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......

Today I have a mini Friendly Plastic tutorial to share with you..... How to create little hearts to embellish your work - a technique inspired by Liz Welch's flower technique . Liz uses a hot water bath to soften her Friendly Plastic but for this spin off you could just as easily use any of the other Friendly Plastic heating methods. I just happen to use a heat gun as this is what I use to demo this at shows. Cut a small triangle of Friendly Plastic - about 5mm wide by about 8mm long. Trim away the two top corners using really strong scissors like Tim Holtz Tonic scissors. Place the triangle on a sheet of aluminium foil which has been brushed lightly with cooking oil. Heat with the heat gun until soft - you'll notice the surface loses its shine and the edges will become rounded. Dip a metal stylus in cooking oil and draw it down through the Friendly Plastic from the top to create the indentation of the heart. You can play around with the shape a bit whilst it's still warm a......