Doodles and Mandalas, Oh My!

So, there is a fantastic new app out there called "Amaziograph". If you don't have it for your iPad I highly recommend it. Totally addicting. Basically it is a patterning app that takes what you draw in one section and puts it in all the other sections. It copies what you are drawing as you are drawing it. I love it so much I got super excited while playing with it. 

This brought the interest of my children. Oh my, you think I had fun, apparently my kids had a blast too and I don't want to share! Haha. 

I must point out that I am currently operating on an iPad 2, 7 years old and currently getting slower and slower with the latest IOS updates. If you have an iPad Pro, get this app! It is way too much fun!

Dreams Realized

Have you ever started something and dreamed and wondered if you would ever complete it? Yeah, me too. The problem with us crafters is we tend to be excited by the new and different. It seems we are fascinated by whichever is the latest intrigue. For me it has been a morphing from Zentangle to Hand Lettering to creating my own adult coloring book.

I will not bore you with the crazy details of my life over the last 6 months, suffice it say that without those crazy circumstances I may never have gotten to where I am today. And what is so special about today you ask? Well, ahem.... Drum roll please....

I ACTUALLY PUBLISHED MY ADULT COLORING BOOK! 

Yes my friends, it really happened. It's called, For Such a Time as This and it's available on Amazon.

I can't believe it's a real thing! I feel like I am walking on air. But I know this would not have happened if not for the very interesting circumstances that led us to where we are today.

Friends, I want to encourage you to remember that sometimes it may seem like there are some pretty dire and terrible things that are just dragging you down, but don't be discouraged. There is beauty in the ashes, joy in the pain, hope in the emptiness. God shows us this through His intelligent design in nature. There are pine cones that will only fruit and seed with the extreme heat of a forest fire. There are things that can only happen when something that seems devastating happens first. Hang in there and trust that God knows what He is doing. I am so glad He is in charge. I don't know how people live life without knowing that He is controlling it all.

Post Card

I had the privilege of making post cards for a friend who was going on a missions trip. This was one I tangled and she sent to us from Albania! My tangles traveled around the world! So cool! 

If you haven't heard of the World Race check it out at www.worldrace.org. 11 months and 11 countries! 

More Ebooks and Tangle Cards

Hello again. I seem to be on a roll. Well, first let me say that this is all Ms Bartholomew's fault. If it weren't for her and her talent, I would not be so inspired to spend so much time playing with zentangle and especially her lovely little Lilah Beans! That being said, I had way too much fun creating my Christmas cards this year. I decided to extend the fun and once inspired it was hard to stop. I ended up making a total of 6 different designs staring the Lilah Beans. You can now find these cards as printable PDF's on my Esty shop CraftyStx.

So the first cards I made were the trees. They were so cute. I couldn't resist. I played with the idea on them for a bit. The Merry and Bright card was bothering me. The original was just missing something. I couldn't quite put my finger on it but it kept me awake one night. Then it hit me, an easy fix would be to modify the lettering some and maybe add a Lilah Bean or a present beneath the tree. The finsihed result was much more to my liking. 

The second cards were the Feliz Navidad and the little Bean hopping out of the present. This was just too much fun to do. They naturally lend themselves to mischievousness and hijinks. But I didn't stop there...

The last set of cards was the Welcome Santa and the Season's Greetings. Once I got started on the little guys wearing hard hats, it was only natural to take a look at them wearing elf hats and reindeer antlers. And the little guy wearing the antlers would not be pleased. Who would want to pull that sleigh? 

The next step was learning my printer. I am so technologically challenged. I only have an ipad and my latest addition was an epson printer. And our internet here is goofy so suffice to say I have to go offline and use a wireless nettwork that isnt' actually hooked up to a network in order to connect the printer to the ipad. Whew, and once all that is done I spent some time learning to scan with the epson app. I printed a black and white copy of my cards to play with on cardstock. 

I pulled out my handy dandy colored pencils and my fine point le pen markers and went to work. The results were just too much fun. It is always a joy when your own coloring work is satisfactory. After all and artist is their own worst critic. 

Another Epson scan and I now had printable color copies. I invite you to take a look at my Etsy store and see for yourself. Just look for CraftyStx and they are the newest listings. 

As far as my daughter goes... she has recenlty been "Bauble Bombing" as I like to call it. She simply can't resist drawing these little trees. My son has gotten in on some of the fun too; however he leans towards simply adding the Lilah Beans into his art. Take a look at the latest escapades....

Should I tell them I recenlty purchased the printable book, "The Tangles of Kells" by Ms Bartholomew? 

Bauble Cards

Ah, yes. So I finally got hold of the book 'The Bauble Tree' and was able to try my hand at this tangle. What resulted was a lot of fun experimentation.

My first attempt was this little card. I colored on it with metallic colored pencil but I thought to myself, can I do more? 

Yes! I did! And I absolute love this little card! 

So how could make this even better? Well, color it in of course. Using my colored pencils I did a color version on a black and white printout. Then I printed again in color. Thankfully, my color printer did a fantastic job so I just had to cut and fold my papers. I now have over 40 of these little cards to send out this Christmas. I don't think I have ever had Christmas cards ready this fast! 

And my daughter even sat down to tangle and color yet again. What do you think of her version?

I also created another card which I didn't care for as much. It just didn't have the same playfulness that the little Lilah Beans added to the first card. 

Bauble

Hello and welcome to another sporatic installment. I recently purchased the printable book "The Bauble Tree" from Sandy Steen Bartholomew's Etsy shop. It was an instant download so I was able to print right away. 

Following her suggested directions I created a book out of the printout and even added a cardstock cover. 

I folded the pages in half ...

    

and glued the back edges together. 

Look at my little munchkin. No sooner did I print and glue than the book was stolen from me! Yes, stolen I say! Because as soon as she got her hands on it she proceeded to draw "bauble" to her heart's content. 

    

Copying the ideas in the book, Cali sat down and immediately drew her own tree and accompanying tangles. 

    

She was very intent on her work. And who isn't? Honestly it was a joy to watch her stretch her creative muscles. I fancy that Ms. Bartholomew's daughter and mine would get along quite well when it comes to tangling.

    

Cali even cut it out and asked for a string to hang it up like an ornament. Seeing as it is not yet Christmas, I headed outside for this shot on our neighboring pine tree. I think her tangled ornament came out quite well! Now if only I could get the chance to play with the book myself. *sigh*

    

Wedding Tangles

This summer we had two sweet staff members fall in love and decide to marry. They asked me to create some wedding invites for them. The reason they say 'And the lion fell in love with the bird.' Is because they have the camp names Nala and Sparrow. They are so sweet and it was wonderful to make these for them. 

This was the first one. Very tangly! 

The second choice I went more simplistic. 

This was the third option. A little of both. Which one do you like best?