WOYWW 423: I'm back!

Well I made it safely back from Berlin.  I don't have many photos to show you as most of them have children on them so I can't share them.  We had a fabulous time, although we missed out on the pandas at the zoo by two days as we visited on Tuesday and they were due to arrive on the Thursday.  The weather was really kind to us and as usual we packed the days with visits and sight seeing.  
The Ritter chocolate shop went down well as usual!  We visited the Story of Berlin Museum and the Nuclear Bunker, the DDR Museum, the Zoo, the KaDeWe, the Reichstag, the Holocaust Memorial, the Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, the Palace of Tears, the Bernauer Strasse Wall Memorial, the Anne Frank Museum as well as bowling, enjoying a river cruise and shopping at Alexa.  I have just about caught up on my sleep now.  

I really missed my craft session last Tuesday so made the most of yesterday's session with my friend.  She was working on getting ready for a series of Y7 zentangle workshops which she will be running today.  She was stamping some large Woodware word stamps onto card ready for the pupils to zentangle, as the sessions only last for 45 minutes.
 






My desk shows my treat to myself for surviving the trip, which arrived yesterday.  Sizzix had a sale on and were giving free P+P if you spent over £30.  This is my haul for £30.47 which I think was a great bargain, although I won't be using the Christmas dies yet! 
If you want to know why I'm showing you my desk or if you want to see more desks, visit our hostess Julia at The Stamping Ground.

Zentangle Tiles

I was recently looking through a pile of cards that I had made for members of the family and saved; I came across this card which was one of my first attempts at zentangling.  As I wasn't very confident with this technique at the time, I used small tiles to practise each pattern and later added them to the card.

Zentangle stencil

I didn't realise how often I used zentangle in my cards - I must be going through a phase.  Stencils are also a great starting place for zentangling.  Here I used the Claritystamp checkerboard stencil and teamed it up with Woodware chess stamps which included the greeting.

Before I started I drew round the bottom 2 layers of the chessboard in pencil and stamped in the appropriate places.  I then laid the stencil back over and went round all the checkerboard squares using pen but without going over the chess pieces.  I added lines to the chess pieces as the stamps are only outlines, then zentangled all the 'black' squares of the chess board.  I repeated the same pattern more than once in different areas of the board to tie the whole thing together.

Zentangled Christmas Trees

This Personal Impressions Zendoodle Trees stamp is ideal for zentangling.

Any simple stamp with large plain areas can be zentangled (they can also be stamped onto patterned paper and paper pieced).

I like the fact that each tree is already divided into interesting shapes which sometimes help with ideas for a suitable zentangle pattern.  Some of the patterns I drew were ideas I had seen online, and some grew from the shape that they had to fill - such as the triangular shapes in the tree to the far right.

Once I had finished zentangling, I cut out the stamped image leaving a narrow white border and stuck it to red mirricard.  I then decided to use a Spectrum noir pencil which matched the background to pick out some of the zentangled details.  I matted the red mirricard onto white card and then onto black leaving a narrow border.  The whole thing was stuck onto an A4 card folded in half (A5 landscape); a small peel off greeting was the finishing touch - coloured red to match the key background colour.

A little Zentangle is good for the soul

I was inspired by the book Zentangle 9 - Color with Mixed Media and my new Typewriter and Handmade Paper embossing folder sets from Tattered Lace.  I already had the Marianne typewriter die and stamps.

This is an 8x8 card - I used Tim Holtz's Typo stencil and Aged Mahogany distress ink to stencil the main card and Exotic Orchid and Sunrise Orchid Core'dination cardstock for the backgrounds and die cutting.

The large background is 18.5cm by 18.5cm and embossed with the Typewriter embossing folder.  I then sanded it back and added Aged Mahogany at the edge.