Creative Everyday - April Language Focus

Participating in the CreativeEveryday.com group is a great way to stretch your creative muscle. The totally optional theme for the month of April is LANGUAGE. As usual, there are some great suggestions listed on the website on how to use the theme.

I decided that I am going to try and come up with some LIMERICKS during the month of April. This will be a huge creative stretch for me. I was one of those that dreaded having to write anything in school. But, I am enjoying trying to improve my artistic abilities and fun little limericks should be a great exercise for improving my language skills as well. So, here it goes.

April Limerick #1:

The start of April is now here,

My how this has been a fast year.

It's fun to create,

And sharing is great,

But comments are so very dear!

April Limerick #2:

Thanks for visiting,

rebecca

Zentangle challenge #64

For this weeks's challenge we were all to start with the same string design as seen here:


Image from: http://iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com/2012/03/weekly-challenge-64.html


Here are my entries.

The one on the right is a variation on the Fengle pattern from last week. I haven't looked at anyone else's entry yet this week. Wow it looks like there are a lot of them. I hope I get time to check them all out. Until next week, tanglers!

Thanks for visiting,

rebecca

Iron Craft Challenge #6 - Peeps!

Be sure to check out all the great entries for the Peeps challenge this week. The creativity was flowing for everyone, so many great and diverse ideas.  http://JustCraftyEnough.com

Here's my entry. Waited 'til the last minute to come up with something. I had a few ideas in mind, but over the weekend I met my sister on a mini-vacation and she said, "make a pop up card". Gee, I've never made a pop-up card. Challenge Accepted! Thanks sis! This card will be coming your way soon!

Here's a picture.

Go to the Flickr page here for a short video clip: http://www.flickr.com/photos/58782363@N02/6875995936/in/pool-1525156@N25/

Thanks for visiting,
rebecca

A Little time to create

Just a few doodles done while riding in the car coming home from a mini vacation.

Thanks for visiting,
rebecca

Zentangle challenge #63

Go here to learn more about the weekly Zentangle challenge. I am still new to Zentangle and feel like every week I learn about a pattern that will be my favorite one. This week's pattern is my newest favorite! "Fengle" is really fun to draw. It is so fast and fluid with fantastic results. I think it will really help me loosen up. I tend to hold the pen so tight. I prefer grid type patterns. The more organic flowing designs are much harder for me. But I know the more I practice they will get easier. So far this week I have been drawing Fengles on everything: post it notes, to do lists, backs of envelopes, and meeting notes!

Here's my son's addition. He tends to see flowers and ninja weapons in his Fengles!

Thanks for visiting,
rebecca

Altered Cereal Boxes :)

I love using cereal boxes to practice and hopefully help improve my artistic skills. I just unfold the box and cover the back with acrylic craft paint (white in this case). Then once the base coat is dry add whatever colors you like in any pattern. Then once that is dry, add some designs with a black permanent marker. You could use them for inexpensive artwork and hang it on the wall. Then as your skills improve or your tastes change it is easy to take them down and replace it with something else.

You could put them in a group - framed or not. So fun, easy, and inexpensive!

Thanks for visiting,
rebecca

Zentangle Challenge #62

The Zentangle challenge of the week is to use the paradox pattern in a spiral string. Again, a great challenge. Here are my 2 entries:

I haven't used paradox much so I had several practice sheets laying on the table most of the week. It's so cute, one night I noticed my 9 year old had added some of his own. The red and green ones on the right are his. I've noticed more tangle patterns showing up along with his usual drawings of aliens, monsters, army men, and such!

                        

I'm sure paradox will become a favorite pattern. I have really enjoyed going through all the original tutorials and suggestions that were linked on the challenge website, as well as all the entries. I did discover something that really helped me this week and would like to share with you. I'm sure it's not a new idea, but I came up with it this week and it saved me lots of frustration.

So here's my Zentangle tip:

Use scrap paper against tile, draw full pattern as usual.

Pull away scrap paper for clean tile edge

Use a scrap piece of paper lined up over or next to your tile to help you draw the full pattern. It is so hard to draw just part of a pattern when you want just a piece of it along the edge of the tile or string border. This way, you draw it just like normal and when you remove the scrap paper your design will have the look you want. Anyway, hope it helps! Until next week.

Thanks for visiting,
rebecca
zentangle.com