Zentangled Craft Group! - Friday 17th January

Hello Friends!

Well it was good to see our first group of ladies again last night after the Christmas break! I think a lot of them were a bit 'dubious' about our choice of theme - some had never heard of Zentangle and only a couple had ever tried it before, but they they are a group of ladies who are always game to try what we 'throw' at them!

I'm sharing today a few cards made by some of the ladies on my little group. Not all of them made cards, some were happy just to try tangling with different stencils and take their work home to finish off. Looking at these cards..ALL..by ladies who had never Zentangled before, will show you why you should give it a go! The cards are (in my opinion) beautiful and I don't think that anyone but the most expert tangler would know they were all beginners. The thing about Zentangle for the first time, is that you might be faced with your outline and wonder 'what do I do now?', but there are lots of examples in books and on the internet, which can get you started and once that first section is complete, the rest just seems to flow naturally!

Super design and love the backing paper, which looks a bit like chicken wire!

Really good idea to 'frame' the image this way, very effective

The backing paper used with this one actually looks Zentangled doesn't it?! Super faux stitching too

Love the Zentangle at the side here, it really completes the card

I was both surprised and -not-  that the cockerel stencil was such a popular choice last night and I think the reason why is because it's a large area. You may think that would make it take longer to work on, but having Zentangled quite a few images over the past week, I felt far more comfortable and satisfied working on a larger area, where there is more 'scope' for a pattern.

Anyway, suffice to say this was a very successful class and I'm sure we will return to Zentangle at some point..it's not over yet though; we run 2 groups a month using the same project, so our second group of ladies will be tangling at the end of the month!

Bye for now and thank you for stopping by!

Love and Hugs,

Carole X

Zentangled Cockerel - Thursday 16th January 2013

Good Morning Friends,

Today's card is one of the Zentangle creations you saw on my desk yesterday (if you visited my WOYWW post!). Tonight Amy and I are delivering our first workshop of 2014.  To ease our ladies in with something (hopefully) relaxing and also new to the workshops, we are going to have a Zentangle session.

Zentangle is an art form created by Rick Roberts (Zen) and Maria Thomas (Tangle); a combination of his meditation background and her art background. It's idea is to bring art to anyone and in a relaxing way. It can be addictive too! I tend to tangle now and then, when I'm in the mood, but the trouble is that once you start it's hard to stop! As a result, in preparation for this class I had lots of tangles drawn, but not many card examples made up as yet, so be prepared, there will be a drip feed of Zentangle cards for a while ahead.

For the class we are using Dreamweaver stencils as stencils are a great way to tangle, with the dividing lines already drawn for you, but in my cards over the next few weeks you will see tangles I have created using Spellbinder dies as templates and also from my own drawings.

This cockerel I have used before; it's a lovely stencil for tangling as it is large and thus gives more space for creating patterns.

This is a 6x6 card blank: I die cut the image and layer using Spellbinders Curved Matting Basics A, which my lovely brother-in-law gave me for Christmas. I also matted and layered the base card with dark red card.

The sentiment is printed from my computer, using a Pink Petticoat digi. I finished off with a matching feather and a little cockerel button from my button jar.

I'll let you know tomorrow, how our ladies got on with tangling! It will be lovely to see them again after the Christmas break.

Love and Hugs,

Carole X

WOYWW 241 - Wednesday 15th January 2014

Hello Friends and fellow WOYWWers!

Before I  let you peak at my work desk this week, I would like to offer a big welcome to my latest follower Claire Grantham..hello there Claire and thank you so much for choosing to follow me, do let me know if you have a blog of your own so that I can come visit.

For those of you new to WOYWW or don't know what I'm on about, hop over to Julia at Stamping Ground for all the deets and then put your desk on display for the world to see as well!

After last week's tour of my newly tidied craft room, I am back on more familiar ground this week, with a desk of crafty messiness!

 A little sneak peak of what I've been up to this week..it's our first craft class for 2014 tomorrow and we have decided to give our ladies something a little different to start off with - and we hope a nice, relaxing start to the year - Zentangle. These are a few of the tangles I have been doodling away at and a few of the cards I've made and will be blogging over the next week or so. I do love to tangle, but don't do it that often, the main reason being it does tend to get you lost in your own little world and before you know it hours have passed and your still at it when the evening meal should be cooking or worse still...the hens tucked in for the night!

But I guess that's the reason behind it...to allow you to lose yourself in art..speaking of which,gotta g and get back in 'the zone' !

Love and Hugs,

Carole X

Zentangled Cockerel! - Friday 31st May

Good morning Friends,

Well we are  almost in June, do you think we have a chance of summer actually arriving sometime soon?

Today's cards were  made out of some doodling last weekend, when I couldn't actually get into my craft room to craft due to my ahem..moment of madness in moving everything out! The trouble is that I can't not do something - if I'm watching TV, I could also be playing with the iPad, reading something or as happened last Saturday: doodling!

To be honest it didn't 'just' occur to me to try a bit of Zentangle. I was moving stuff out of the craft room and had Create and Craft on in the room, when they happened to have a show about Zentangle. It was only on in the background, but at the same time, clearing all my books off the shelf, I found one which had some Zentangle ideas in it. I also remembered seeing this Dreamweaver cockerel stencil given the treatment, so I stopped what I was doing (as you do), got out the stencil and some card, traced it with one of my pens and put it aside for later.

I actually zentangled these two stencilled images whilst watching TV that night - and it was very relaxing! I made them up into quite simple cards - what do you think?

Thanks for stopping by - I always appreciate your visits!

Love and Hugs,

Carole X