A while back, I celebrated a milestone birthday. I was in total denial about my age, a feeling I'm sure  that many of you who are reading this can relate to. I mean, I still feel so young, so how can I possibly be that age. Celebrating was the last thing I wanted to do but I knew that if I didn't mark the occasion I would regret it later on. So as a way of coming to terms with it, I decided to throw myself into the decorating by adding my personality to as many of the details for the party as I could. Of all the projects I undertook, this was by far the most ambitious and time consuming but it was also the most satisfying. I created edible art in the form of mint patties by putting my zentangling skills to use for the bonbonnieres. I began with icing fondant which I flavoured with a few drops of concentrated mint essence . I rolled it out to about 5mm thick: thick enough that they would dry out a little but not so thin that the guests would crack their teeth wh......

What do you do when you're staying in a motel room without access to your craft supplies? Sitting around with idle hands drives me crazy (just ask my DH!). So on a recent visit to Canberra, the only crafting supplies I could take were pen and paper. Keeping in mind the butterfly projects I've been creating lately, I die cut several butterflies and packed them into a ziplock bag with a fine black marker. Whenever I got a few spare minutes I whipped them out and started drawing. Here's a peek at what I've been working on. I haven't forgotten about the final shadow box in my black and white butterfly series - it's still on the drawing board. But perhaps some of these will make it into the last one. 'Til next time..... If you can't get enough of My Tutorials and you want even more inspiration,  click here to find my books and printable pdfs...

It's been a while since I Zentangled but working with the framed black and white butterflies earlier in the week prompted me to grab my ultra fine markers and start doodling.  As you can see, I'm still playing with butterflies! Some are black on white......   and some are white on black...... Put them all together....... and you get a flourish of butterflies ready for mounting on the wall. Supplies for this project: Ikea Ribba shadow box frame ; Collections Elements Dainty Butterflies chipboard (painted white); ZVA Creative Flourishing - jet crystal; Inkssentials white opaque pen , Sakura Microperm ; and Martha Stewart Royal Butterfly punch. There are more butterfly frames in this series. Check them out here: Vintage Crystal Butterfly Frame Butterfly Chic Butterfly Bouquet 'Til next time..... If you can't get enough of My Tutorials and you want even more inspiration,  click here to find my books and printable pdfs...

Ah, Valentine's Day! And romance is in the air! When I walked into the office this morning I was greeted with a beautiful bunch of roses in shades of pink and red, and then shortly after by a box of exquisite foil wrapped chocolates in a heart shaped box. How romantic! Before a minute had passed the cutest little kitten with a red bow tied around it's neck appeared. Romantic image after romantic image flashed across my computer screen - what a lovely start to the day. I bet you were thinking how spoiled I am? Well, perhaps I'm not quite that spoiled but my sweetheart and I did exchange boxes of chocolates this morning and we'll sit down quietly tonight to share them as we watch Sleepless in Seattle together - mushy stuff, I know, but very romantic! And that leads me on to today's post - Zentangle inspired Valentine's Cards. One of the wonderful things about Zentangle is that there really are no rules so there is nothing to say that your doodle has to fill a squ......

There was a time when I used to say that if it stood still long enough I will stamp it . That statement eventually made way to this one: if it stands still long enough I will paint it with Lumiere paint but now I can add to that " if it stands still long enough I will Zentangle it!" Oh my..... I'm hooked! How can something so simple have such an addictive effect on you? I just can't explain, except to say that I'm now seeing patterns absolutely everywhere I look. I never noticed them before but now I see they are everywhere around me. And I just feel compelled to get them onto paper before I forget them. I have doodled so much over the last few weeks that I have run out of ink in my trusty Zig writer so it will be a trip to Officeworks this week to see what other suitable pens I can find to doodle with. So without a pen to doodle with I think I should share a couple of the things I've been up to. Firstly, a pendant. This is a slight variation of the one I f......

It's Saturday.... yaaaaay! And I'm pleased to put this past week behind me. In fact, this past month and a half has been a shocker at work. It's just been one of those times when anything that could go wrong, did go wrong and anything that shouldn't have gone wrong, went wrong too. It seems like my little corner of the universe is out of kilter at present. But that usually means that it is about to turn about face and go the other way so I'm really looking forward to that happening! Good things usually result from these tumultuous events so I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next! So Zentangle has been my release this week and whilst I doodled away on my stash of wooden disks earlier in the week I took to paper and card later in the week. I'm nurturing my doodling skills at the moment and trying to learn some new patterns. And as I've combined different patterns I've begun to understand things like shadow, light, negative space and positive ......

There is something very meditative about the art of Zentangle. I'm not much into doodling - never really have been but every time I put my pen to paper to Zentangle, I find myself totally engrossed in the repetitive nature of this art form. Maybe there is a doodler inside me after all! It is such an inexpensive and very portable hobby: I have Zentangled at the doctor's surgery, whilst waiting in the car to pick up DD from work and in planes (yippee! something to do other than watch movies and read magazines). In fact anywhere I find myself waiting for some one or some thing. All you need is a smooth white surface to work on, black permanent markers and a graphite pencil. So far, I've been skipping the pencil, preferring the cleaner, hard lines of the markers. I use Sakura's Microperm 01 for the detailed work and the IDenti Pen where I want the coverage to be heavier. I usually work on very small pieces like these disks from DIY Bangles that the patterns will fill qu......