Spring Break

At last, we have our "long" holiday before the last term kicks in. By long, I mean a whole 9 days, so we have to make the most of it! 

Our school musical - Our Oliver - ends tonight, after starting with a matinee on Tuesday -  7 shows altogether-and my girls were excellent! The youngest gannet had her speaking part last night, and the eldest gannet is Fagin. Wow, she has the most amazing singing voice and such a presence on the stage. I've watched most of the rehearsals and been working backstage, but it's so different actually sitting in the audience (which we did last night). I'm such a proud mom at the moment!

Like most of us creative types, I like to keep my hands busy - even when I'm exhausted or watching TV, I have to have something to do with my hands. Drawing in the lounge is not something I do often, I prefer to sit at my dining room table (where I can still see the TV) nad tangle, doodle and create with paper and pen. When I'm in the lounge, I use needles and wool. I prefer to crochet than knit, but that's only because the needle is smaller, shorter and there's only one of them! This time it's blankets and shawls/knee rugs. This is the latest offering! 

My bits and pieces blanket.

A close-up of the blanket. I quite enjoyed the wavy pattern.

The Diva's challenge this week is to use the newest tangle from Zentangle called IX...it's an interesting tangle because it "grows" on you when you start doing it. After looking at a few of the other tanglers tiles, I decided to curve mine as well. For a totally different twist on the tangle, you must have a peek at what Judy West did...she used the tangle for the first letters of her name! It's gorgeous!

Challenge #88: IX, bubbles, pokeleaf, stripes.

 Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Pennyb

 

End of term is getting closer...

What an interesting 2 weeks! Apologies for no entry last week - hubby was away for 8 days in Nigeria and the youngest gannet had the most horrendous cold with temperatures, chesty coughs and the obligatory blocked nose!

So, having survived the week and weekend (with a half completed challenge) I started afresh this week. I remember the Pinwheels for Peace challenge from last year, and decided to do my own "garden" as the challenge.  I used a colour set of 0.4 pens that I have and did the shading in coloured pencil.

Challenge #87: Green pinwheel: Nzeppel and sez; purple: florz and a madeup one; blue: lanie and another made up one!

The eldest gannet came up with a tangle and asked me to please post it on the zentangle page! I told her I couldn't do that, but I could post it on my Flickr page in the Zentangle pool and obviously here! She's called it Bamdoozle. The drawing instructions are below, and then she played with the design a bit and came up with some tangleations (which she prefers!) I haven't touched the drawings - these are the originals from Caitlin B!

Steps for Bamdoozle(I like the way theu mirror each other here!)

Tangleations of Bamdoozle

I finished another flower...it's a picture I found in an old diary...our March lilies in our garden are this colour too! It's done with Derwent Inktense Pencils used dry!

Happy Heritage Day or National Braai Day to all my South African friends on Monday 24 September! The official Public Holiday is Heritage Day, but it's been "renamed" National Braai Day because braaing is such a big part part of our way of life down here! Braai is an Afrikaans word meaning to cook over on open flame(pronounced br-eye) - so it's not a braai if it's not cooked over a fire...no gas allowed!

Happy creating

Pennyb

Sunny Spring

Well, Market Day has come and gone. The girls did well at their stall-they have to put it together and decorate themselves, parents are not allowed to help! Fish Hoek Primary did very well this year...we won 3 stall prizes, Best Teacher and Top School!!

Mikaela and Cailtin at their stall at 8am in the morning!

All our wonderful winners!

I stumbled across a wonderful Blog competition while looking around some crafty sites and would like to invite my Blog friends to join me in the Fairies Tea Blog Party on 23 September. I'll set the table and bake the Fairy Cakes and invite some fairy friends of the smallest gannet's to join us too. I'm not that great at drawing fairies but I have done an Art Journal page about fairies which I quite liked! (Try as I might, I couldn't get the photo to load the right way around though!)

I used watercolour pencils for the swirls, and stamps fro the flowers and spirals. The poem I found in book belonging to the younngest gannet.

"I believe in the little people, Faeries, gnomes and elves. If we can't find them in this world, perhaps we'll find them in ourselves."

And so, finally, on toThe CHallenge this week - Challenge #85-a new tangle Copada by  The Enthusiastic Artist, I love the little village pictures she's done using this tangle and all the different colours. My entry this week happened in 2 days - I knew exactly what I wanted to draw!

Challenge #85: Copada, paradox, Nzeppel

The Bright Owl's Zendala Dare this week is a monodala! Create a zendala using one tangle and any tangleations you can think of! Sounds like fun!

Till next week

Pennyb

Mzansi Market Day

Every year, round about this time, the pupils get the chance to take part in a  market day at one of the large shopping malls. All products have to handmade and the children get interviwed throughout the day where they get to tell all hte shoppers abput theor products. The eldest gannet and friemd are taking part this year. Their stall is called "rock and Roll Recycling" and they are selling handmade candles from old candles and wax crayons, earrings made from bottle tops and soap.So....I have been giving lessons with all my crafty stuff on how to make soap and candles! 
See below, the idiots guide to making candles at home:

Step 1: Melt cheap white candles and crayons in old tins placed in boiling water. (If you want scented candles, put a few drops of vanilla essence in the tins.)

Step 2: Spray muffin tray with cooking spray. While waiting for wax to melt, wrap wicks from cheap candles around wooden skewers and rest over silicone muffin tray.

Step 3: Pour melted wax into prepared tray and leave to set.

Step 4: When set (about 2hours), turn out of pan!

Warning...! Don't use food colouring to colour the wax! It's water based and forms droplets at the bottom of the candle which then pop open and leak out afterwards.

I'll take photos of their stall with the other goodies and post those next week.

Onto drawing now, I started a zendala of my own about 2 weeks ago(drawn with a slightly skew compass), and finished it yesterday. It's A3 in size and I drew the patterns quite small. AFter finishing the outer parts I decided to leave the "flowers" because it just worked!

Tangles used: twisted rope around the edge, nzeppel, huggins, fife, facets and then stripes and a flower in the middle.

 Challenge #84 was a blind string, which I've never done before, so this is a first for me. It involves drawing the string with your eyes closed and then tangling what you make. I joined some of my spaces together because they were a bit too small, and I used another new tangle! (My tiles are rectangluar at the moment, because I'm using up my scraps of drawing paper!)

Challenge #84: cruffle, florz, bales, featherfall

Not bad hey.....I got the challenge done and posted and it's not even Wednesday yet!!

See you next week

Pennyb