Challenge #207 and Making THE Card

Challenge #207 - Unbatz by Sandy Hunter

I absolutely loved this new tangle; it is one of those really fun ones that you can't mess up.  OK... you can, and I did (every single time), but you can't really notice it too much :).

You can see here the challenge with a link to the step by step instructions.  Definitely try it, if you haven't yet!!  So easy and fun!  Unbatz is the whitest of the tangles below and a variation on the tallest mountain.

I used a hand-carved stamp I created last year for the mountains, traced them with a sepia micron pen, and then had fun tangling inside the mountains.  Then had this crazy idea of tangling the sky and leaving the moon white :).  This was done on an ATC sized Bristol paper.

Making THE Card

I have a little niece who loves to make cards for people on their birthdays.  On my last birthday, I got an awesome one, and was asked if I would please make one for her on her 5th birthday :).  She said she loved the one I made her last year (here) and was really looking forward to her next one.  That was 5 months ago! 

So, I had to make her something special.  I started out with getting out my Gelli Plate.  You can see below how I had everything really organized when I first started :)

• Mark making recycled items on the right
• Acrylic paint all lined up behind them
• My 6x6" Gelli plate
• Some hand-carved stamps, a couple of my home-made stencils
• brayer
• Different types of paper
• baby wipes
• container with water (the black thing next to the paints) to put my hand-carved stamps in after using them

Let me just say that's not how this table looked after an hour or two :)... it looked like a hurricane hit!  But I did get a lot of fun prints; here are some of them (including one of my cats' tail).  The one I ended up using for Rowan's card is the pink /blue one on the left (in the middle).  It was printed on both sides - on purpose :)

I cut the bottom piece for the card, stamped a bit more on both sides with my hand-carved stamps, and then added more details with acrylics, colored pencils, sparkling pens (which she loves), watercolors, pen and ink, and a Sharpie for the edges.  When I folded it to make an accordion book, because it was thick bristol paper, it cracked and it looked awful.  So... I cut it, added eyelets, thread, and... done :)

Challenge 206, a Card, and a New Stencil

Diva's Challenge 206

This week's challenge was really, really challenging!  It was to do the challenge using a tool we would normally not use with Zentangles.  So, I used a script liner brush, and a waterbrush (has water in the handle) for the solid parts.  The shading was truly a challenge with the liner brush!!!  The control is just NOT there... lol.  Anyway, here it is:

The Card

For some reason, it is now expected that I make a card on family's birthdays.  Last weekend was one of my son's birthday party (late because of all the snow we've been having).  I find it really hard to make cards for men, so I try to think of things they like and go with that.  Last year was a moose (that also ended up on a mug for Christmas :)), this year was his cat that is more like a puppy dog - follows him around like one :).

His name (the cat) is Vincent and I carved this stamp of his eyes a few years ago.

A New Stencil I Designed and Cut

My Dad posted a picture of an iron gate that I found really beautiful.  After seeing that, I drew a repeat pattern on a piece of Tyvek (inspired by the gate, but not the same), cut it out and tried it out.  I loved it, so then I cut a stencil from a transparency and tried it out on a painted journal page.  I think I will have a lot more fun with it (once I find a little time :)).