you, Erin!

 

     Thank you for dropping by and I hope you have a blessed day.

 

Days 54 and 55

Day 54

     Very hard to get up this morning and return to the routine!  No delays, just an agonizing 6 in the morning.  But all in all, it was nice to return to school and see my kiddos.  They were all happy to be back.  For some of mine perhaps, school is where it is warm and they have good food.  Sad.
     This afternoon after grading a few papers, I worked on Suzy Mosh's New to Me challenge.  This week we had to use new tangles that began with the letter N.  Do you know what?  I have almost no N tangles in my trusty notebook.  And the ones I do have are not new.  So using more than one tangle was not going to happen.  I chose (or rather it chose me) Nexxus by Jeanne Burbage.  Since it had to go solo, I played around with a bit of color. 

Day 55 and a new tangle??

       Remember how excited I was yesterday to have some normalcy?  I got a school cast call this morning at 5:30.  No school.  I looked outside to a white covered world.  Really???  I have been sitting here drawing and playing around with supplies.  While that is fun, no argument, I sort of miss getting back into the "grind".  And I also hate the thought of possibly going too far into my summer. 
      I worked first on the challenge for Made by Joey.  We had to use blocks and stack them - 3 on the bottom, then 2, then 1.  I added a few supports around the blocks - they looked a bit un steady. 

     Diva's challenge was to use tools that you didn't usually use.  I rarely use black tiles.  I did my drawing in gel pens - nothing really unusual there, except I only use gel pens for coloring not doing the tangles in.  The lines are too thick and bulky for me.  

     One of my absolute favorite tangles is Arabel by Helena.  I use it every chance I get.  I like the curvy flow - well, everything about this tangle appeals to me!  I wanted to use it for the Diva challenge, but couldn't figure out how to do the boxes so they could be in different colors.  (sometimes, I can be a bit, uh, anal . . . )  So I decided to "release" arable from it's confines!  I really like how the curves can be fitted in with each other.  I am not sure this a new tangle or merely a tangleation - but either way it is fun.

     What do you think?  A new one or just some fun playing?  Does it need a name?  If so, what?!
      Thank you for dropping by and saying hello!  I think I will be back in school tomorrow, but who knows?  They are predicting a bigger blast on Wednesday afternoon / night.  Oh my.  My lesson plans may last until April at this rate.  Have a blessed day!

Day 53

     Amazing!!!  No school work!  Well, actually I do have school work.  Papers to grade, things I wanted to look over, you get the idea.  However they are all on my desk at school.  "Miss Smarty" never thought we wouldn't be at school on Friday.  I guessed at a 2 hour delay, but to miss the whole day?  No chance.  Wrong.  But then again, if I actually have a complete weekend and no work once in a year's time, who is to complain?  Normally I work all Sunday on school work.  Yahoo!  Not today. 
     I found another challenge.  Okay, I don't need another challenge, but this one looks like fun.  The site is Made by Joey.  The challenge this week was to draw a lot of circles - polka dots.  They couldn't overlap and had to be filled with a different tangle in each.  This was fun.  It is sort of a polka dot tangle sampler.   I think I will try this with my art club.  They will enjoy this.

     Thank you for dropping by and leaving me some sunshine!  Have a great day!