Weekly Challenge #268

Good Monday morning everyone.

I wanted to say thank you for all your kind words this week.  It's still hard to believe that Angela is gone - but i know that she'll be with me my whole life. 

last Thursday i celebrated my birthday by taking myself out to see my friend Kathy's first solo art exhibit at a local gallery.

exciting!!

Her show is called "Infinite Spaces" and it features her beautiful sculptures, the pictures really don't do them justice.  

Each one of these boxes had peep holes you could look inside, and see a magical whimsical world she created.

one of my favourites

a view inside "Infinite Sadness"

A peep into a magical land

She also has been making these gorgeous doorways

And these beautiful keys.  She's currently working on making 5000 key art pieces and you can read about her journey and manifesto on her website www.5000keys.com

this was my favourite key in her show

these key 'prints' make such a rad art piece.  It may be one of my favourite from her show.

me and the keys

It was so great to go and spend time at her show - Kathy has a very special place in my heart (and on this blog) because if it weren't for Kathy asking me if i'd ever heard of Zentangle before, this blog might not even exist!!

If you're in Saskatoon, i really suggest you go and check out her show at SCYAP on 3rd Ave. ;)

On Friday my friend Jaimie asked me to go out with her to a Gem and Mineral trade show - she had won free tickets, so i said yes - because i love rocks and stones and gems.  It was so fun and i loved everything. i probably could have spent many many dollars there, if money was no object. lol.

Afterwards she suggested we go and get some supper, but then she said; "I have a great idea, let's go and get supper at Crackers, and have a few drinks and sing Karaoke!"  I haven't been to Crackers Karaoke bar in YEARS, and said sure - that would be fun.

on our way there, she suggested i text my friend Tara and see if she wanted to come too, but Tara said: "Mayyyybe" - and given that her husband was leaving the country the next morning for work, i figured she probably was busy and so i left it at that saying: "She knows where we're going, if she can make it, she will"

Like.  I must be totally oblivious to everything.  Because, it took me walking into the bar, and all the way to the back and literally STANDING in front of a table where my friends Tara and Jen were already waiting with birthday balloons and gifts to figure out that i had been Surprise Partied.

my lovely friends Jen, Tara, and Jaimie

and my friend Rae showed up as well!!

me and my friend Rae

It was a surprise Karaoke party - and guess who was the mastermind behind the whole thing?? B-rad. I have to say, i'm a pretty lucky girl.

We had so much fun - and i sang my Karaoke Jam - which is "All that Jazz"... and i killed it.  and we sang  Spice Girls, and Summer Lovin', and the girls got up and sang happy birthday to me and they brought out a cake from the kitchen - it was so awesome and i felt really and truly loved.  A real pick me up from my slumps at the beginning of the week. I was really feeling down because of grief, and it did  nothing but rain for 3 days, and my birthday was kinda ho-hum... i remember thinking that being a grown up is sucky cuz no one makes a big deal on birthdays anymore... but my friends made me feel very happy.

I have great friends.
Thank you, friends!!

FLOWERS!!!

by the weekend, the weather was nice again and i finally planted the rest of my flowers - you may remember this flowerbed from the fall - it looks so pretty full of flowers.  It really makes me so happy.  Such a nerd, i am.

The boys have also been hilarious this weekend.  B-rad and i have been talking about what kind of tattoo to get for our tenth anniversary (which was in 2014) and so Artoo said he wanted to have a tattoo of Rowlf the Dog.  What? Dude.  That would be some killer ink.  Naturally, i obliged.  Love me a Crayola Tatt.

What a badass, showing his pipes and his sweet Muppet ink.

Chewie found a new friend on our crescent and spent most of the weekend riding bikes up and down the block and playing with his new buddy - so it was lucky that he stayed still long enough for me to snap this picture of him on the swing.

My goofy boy - i love you.  And your sweet summer buzz cut. 

It's crazy to me that the boys have less than 6 weeks of school left.  Where did this year go?  Summers are so short here that it seems you wait so long for them to arrive to have them flash before you in the blink of an eye.

Weekly Challenge #268: "A bit-o-black" 
Thanks, Donald, for pointing out that my numbering was off last week. LOL. We should be back on track now.

This week's Challenge is to add a bit of black.   Just add a bit more black to your tangles in a way you wouldn't normally do.  You may find that when you add a bit of black it adds a bit more drama to your tile and makes it more dynamic!

Here's my tile:

fancy

For my tile i just used a simple "X" string, and used 4 tangles that are my go-tos.  From the top clockwise they are: Ennies, Shattuck, Hollibaugh, and Tripoli.

How i added black:
Ennis - i coloured in all the bits of space between my small circles
Shattuck - i added black to the first 'stripe' of each 'fan'
Hollibaugh - i rounded the corners and filled them in with black
Tripoli - i like to draw circles inside my triangles - but usually i fill them in with black and leave the spaces white - so i switched it up and filled in the spaces and left the circles white.

It should be really interesting to see where you all add your black bits - to see how that changes the tangles and gives them more OOMPH!!

Have a great week, everyone.  Have fun with this one!

Love Laura

If you have a blog or host your images on line (like on Flickr or Picassa or Pinterest), add the site-specific URL where your tile is posted to the linkey machine below! Don't forget to link back here so that others can join in the fun! (if you don't know how to find this, you can see my half assed tutorial here) Also, please feel free to come back often and visit the links of those people on the linkey machine - don't forget to leave a comment or feedback, everyone loves feedback. ;)