Molly Bee's Attic

This week's Diva Challenge was to use a spiral as your string. I use spirals a lot so this was a very relaxing break for me! Thank you again for a wonderful challenge, Laura!

I'm kinda cheating on this week's Diva Challenge. I was working on this Ben Kwok Celtic Cross template for St. Patrick's Day before the challenge came out to make a St. Patrick's day inspired work. But I finished it today and I like the way it came out so I am entering it. Celtic Cross for St. Patrick's On March 10th, my Grammie celebrated her 102 birthday! Here she is in the tiara she was awarded for being Valentine Queen a month ago. 102 and she's still got it! One of her great joys is getting mail, so I put the word out to my friends all over the planet, asking them to send her a card.  They came through big time. Here is a small sampling of the cards. She enjoyed every single one and marveled at the far flung places that they were mailed from. Thank you to all who participated. You really make her day! Spring on the farm wasn't so spring-y on Sunday. 10° and a hearty gale made it downright miserable weather-wise.  Frances was sm...

Last night I joined a meeting with other animal enthusiasts, DNR personnel, and herpetologists to make a plan  to protect some local, endangered salamanders. It seems that in the Wisconsin autumn,   Eastern Tiger Salamanders  trundle out of the bogs and fens, climb up to the higher grounds of the surrounding hills , tunnel down into the soil and wait out Old Man Winter. But in spring... well in spring a young salamander's thoughts turn to love, and they stampede down the hills in droves, back to the swamp to well...er... you know ...♫ Birds do it... bees do it...even educated fleas do it.♫   It's the circle of life....except for one small problem. Seems we pesky humans laid a highway between point A (the hill) and point B (the wetland) hence creating an epic, non-video, game of Frogger  which, ironically, salamanders are really bad at and hardly ever win. So for a couple of weeks in March/April, depending on when they decide to raise their sleepy h...

This week's Diva Challenge was to use Erin Olson's tangle "Charlie". Charlie is based on the t shirt that Charlie Brown wears on Peanuts. I've used it a couple of times, but not a lot because it feels 'jarring' to me and reminds me of electricity.  Because of that I decided to make an electric fence guarding the fields and flowers! Thanks for another great challenge Laura!!!!!

This week's challenge was to use some of the gridded patterns but not make the grid lines straight and the boxes even. Piece of cake for me since I can't draw a straight line to save my soul.  Here is my entry: And here are my meeting notes from a particularly inspiring meeting last week. Don't worry, I take real notes too, but doodling while listening really increases my focus. It keeps the artsy side of my brain entertained while the listening side of my brain is doing it's thing. But anyway,  you can see that I use curvy grids in this one and almost all of my tangles. I love to tangle in compartmentalized way, in the grid, but I don't like it to be too uniform. Sigh.  I am nothing if not an enigma wrapped up in a mystery, shrouded in a conundrum.  Thanks again, Laura for a wonderful challenge!!!

I haven't been able to get to the Diva's Challenge for a few weeks now and I've missed it. I check every week to see what it is, which just makes it worse I think. But things have calmed down a bit at Chez Bee so this is my week to jump back in the pool!  This week's challenge was to leave some open space in your tangle. I am not an open-space leaver by nature. I like to cram every available inch with inky goodness so this was indeed a challenge for me. Here is my entry. In other recent  works.... This is what I mean by cramming every inch of the tile. Friend and Zentangle teacher extrordinaire, Sara MacGregor turned me on to the joys of tan tiles and brown pens. The highlighting is graphite,soapstone and white charcoal. I really liked the richness in the result. Sorry about the blurry pic. This one is a commissioned piece for a friend I used to babysit back in the before times. It's a gift for her mum so Shhhhhh.  And with all of the recent cra...

It's a hard life, the life of Bentley. First you are feeling kind of punky and the next thing you know you wake up in a strange place with a foot-long zipper of staples in your belly. You've now traded feeling punky for being sore and tired. Your Mum makes you stay off the furniture. She says it's for your own good, so you won't hurt your incision, but you know it's all a plot to finally convince you to stay off the sofa that she's been battling with you about for years. And the piece de resistance is 'the cone of shame'. Your belly is shaved. Your front paws each have a shaved bracelet around them. You look like an idiot and  then she goes and winds a plastic satellite dish around your neck every time you are out of her sight.  What gives??? The worst part of the cone of shame isn't the fact that you can't gnaw on your toys or get a drink of water with it on. It's not even the fact that it's clear plastic so you can't see it and ke...

This Groundhog's Day was not a routine day at all! And I'm thankful that I don't have to repeat it like Bill Murray did in that movie that time. It started on Friday night. Bentley ate his supper. We played with his penguin toy for a while and then he laid down for a snooze like he always does. About 8:oo PM, he got up with difficulty and just stood there. I asked him if he wanted to go out and he very slowly made his way to the door. The stairs seemed to present a problem and he seemed wobbly. Given his history of knee problems, I thought he'd maybe hurt one of them or something. He got up the stairs to bed but then lay down in a way that was atypical for him. Huh. Weird. I got up several times in the night to check on him and he was sleeping but I could wake him so I thought whatever it was could wait until morning. At around 5:oo AM he needed to go out and it was evident at that point that something was very wrong. I sat with him and waited for the vet to open at 8...

This week's Diva Challenge was to choose a word for the year. Laura (The Diva her own self, doncha know) chose the word 'Open'. And then tangle around it.  I pondered what my word should be.  What do I aspire to in 2014?   How do I boil  'For-The-Love-Of-God-Woman-Calm-Down-Relax-Let-It-Go-Let-It-Be-It-Is-What-It-Is-Take-A-Moment-To-Look-Around-You-And-Enjoy-Your-Blessings-And-Be-Present'  into one word? Then it came to me. Breathe.  Just...breathe.  It's the most basic instruction of our existence, both physically and emotionally. Just breathe. You are enough. You are all you need to get through whatever trial is going on. Just be quiet, center yourself and breathe.   Thanks so much for this week's insightful challenge, Laura!

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I did. My Mum came out for a couple of weeks to spend the holidays with us. It was a great visit with lots of rest and relaxation on order! Sure is quiet around these parts without her. I'm back in the saddle as far as the Diva Challenges go. Her first challenge was to use the Happy New year theme. Ta Da. I know...the color kind of freaks me out as well but the New Year is a festive time, no? I did another design first which I didn't like so I didn't post it. That's new for me to since I promised to post my first challenge attempt. My new New Year's Resolution is not to make those kind of promises! I'm going through a rebellious devil-may-care phase in my life right now! I also did my first Ben Kwok template.  Ben is a sweet guy who makes animal templates that are broken down into a grid of segments that you can tangle in. It felt kind of like coloring for grown ups.  I did Mr. Squirre...

I was looking at my Christmas tree (or what remains of it after the force which is Hurricane Cooper) and noticed an ornament made out of sewing thread spools. I thought it might make a good tangle. I see lots of potential with this one! I hope you enjoy it! If you use it, please drop a link in my comments so I can see your creativity!

I can't believe it's been a month since I wrote an entry. Life has been going one hundred miles an hour and things slide. I'll have to be better about updating in 2014. Can you believe it's just around the corner? We put up the Christmas tree last weekend. This is really an outside decoration. I put it up inside for the first time 5 years ago as a kind of joke when I didn't have the spirit or inclination to go get a real tree. I kind of liked it because it's clean and simple yet cheery and you can see all of the ornaments.  But when I posted this picture on Facebook when we first put it up, it was met with resounding snickers and name calling. The 'Charlie Brown Christmas Tree' was referenced several times.  After dark I took another picture to try and convince  folks that it was better lit up. Let's just say people were still not convinced.  But once the ornaments are all on, it 'lights up like a Christmas tree' I think. We ...

A lot of people have asked me about my 'artistic process'.  How do I come up with the ideas to draw?  I laugh...to myself so as to not be rude of course. I don't consider myself an artist. I don't have a process. I learned about repetitive drawing by reading about Zentangles online. My process is this: I have a head full of mind monkeys, swinging from the mental chandeliers and flinging their own poo.  I draw repetitive patterns to lull them into a banana-sated siesta in their little hammocks among the limbs, twigs and branches where they otherwise spend their time maniacally jumping to conclusions and teetering precariously the edge of reason. That's my  entire 'process'-monkey anesthetization! Case in point, I've been more than a wee bit angsty over the last week or so, so I wanted to start a project that would take a while. It should be repetitive but not too repetitive, large but not too large, detailed but not too detailed, difficult but not...

My daddy loved money and the art of the deal. There was nothing he liked better than buying something, and reselling it for a little profit. It was his hobby and his joy. He also collected coins. When he passed away on April 1, 1999, my Mum gave me a bank that he had received for a gift many years before. It is a plain wooden box, but the front has one of the old fashioned post office mailbox doors that had the little dial combination lock that is all letters.  Spin the lock to letter G, reverse direction and pass G stopping on letter B.  Now forward until you get to the space between L and M.  It's pretty awesome and reminds me of Daddy every time I see it. As soon as I received it, I started hording all of my change and putting it in there. I go to the bank on November first (Daddy's birthday) and April 1st (his death date) and turn it in. The combination bank is pretty full by then, but the night before bank day finds me scrounging for every ...

Made the annual pilgrimage to Pewett's Nest on Sunday. It was an amazingly beautiful day. The trail was perilous. Good thing I had friend, Scott, along to clear the way!  We hiked into the lower falls first.  I could listen to the sounds all day long.  Then we went to the upper falls. I've never seen the water this low and we were able to hike in the ravine bottom right up to the falls themselves. Here is Scott after he bullyed a rude and surly photographer out of the way. (People were lined up to take a pic of the falls and he was standing IN it, taking close up pics of leaves for over 20 minutes!) It was about 2:30PM-ish and the play of light through the trees was magical Deep reflections....  and sunbeams abound.  Beside the still water. It's one of those mystical places that always restores my soul to visit. On the way home, we went to apple orchards and snacked on cider donuts. All and all it was a beau...

While I was home this time, I noticed the pattern on the chenille bedspread that my Mum had on the guest bed. Below is the pattern. I called it Hastings because I wrote it down on the day that my cousin, Rhonda and I slogged through a muddy woods road and ATV trail to get to Hasting's Falls in the northern Maine woods. I've included pictures of the falls afterward. Totally worth the slog! Enjoy! Hastings  Hastings and variations Upstream from the falls-stair steps! Hastings Falls-at the top  Hastings Falls-over the edge! (25 foot drop) I might be biased but I think there is no place more beautiful on the planet that the lands in the shadow of Mount Katahdin!

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...