Molly Bee's Attic

This week's Diva Challenge was to look around our immediate area at things that have borders or can be used as ideas for borders and use them in a tangle. Each of the coils has a border that's in my living room.  From the upper left and going clockwise: The wooden beading around the edge of my telephone table, the grill of my heat vent, the design around the top of a pottery piece, the border of a pillow on my sofa, the edge of a piece of  pre digital era film, My guitar neck and the middle one is a hank of beads I'm using for a knitting project. Fun and great to do while watching Bones, Sleepy Hollow and Castle! Thanks again Diva! Yesterday I volunteered to help the animal outreach volunteer at Heartland take animals to Primrose Lutheran Church for a 'Blessing of the Animal's service. It was an amazingly incredible experience. I wish our church had done it. I would have been all over that! I loaded Ricky and Fonzie the roosters into my car... And Fay...

This week's Diva Challenge was to use two patterns "Knightsbridge (checkerboard) and Tipple (bubbles). I had to do it rather quickly but I kind of like how it turned out! Thanks for another great challenge, Laura!

Given my last post, this week's Diva Challenge is especially apropos.  It's about the meditative process of Zentangling, more than the design.  This is one of the things I did on Saturday. I drew the piece below purposefully, slowly and mindfully. It took a long time and I enjoyed every single moment of it. It's amazing how much you can clear your mind and relax by just putting pen to paper  and drawing one stroke at a time. I actually did this before the challenge was issued but only by a couple of days. Since it matched the criteria and it has lots of 'Tipple' (the pattern that looks like little bubbles) I decided to submit it. I hope that's not cheating I apologize because I can't remember who recently posted about exploring Maori culture and their tribal symbolism.* I was very intrigued by that and based this design loosely on that idea. It was created on a piece of  12" x 12" scrapbook paper that has a neutral dot pattern on the background...

I've had a string of bad days lately.  Sometimes I forget to take care of ME and get so worn down that I forget that it's my choice to NOT wallow in self-pity and loathing. I can let go of the angst and anxiety, and walk away from the drama of others in my life...and my OWN self-created drama.  I forget that I can CHOOSE to be happy. On Friday I suddenly remembered again and pulled my head out of my butt for the first time in quite a while. I decided to get up extra-early and bake some lemon bread since I haven't baked in forever and I love it. I decided to enjoy my work instead of slogging through it, and I set aside an hour to read in the garden in the evening.  I ate healthily and sipped tea all day. It was glorious! It was a conscious effort and there was a lot of redirecting my monkey-mind, but as the day went on, I started to relax. Saturday, since I was on a roll,  I decided to play hooky all day . I  decided to read,  knit, draw or whatever else...

I'm in one of those phases in my life where I have  some of decisions to make; hard decisions. And I don't like it one bit lemme tell you. In order to settle myself and sort through the pros and cons, I've done a couple of larger doodles lately. I uploaded pics of them from my phone to Facebook. I save them from there and transfer them here. For some reason, when I send from my phone to my email, the picture gets partly eaten on the way. Great! Another hard decision! What new phone to get! Anyway, a dear friend who is like a sister and just moved to Texas, saw them and named them for me: Too High Falootin' To Be A  Lone Star  (Apparently, to move to the Texas, you must memorize the fact that a  Lone Star has EXACTLY 5 points. Not  3 or 4....and definitely not 6 like the abomination above. Then they beat it into you that all stars must be  the State Approved 5-pointed Lone Star. Any doodler who attempt to doodle a star other that the official ...

Just a quick drive by before I turn in for the night. Here is my Diva Challenge entry for this week. The task? To use only one tangle-Dex.  It wasn't a hardship. It's one of my favorites. Especially when I can draw it in space! 'Night All!

We were having a bit of a problem at our house with Cooper climbing the screens to catch his favorite crunchy treat, the Musca Domestica . That's the common house fly for those of us whose palet isn't as cultured as Cooper's. It's all cute-like now that he's only 3 # but will become a problem when he gets bigger. A friend told me to get a squirt gun and squirt him with it whenever he starts climbing. Didn't sound wrong. So I went to Farm and Fleet and bought the only squirt gun they sell, a little hand-held number, felt good in the hand, good grip, good trigger. $3.49 and it was all mine. I got it home, loaded it up and lay in wait for the first signs of screen climbage. As luck would have it, I didn't have to wait long. In my defense, regarding what happened next, when I was a kid (in the before times) there was one kind of squirt gun.  It was a little opaque-colored plastic pistol-usually blue or red. It took approximately 36 hours to get enough water th...

Bid'ness first. Here is my Diva Challenge for this week. The challenge was to use the tangle 'Henna Drum' by Jane MacKugler.  You can see the basic tangle here .  I usually don't like my work while I'm doing it or right after I'm doing it. I will go through old pieces later and think 'Hey, I kinda like that', but that's after my knowledge of the mistakes and things that didn't go like I thought they would have faded. This one I actually liked while I was doing it! I'm not sure why my camera makes my backgrounds have a bluish tint. This design is much more striking on the white paper it's drawn on.  Oh well. Last week was a pretty stressful week, it was nice to sit down with this and relax. Once again. The Diva ROCKS! Exciting news! Tonight I am meeting with some Madison Zentanglers in what I hope will become a regular monthly group. One of the artists will be Diane Knauff from Stone Art Angels , who I was lucky enough to have as ...

Belleville Park Bridge Dam! Damn! Big waterfall Wee Waterfall I know nothink! Geese, eh? There's one in every crowd. Goosed! Down by the riverside My brown eyed girls Sea Urchin fossils Barnacle fossils (Or as some have suggested, Reeses' Mini Peanut Butter Cup fossils! What did you do last weekend?

This week's Diva Challenge was to use a specific string (the foundation line to use as a guide to fill in the tangles).  The String looks like this  picture (which I shamelessly stole from the Tangle Pattern site. If I'm in trouble, please let me know and I'll take it down and apologize!) Anytime a string has those little loopies in it, I see 'Purk'.  They look like seed pods to me and are one of my favorites.  So I put them in both loops. I decided to 'theme' the rest of the tangle with nature designs-Sanibel in the lower right (and Purk) for plants, Rikpool by the amazing Neil Burkey, for the sea, Vauche for the animal print in the lower right hand corner and for the life of me I can't remember the one in the upper left for the stars/sky. If someone knows and could leave the name in the comments, I'd appreciate it. It's a new-ish one for me and I've been adding it to a lot of tangles lately. I also made this hummingbird on a T...

Mum is safe and sound back in the wilds of nothern Maine after a week long visit with us. I miss her already. She liked our new condo and her new grandbaby, Cooper.  He liked his MeeMaw right back. He has learned never to look at the camera from his brother, Ben. This picture was taken right before he ate MeeMaw's face off. Not really! He's a pretty gentle guy and is learning when 'playing' becomes too rough.  We had a lot of fun while Mum was here. We went garage sale and thrift store shopping and got some wicked awesome deals. We went to a couple of movies (The Heat , which was a riot, and Turbo 3D which was meh). We did some garden sitting when the weather cooled off, went to the casino where we won $400 between us and went to the butterfly exhibit at Olbrich Gardens.  Gorgeous flowers Waterfalls....(and the most camera shy butterflies in the world. Ben must have gotten to them too!) No matter what we were doing, we had a great time toge...

This week's Diva Challenge was to use two pencils tied together to draw the foundation string. I lived the concept but overdid it with mine and it's kind of muddy.  So she goes sometimes: And I'm not really sure what the Rambo artillery belt thing is doing there.... Anyway, I just whipped it up quick because my Mum has been here visiting us this week and we've had such a good time. She requested a slow and leisurely 'restful' vacation so that's what we did. We did do a few fun things like the Butterflies at Olbrich Garden, thrift store shopping, dinners with friends and a couple of movies, but mostly just spent time being together and that's the best of all. I hope you all had as great a week as I did!

This week's Challenge was a DuoTangle. You had to create a Zentangle using only two patterns; Cirquital and Opus .  If you click on the names you can see the patterns. I don't use these two patterns usually and I took a few liberties with Opus and added Cirquitals at the end of the 'branches' but it was a fun challenge! We've been pretty busy visiting with my Mum who is here from Maine. We've been to garage sales, thrift store shopping and out to supper with friends. We have salon appts, massage appts, casino runs and movies on tap for this week. But most of her time has been spent wrangling Cooper who has become super energized since he has access to food now. He's almost doubled his weight and has a little fat kitten tummy. And he NEVER STOPS...EVER.  He's a quick little bugger too. If you do happen to catch sight of him it's when he's flying through the air from point A to point B. We think he has a floor allergy. He tends to travel on th...

This week's Diva Challeng e was to use a stencil as a string.  Laura has some really amazing stencils in her Diva nest and did some beautiful tangles with them. I encourage you to head on over there and take a look.  I'll wait......I KNOW right?! I, however, have no stencils...well...except for the circle one below, so that's what I used. Not my finest hour but I do have a fairly good excuse.  I have lots of help drawing these days.  Seems the end of the Zentangle pen is just too tantalizing to resist. And the only way it can be properly attacked is at full velocity and by ambush.  I never see it coming; a tiny fuzzball randomly launches itself over my right shoulder and BANG right on the lap desk, all 1 lb. 3 oz of him, where he then proceeds to flail at the end of the pen and attempt to get it to his mouth to bite.  Any attempt to dissuade him is met with needle like milk teeth and razor sharp claws. The only way to counter the  assault...

This week's challenge was to use the pattern 'Birdy Feet'.  It's the one under the birdy's...well...feet! I wanted to tangle a card for a friend who just had surgery so I did double duty and included the challenge pattern in  it! Thanks again for another great challenge, Laura!

In THIS corner.....meet Sheldon Cooper.  He's new around here. 10 weeks old. Weighing in at 1 1/2 pounds ( if he is carrying a 1/4# catnip mouse). Skills include ambush acupuncture, shorts bursts of low-level flight and disarming his opponent with unbearable cuteness. In THIS corner....meet Bentley The Labradork He's been on the circuit for several years. Weighing in at 80# of pure lean muscle cunningly dispersed around pockets of Pupperoni and McDonald's French fries, his skills include knocking his opponent for a loop with his tail, attempting to drown said opponent under the guise of 'washing' him (after loading up in the water dish first) and 'accidentally' and nonchalantly sitting on opponents...when he's awake that is. It was an unlikely match, but Cooper was ahead the first day as Bentley was askeered of the little fella and cowered behind his business manager a lot.  But last night they united against a common enemy, the red laser do...