Two swaps and The Diva´s challenge 382

Every swap (traveling tangles) is a happy moment. And every swap is so different. I have been lucky having two swaps recently. The first one came all the way from China! May May Chui sent me these beautiful starters:

Blue Toodles with some Tipple on a zendala!Whow!

And then a green amazing gem with Flux, Diva Dance, Static and Printemps....

I finished these and was happy to find the right blue among my colorpencils! Here are my finished tiles:

I don´t use much color in my own tangling so this was like having a party!  I added Dorsal (mine), Fassett (Lynn Shelton Mead and Mooka.

Then the green gem... How to match this very expressiv and beautiful gem? I had fun doing this, adding Cubine, Printemps, Bales variation and Crescentmoon variation.

Then the next swap with Daria Heidendael from the Netherlands. We first met at the Designmuseum in Providence before the seminar started! Here are her starters:

I do  love black tiles! And here with beautiful Tripoli!

Next one is one more gem! And now drawn in greyscale! I almost forgot to take the beforepic, you can see the little line I started with on the right side of the gem! But then I stopped and took this pic!

Here are my finishes:

I went on with Diva Dance , Quandary and Indyrella. Yes I tried my goldpen on this one too!

This one was so delicate to start with. I was anxious to ruin the whole thing. But then I started to think about Rick and Maria. I heard their voices in my head about "no worries, just one stroke at the time" and "no mistakes"! We learned the Crescentmoon variation at the seminar and also how to use Florz in a different way, so I just went on with this and the whole tile came alive.  This was a moment of magic!

Diva Challenge no 382. Laura asked for stripes as string. That is fun to do and a chance to use bordertangles... 

My string

Zenith in the middle with Meer, Shattuck, Marasu and Fanclub in the corners. I liked to do this and they are all tangles I know so well, I don´t have to think what to do next. Thank you Laura, even if I don´t do every challenge, I do enjoy every one I do!

I am the Diva´s Challenge 380

Laura Harms has run her blog 8 years now! Amazing! She is celebrating this with a challenge based on circles. As I am quite busy right now I had to go for a quickie, since I wanted to celebrate this! And Zenbuttons are so fun to do, invented by Marguerite Samama! Here is my Zenbutton on a cardstock selfcut tile:

Congratulations Laura! Hope you will go on for another 8 years! By the way, I used  Sakura micron: pink and burgundy.

Happy mail - Happy tangling.

December was of course a busy month for me as for most other people I know. But to get a happy mail in my mailbox is such a wonderful experience and a chance to relax during the busiest and darkest time of the year. This is what I got from Debra Castaldi one day when the light was reduced to a couple of hours (Before Solstice).

 

 It might be a little difficult to see the lovely string penciled on this tile due to the photo I took under my lamp on my workingplace in my studio.  But if you enlarge it you might get hang of it! 

I liked this string a lot so I wanted to go with it very closely and I loved the way it took me! Debra had started with Rixties and Springkle so i added more of these and then som Tipple, Florz and a fragment from Zentangle Primer.

Next start from Debra was Diva Dance Rock´N Roll. I have seen Debra do this pattern several times and I really like it! Her lines are so precise and just to look at it is calming! 

So I went on with my Mac ´n cheese:Dewd and Tipple! Then more of Diva Dance but this time I think it is Foxtrot! Purk and Striping also wanted to play. Yes this was a nice experience and I loved to finish both these tiles! Thank you Debra!

After a while had another great and joyful moment when I saw what Debra had done with my starters!

The first started one was on the ecoprinted tile I made in the fall 2017. 

 The gold she added was a perfect match! I loved that. And how she made the Diva Dance again!!! 

Next start was on a tan (rennaissance) tile

Look at this! I love the way she repeated Pokeroot and Antidots on a bed of Verve! It looks so happy! An then the brown-black Knightsbridge in the background!

The traveling tangles project goes on and I am looking forward to do more of this during 2019. It is inspiring and it connects people from all over the world in a way that is very special.

End of my calendarpages 2018

I haven´t posted much in December. Even less when it comes to my calendar. But I have finished it! So here are my pages 10th-31st of December!

This is it! I have said goodbye to the calendar for now. After having done it for two years I won´t do it this newborn year 2019. I have some reasons for that. The most important one is that during 2019 I want to explore more about journaling. I might get back to the calendar in the future,  I never say never! I am very happy to have 2 filled calendars in my tangling archive! It is a resource to go to when I am looking for tangles, finding out which way they has taken and so on. 

Arukas day 26-30

I have been celebrating christmas with my sons, daughter in law and my wonderful grandchildren so I have not been able to post the last days of Arukas, but here they all comes:

I made this one as a congratulation to Today´s
tangles - Keeping it classic that reached 1000
members recently!

I felt a little sad to say goodbye to these 30 days of Arukas, but also I was happy to have done them. Arukas can go any way, and there are so many more possibilities! I guess I could go on for another 30 days!!! But I won´t. But I will use Arukas on tiles and not fear a string that looks like it won´t fit! Because now I know Arukas also can go with any string!

Traveling tangles - next chapter.

Quite long ago I was participating in Stephanie Jennifer´s project "Traveling Tangles". I enjoyed it then. It was a great way to get friends all over this globe. Then I got too busy to keep it up so I stopped doing this. At the CZT32 Seminar and after, I got new CZT friends. Friends that I don´t want to lose.  I used the idea with traveling tangles but this time I sent them to people I had met. For a start just a couple of them, all new friends of mine. I prepared 2 starters to each of them and posted them. After a while the first "Happy mail" arrived in my own mailbox and a couple of days another one! Here is my first post about a completed Happy mail!

Here is my mail to Katrina Thiebaut. One black tile and one recycled watercolor-tile. And this is the exciting outcome from her:

The tiles she finished so carefully fills me with great joy! I could not have imagined this! I love it!

Here are Katrinas mail to me:

Two lovely starters to go ahead with. Here is my first finish:

Have you seen the boarder! Letters all around! I am so fascinated of this one! 
Then I hesitated - How to give Anita Katrina a hairstyle matching this beautiful lady??? I had to send her to the hairdresser for a while and when she got back to me she looked like this:

She told me she was happy with her new hair so I did send a pic of her to Katrina and guess what! Katrina had another lady at her side, that must be a cousin of Anita Katrina, since she had got a similar
hairstyle recently!

Well, you find a lot of these beautiful people that belong to the Zen Kin family here. 

I had not done anything like this before and would probably not have done it if I had not got this happy mail from Katrina. I am so happy to get this new experience, thank you Katrina!

Arukas Day 20-25

I don´t belive it! Only 5 days left!!!!