Paisley salvage

I had done a few tiles with paisley designs thinking that I would arrange four of them into one work. Should I add color? Sparkle? How to arrange them? They sat on my desk for months. And months. I decided they'd had their chance and it was time to reincarnate them as ATCs.

I sliced the edges off the four cards leaving me four 2.5"x3.5" ATCs. Then I added color to them all.

I was left with the four trimmed edges and decided to use them for more ATCs. I glued them to the sides of four black ATC cards. Then I had lots of fun adding other elements: patterned washi tape, holographic ribbon, a red gem star, black gem curlicues, white ink, metallic ink, little pearls, glittery white embellishment tape, and the hummingbird from a chocolate wrapper.

I have a hard time throwing out artwork that's just not satisfactory. Often, when I'm not happy with a final piece of work, I turn it into bookmarks or ATCs.
Some of these may find themselves in a swap at We Love to Tangle this June, in Calgary.

We Love 2 Tangle!

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending, and the honor of teaching at, We Love 2 Tangle in Calgary AB (Canada).

Organized by Sandra Chatelain CZT, the day-long workshop attracted 50 avid tanglers from Calgary, Canmore, Grand Prairie, Edmonton, Red Deer, Revelstoke, and Saskatoon. There were seven CZTs present and four of us taught something. Here's yours truly with Laura Harms and Cindy Hagen.

Laura shared her Zentangle story, parts of which I knew and parts of which I didn't. She also taught us the tangle Phicops, developed by her husband Brad.  I've done Phicops before but really 'got it' this time watching it take shape before my eyes. I'm really pleased with the tile I did.

That cool little curly thing in the corner was developed from a pattern I noticed on the wall sconces in the room. :)

Nina Klaiman showed some variations of Crescent Moon, and Cindy Hagen did the same with Betweed. Here are my tiles, Crescent Moon incomplete.

I taught two sessions. The first was variations of Paradox and Hollibaugh, including the now named tangles Morse and Windfarm. I offered my two demo tiles for the door prize table but forgot to take photos first!

That's me at the document camera preparing to teach,
and Sandra Chatelain at the mike.

The second session was half an hour about using board game piece leftovers to make strings, so it was pretty much "here's how to do it, here are 60+ boards, go to town and have fun!" See more about this idea here. I started two tiles by demo'ing pencilling some shapes, and finished them with tangles later. Here they are complete.

Tangles: Bunzo, Camelia, Finery, Jalousie,
Knightsbridge, Tipple (Caviar)

Tangles: Aquafleur, Beadlines, Black Pearlz,
Demi variation, Fleurette, Knightsbridge, Sanibelle

The event was a rip-roaring success in my opinion, and I think Sandra is looking to do it again next year!

Bookmarks

I've been making more bookmarks. It's a great way to use the strips left over when I cut a square from a pad of art paper. It's also a good way to get a little more life out of pens that aren't doing so well on the softer paper of tiles. They're all one-of-a-kind and I laminate them for safe-keeping.

I expect to have enough to be able to contribute one to each gift bag at We Love 2 Tangle on March 21 in Calgary AB (Canada), so if you're planning to come I'll have a little gift for you! And we can say "Hi" in person. :D