Several years ago, on my niece's first Christmas, I began giving family members handcrafted ornaments. I date and put their name on the back. This year, I tangled on tin ornaments from Cupboard Distributing. Shhh...don't tell my family. It's always a surprise at our Christmas gathering. Here is one I tangled with only tangles of my creation. Some you will find here on my blog. I suppose that seems like a bit of self-promotion, but I wanted to see how they might fit together on a piece. I was surprised when I realized the variety in my tangle creations.

Tangles used: Silkpod, Andril, Tracery, Steppen, Stayned

Tangled with: black a Identi Pen and shaded with a gray Sharpie Marker

Health Tip: I've found this time of year filled with challenges to get things done, mostly for other people. That has added to some stress. Stress leads to mindless eating for me. So..I've put a Zentangle tile and the necessary tools on the counter at the entrance to my kitchen. It takes just as much time to do one tangle on a tile as it does to find and eat something. By tangling rather than eating, I can relax and focus on what Christmas is really about for me. And while I'm at it, I can move around a bit to get in a few more of my desired 10,000 daily steps. Oh, yes, this is also a good time to have a drink of water.

Tangled Play with Wengz

Here is another one of my community tangles. It came from the trim above the windows in this building.

I have to admit that I am not feeling very creative when it comes to naming my tangles. So I've named this one Wengz, a play on the word wings, because the triangles on the sides remind me of wings.

It's fairly simple:

I played "what if" with Wengz. I think this play is part of the fun of tangling. It's a mind game with endless possibilities. Welcome to my playground:

What if I filled the Wengz with tangles?

What if I drew Wengz unattached?

What if I would string Wengz differently?

What if I tangled between the Wengz?

What else could I do?

 And, imagine how much difference a little shading would make!

Health tip: Holiday festivities shouldn't be an excuse to overeat. If we focus on people and conversation, the food becomes secondary.

Keenees Candle

This week's Diva's Challenge is to use CZT, Donna Hornsby's tangle, Keenees. I am in the midst of several Zentangle Inspired Art projects. So I put Keenees to use on a candle and candle plate. One lesson I learned was to make sure the orbs are large enough to put the triangular shape in and for adding the dots. You can see my candle has large enough orbs, but my candle plate does not.

Tangles: Keenees and C-scape