Needless to say, I am feeling a little behind this holiday season. Evidence points to the fact that while I generally have finished my Christmas shopping (always before Thanksgiving!) and the decorations are up and the house looks mighty festive…the packages are not wrapped, and things have not been mailed. But, in my defense, I was a bit under the weather for about a week, and that set me behind. And, I have been a bit busy at the shop (which is a good thing.)
I started doing the Diva Challenge at #161. Now that we are at #297, that seems like such an age ago. I had already done 2 of the past Christmas Challenges…so I filled in the rest for this weeks Challenge – Holiday Bash. So here, is a recap:
Diva #1 was Simiplicity. What better way to show simple and Christmas than a white ornament tangled in the basic tangles in black. Although it did need a bit of bling with the glitter glue (and that was mostly to hide a weird glue incident when I used the wrong glue to stick the sides together.) I glued 2 pennies in the middle for weight.
Diva #52 was “Give”. I cut out a hole lot of stars based on Cris Letourneau’s Star pattern, to attach to cards and gifts this year. They are super quick to tangle up, especially when I cut and pre-scored them with my Brother Scan n Cut 2.
Diva #100 was New Tangles and A Diva Dance. While Diva Dance isn’t a new tangle anymore, it surely does make a great tree base in my card with a quilled angel and gothic calligraphy lettering. I am still working on my calligraphy skills…
Diva #148 was Merry Happy. Celebrate the season in your own way. I found a cute set of metallic pens at Daiso (Japanese discount stores where everything is $1.50) so I decided to give them a try. 8 colors, but they didn’t really look different on the black paper I tried, but they looked festive in a Squid nonetheless. Hard to tell that is a lot of different colors on the scan, in person it is pretty subtle as well.
I also realized while I was writing this, that I had not completed Diva #198 “Keep It Simple”. I guess that gives me something to do this week! (Brilliant)
We had some fun classes this past week…starting last Saturday with an Ornament Extravaganza. We did 4 different ornaments and folded the Zendala gift box for later tangling.
A festive Zentangle 101 class with bonus Crescent Moon study at the end:
And tangled on paper bags in tribal styles on Thursday:
On Monday, we had our annual San Diego/SoCal Friendship Group Christmas meeting, where Wendy Gray led us in the making of this lovely lotus fold “Squash Book” to hold Zentangle tiles. It was a lot of fun!
I am working on the January Schedule today, so that should be up by Monday. If you are in the area, be sure to come hang out tonite and art to your hearts content. Open studio from 4-9 ($5 drop in fee). Bring whatever you are working on, and have some festive cheer!
If I don’t post nest week, Merry Christmas, and Happiest of Holidays to you and yours!
CharKat's Creative Insanity 
Goodness, so many beautiful things no wonder you are a bit behind of your holiday prep. I am loving the simplicity of those black and white ornaments, and I also love that quilled angel.
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Wow Char! Every piece of art is so fabulous! I wish I lived close! I’d be taking classes with you! Merry Christmas! 🙂
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Char, what are those little black folded ornaments called? Is there a pattern somewhere? 🙂
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Merry Christmas to you too!
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Thank you Char! The video is fabulous! Online I saw a shape called “merkaba” This looks very similar. 🙂
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Everything here is absolutely gorgeous! Thank you for sharing the ornament video. Those are very cool. Thank you for all of the inspiration you share here each week and best wishes for a joyful holiday;-)
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Thank you so much. Happy Holidays!
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Seeing all these beautiful art, I do understand why there was no time left for Christmas preparations. In US it’s so different from here in The Netherlands, most of us just need a few days for preparations and …. that’s fine with me.
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I try to keep it to just a few days…but this year it got away from me! I think it is nicer in a more simple, less commercial way!
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So many good thing shared here!!! I love the black ornaments; I bet they are even more dramatic in person. Thanks for the link, I’ll be watching that one later, when I find some time. 😉
I have now searched for the “squash” book and will also be looking into that later.
Squid looks almost like a poinsettia. I hate it when I have colors that don’t stand out like they should. 😉 It is lovely though.
You’re simplicity ornament has a lot of great depth. Very nice! And I love your tangled paper bag!
So much here. No wonder you don’t have packages wrapped yet. Of course, I don’t either and i haven’t been nearly as creatively productive as you have been. 🙂
Merry Christmas!!!!
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The “squash book” is also sometimes called the Lotus fold, and can be found in several of Cherryl Moote’s books. Just variations of the same fold, sized for Zentangle tiles. I found a video for it with Cherryl herself! https://youtu.be/ypQFqG9oYoY
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And in the book “All Tangled Up” she shows the different way to put this together…sized for Zentangle. http://www.mootepoints.com/Publications.html
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Wow! Lots of great work! Thanks for the tutorial, and I will be looking online to see if I can find directions to the squash book! Very Cool. Have a Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year!
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A wonderful blogpost with beautiful work and a lot of information. Thank you very much.
I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
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