Many Little Creatures

I have had so much fun doing the animal templates from Ornation Creations 
Here is a line up of some of the ones I have finished. Soon I will have a whole zoo!

Zendala Dare #74 and Knights over Tipple

Ohh boy I am behind on posting. I have gotten carried away on the animal templates posted in the Ornation Creation facebook group and forgot to post my challenges. I have been having fun though so I guess it's a good thing that I have neglected the blog. Anyway  we were challenged by the Diva to do challenge #137 Knightbrige and tipple together. I did it twice. Once in the Zendala #74 and once freestyle in my 6x9 journal. I think they both came out well but my freestyle one is my favorite.

Zendala dare 73 and MNOP dare

Once again I have combined dares. I am really enjoying filling the zendala dares in with the alphabet patterns. This time I used Mumsy, Nippa, Owlz and Pokeroot - and it was calling for some color what do you know that was the diva dare as well - 3 down today Yahoo!!

Zendala dare 72 and new tangle pattern Well

So the next dare was to use a pen of a different size - either thicker or thinner than the 01 micron and use ONLY that size. That was the big challenge for me. I like to use various sizes depending on the complexity of the tangle pattern. Anyway I decided to use the Sharpie pen - I don't know it's size but it seems to be somewhere between a 05 and 08 micron. I used the new pattern Well as the only one on here. I preferred going all in one direction which made it look different than going first to the left then to the right. Also some of it is a partial variation stopping before the last line on the "petal" part. I like the movement it has.

Zendala Dare #71

I am enjoying using templates lately. My mind does a calming thing when I don't have to worry about shape. It is already there for me and I can concentrate on pattern only. Here is what I did for Zendala dare #71 using IJKL tangles - Ixorus, Joy, Knightsbridge, Laced & Loops

Repeat Pattern stack

At church on Sunday I started this pattern stack. I was thinking about our community garden and the fall harvest. Our pumpkins are already orange and we have so much butternut and acorn squash out there ready to be harvested. Still mid summer here and do we have even one watermelon? Nope. Screwy garden. This is for the pattern stack challenge.

 I will probably do more and add them here as I go.

Triple threat challenge this week

I am enjoying all the challenges that are out there but I do not have time to do them all. So combining them is the answer and makes for a even more challenging challenge. That has always been my thing, take something hard and make it harder or take something fun and make it funner (is funner a word?)So today I finished a zendala from an "old" template zendala dare #2. I used tangles beginning with EFG&H to complete another dare and tangle Ennis is filled with the tangle Tipple which happens to be the diva challenge for the week (that was just a happy accident). I will probably use tipple in other things this week because I tend to use it a lot.

The tangles I used are Ennis (filled with tipple), Floatfest, Gloven & Hurry

NonDom weekly challenge #132

Oh boy this one was definitely a challenge. to use Bales as a monotangle using your non-dominant hand! I had to really think about this one. Bales is not a tangle that I had used before so first what I did was do a practice doodle with my right hand to get a feel for the pattern.

I was using a micron 01 pen but that one seemed to be running out of ink so I switched to  a fine point sharpie and jumped in.

Not too bad all things considered. I learned a few things about the process and myself. First, I had to really SLOW down. in order to control the pen with muscles that are not used to doing this kind of work I had to go slow and steady. I think I could increase my speed with a lot of practice.
Second, I found that if I drew a line in the opposite way than how I would do it right handed it worked better. I usually draw my lines from the top of the page downward and from left to right. The lines that came out best were when I was pulling the pen from bottom to top and right to left.
Third, I had to let go of my notions of perfect and just enjoy the Zen of drawing. By the end I was actually beginning to loosen up and enjoy the flow. Perhaps I will try more ZIA with my left hand using patterns that just flow from that side.

A prayerful weekend

This weekend was tough on me. I have two good friends who are going through some personal crisis. Both are having health issues combined with other stresses at home and work. I have been praying fervently for both of them. If anyone would like to join me in prayer they both need healing, wisdom, comfort and grace. Maybe a miracle would be nice too.

I used the Zendala Dare #70 and the ABC tangle challenge combined on a large scale 8x8 prayer Zendala. 

I used Arc Flower, Brayd, Cubine, Clothesline and DL Nebula patterns in this

Two Challenges

So this week I tackled two challenges. The first one is The Diva's Weekly Challenge #130 UMT v. XIX: Henna Drum. 

 I did it as a quick tile size drawing.

 

The other challenge was  Mindful Creations challenge Adventure #19 - Cracked. I did this in the middle of the heart on this birthday card I made for my sister.

I had a lot of fun creating my sister's birthday gift. I need to do step outs for the PlumLei flower tangle because I don't think anyone else has done this tangle before.