First Tangled Bookmark

I've been working on a special tangle that is 9"x12" but can't show it yet as I don't want anyone who might be associated with the group it is for to see it. I'll show it as soon as I can though.

In the meantime, I've been crocheting an African Flower elephant from a pattern by Heidi Bears on Ravelry. The Bubbo's Pants group is having a CAL for any of her animals (hippo, pony, giraffe, elephant, frog, or bear) and one of the ladies purchased the elephant pattern for me since I couldn't afford it. Not that the prices are high, they aren't, but with only a part time job right now, it just wasn't in my budget. So far, I've almost completed her bum. It's going slowly since I was jumping between her and the tangle all weekend. It will probably have to go on the back burner for a while as I really must get going on designs for the next issue of Crochet Uncut.

Last night, I decided to tangle a bookmark. I'd purchased a pack of them at Michaels for 99 cents and wanted to try them out. They aren't made for tangling and have a glossy finish so the ink dries much slower than on Bristol board - but I like how it came out. You can see it below. It is 2"x6", took just over 2 hours to complete, and, if you'd like to purchase it, is $10 which includes shipping and handling.

By the way, I just wanted to mention again that even though I'm calling these tangles, that is just so other people recognize what they are and can find them. I do not Zentangle®. I am not a Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT) nor do I ever plan to be. Zentangling incorporates specific methods of doodling and also incorporates some teachings that I cannot support. If I ever teach how to tangle, it will not be following their methods.

I just wanted to make that clear.

The Zentangle® Method was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas and is copyrighted. Zentangle® is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

Tangled ShrinkyDink - First Try

I've working on the best technique and materials for making stitch markers with ShrinkyDink and tangles. I really need to get some alcohol-based pens as the microns smear too much although they do bake permanent. Since the ink wasn't permanent and smeared, I added the color on the back. After baking, I found that the bottom-or maybe it was the inside center-pushed out around the edges so I'll need to take that into consideration as I continue. Also, even though I used a normal hole punch size of 1/8", the hole was way too tiny after shrinking so I'll need to either use a bigger hole punch or use a drill to make the hole larger after shrinking.

Also, the instructions for ShrinkyDinks said to place the piece on a piece of brown paper bag, then after taking it out of the oven to press it with a pad or folded paper. When we did this, the brown paper bag got stuck onto the back of the piece and had to be softened with water and scraped off. I still haven't gotten all of it off though.

One thing that made it easier was that I purchased a Fiskars Round 'n Round X-Large Easy Squeeze Punch which punches out a 2" round circle which shrinks down to about the size of a nickle. It was about $18 at Michaels but I had a 40% off one item at original price coupon so the price was more in my price range.

Anyway, here's the finished test product that I placed on the scanner since my camera has gone awol. Pressing it with the pad also meant it lost any shine it may have had so maybe I'll have to add some protection to it to get it shiny again.

Tangle Pattern: Cactus

My sister Jessica uses my computer during the day while I'm at work since it is more powerful than her computer is. I usually have the cards that I make the tangle pattern thumbnails on lying on my desk so, one day she drew a pattern for me on one of them. She said it was based on a cactus but made using hearts and that she'd been drawing it for years. I finally figured out the steps tonight and put them together.

Oh, and here's the links to the pin for this on Pinterest and to the image on Flickr.

(Click on image for larger version)

Also, I've been pinning the tangle patterns I find on Pinterest but have been redrawing them so I have uniform thumbnails. You can find my Tangle Pattern board here.