Rolodex holder

I have now posted a lot of Rolodex cards over the last month, and I am a little embarassed to admit that I used to store them all together in a Yogi Tea Classic cardbord box for teabags. All of my Rolos, the knes for my Tangle index and the cards send to me by other artists. The box smells nice thiugh, like cinnamon. But it was time for something new and I waited until I could not stop myself any longer. I went into a shoe store and asked them for a tiny empty shoe box, the kind they sell babies first shoes in. I took it home and started to think about how to build the rails for the Rolos, I wanted them to fit not too snug so I could still flip them easily enough. What I ended up using were 2 pairs of glued together swizzle sticks (I love that word) and some folded card, like so...

Yes, I also went ahead and made my own index cards from coloured card.

And because the box itself did look a bit boring I decided to move out of my comfort zone and use some papers and ribbon I had in my stash and fancy it up a bit with a huge bow...

and back...

Don't ask what the paper collection is, I bought it at a reduced price and it has lots of decoupage pages. I have never done decoupage but since this is a Valentines day set I might use them for Valentines day...

As you can see all my index cards fit in nicely, but something was still missing (see that ugly white box at the lower bottom?). I started asking myself how on earth would I ever really be able to decide on which patterns to use in my tangles? With the sheer amount I tend to play it safe and do some very nice ones over and over and over again. So I decided to make myself a random tangle pattern generator...

And fit it into that ugly free space at the bottom of the box...

That is the main part of the Rolodex card holder done, but what to do with the lid? A few month back I had altered a little book for an awesome girl in Texas (you know who you are ;) ) and I had practised on an old pocket diary. Now I had the problem that the old obsolete diary had become too interesting to just chuck it out and now finally its day had come. I mounted it onto the top of my shoe box lid, stuck some more fancy paper and ribbon around it, and even fixated the pages with part of the roll that held the ribbon. Now I can display new cards on the top and rotate them around on a regular basis.

I might work in a few more embellishments around the edge of the altered diary, but I still have not found the right object to put there. Maybe if I find a nice twig in the garden......

Last of inktober

Today is quite an important day. Well, maybe not important, but a lot is happening today. It is quite obviously Halloween! And all the big and small kids are out and about trick or treating. Of course so were we (and takings were very plentyful) and my kids carved some beautiful pumpkins and put them in the driveway to signal to fellow trick or treaters. The first pumpkin you see has Happy Halloween carved on the other side and the second one has 5(!) faces all over it, although I am only posting two of them...

It is also the last day of the #inktober challenge, and my goodness, what a challenge. Do a drawing every day for a month, in order to develop good and daily drawing habits. I made it! I made a drawing every day and I enjoyed doing it. It was a chance to lay the groundwork for my Zentangle pattern rolo library, and I will keep it going, daily challenge or no.

I am still kind of glad it is over. I learned that basically I already have good drawing habits, I draw nearly every day of the week anyway, regardless of any challenges. But I am also very busy with family life and it is very hard sometimes to allocate the time for it. The feeling of "falling behind" is not a feeling I wish to associate with one of my favourite hobbies on a regular basis.

Here are my last #inktober drawings. The first is called "Punzel" by Maria Thomas, a variation of "Chainging", also by Maria Thomas. I have not as such worked with this one, but it is awesome when it is done, and it looks much more complete than its parent "Chainging". I will do that one later and then you will know what I mean.

And my last #inktober challenge drawing for this year:

Starawn

Today I did my #inktober zentangle design a little differently, in part to celebrate my 101st blog post and also to try out my white pigment ink pen on black paper. Unfortunately not as successful as I had hoped, the white pen dried very translucent and I had to go over everything 2-3 times. I am still using it in my reference library, even though it is not the best way to show off "Starawn" by Judy Murphy.

I should also mention that I get basically all my patterns from http://tanglepatterns.com (I hope the link works), as soon as I figure out how to put a link to her page into my sidebar I will do it, if you know how to do that, please leave a comment to that regard ;)

Post nr. 100!!

I never thought I would write this, but this is my 100th post! Yay! I wanted to post something special today and so todays #inktober drawing took me a while longer. It is not a rolo today, but a drawing in my sketchbook.

Enjoy!

Y-Ful Power

I am back on track with daily posting, for now anyway. Todays #inktober drawing is zentangle design Y-Ful Power, by Shoshi. It is a lovely and versatile design, I have already seen it done on a large paper with a different tangle in each y shape. If you choose to follow the tangle design you will find that you get 3 interlaced layers and so I tend to use 3 decorative designs . Y-Ful Power also looks very nice after it is coloured.

In case you get bored

I also figured some of you might get fairly bored with all the tangle patterns that I have been posting lately, so I am posting a second post today with some atcs I have been making for a wonderful lady in Texas I am having monthly trades with. I would love to post even more pics of stuff I have been up to but some are trades that are still not completed and I do not want to spoil the surprises...

For this months trade with my awesome partner I chose poisonous and/or carnivorous plants. I know she likes the carnivorus ones and I have already made her arted up envelopes and rolos on that subject. 

She in turn has sent me some awesome Toadstool atcs last month and a special surprise in the shape of a 5x7 canvasboard with another Toadstool on it. I hung it next to my bedroom door so I can see it every day when I pass my door. I hope you read this post K. and please know that all your lovely gifts you sent me are very much appreciated over here. 

Here I give you the classic Venus Flytrap, Sundew and the Poisonous Nightshade.

#inktober drawings 24 - 26

Hi, Everyone. 

I was a little bit busy over the weekend (and it was a long weekend here) and I also got sick with sinusitis. I have been drawing my daily #inktober zentangle rolos, I just did not have the time or energy to write even a short post, so now I am giving you 3 lovely rolos in the one post. 

This tangle is called Sprigs, by Michelle Beauchamp. I really loved drawing it, I am already planning to use it in a larger project in the future. I left it plain this time, without shading or colours because I wanted the lines to speak for themself. 

This next tangle is called Pokeleaf, and it is a variation of the Pokeroot I posted previously, by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. I really like Pokeleaf, much more so than Pokeroot. Maybe if I experiment some more with both of them I might warm up with the berry shaped Pokeroot a bit more.

And this last tangle for today is called Squid, also by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. I was a bit afraid to draw this one, every time I saw it in pictures it seemed somewhat chaotic and "untidy". I was doubtful if I could understand its internal dynamics (I don't know if that makes sense). But when I sat down to draw I had no trouble whatsoever. In fact, I enjoyed it very much, it had a very nice flowy and organic feel to it when I drew the lines.