Ratoon and a gem

  So how did your Christmas/Hanukkah/holiday season go?

  We went to four different parties; three of which, Charlotte attended, too. She loved the attention, the presents, the food... Mostly the food. Cause she just started on solids, and it's been great for her.

  Here's the happy bub.

  On the creative front, I've been having lots of fun experimenting with new materials and ideas. Debbie New gifted me some pastel papers that I cut down to a variety of sizes. And since the papers are quite dark, I've taken to using my Gansai Tambi gold paints on them.

  Here's the white gold on a dark brown paper, that I then tangled on:

  And here's the yellow gold on a lighter grey paper, with my tangle "Naida" on it:

  Debbie New also lent me her set of gem and pearl colours... I had this idea in my head where I could create blobs and then colour them in, and have them look like stained glass. The results weren't quite what I had in mind... But here it is:

  In that same watercolour sketchbook, I created this beauty:

Lovely colours, if I do say so myself. ;)

  In mid-December, I found out that Pat Floerke, a close Zentangle friend of mine, had passed away from a tragic accident. We were asked to create tiles to send to her family. This was my contribution...

  I chose a Zendala tile because the first tile that Pat sent to me on Travelling Tangles Project was a Zendala. I splashed some watercolour on it, and added some gold paint...

  Then tangled, shaded it, and added some white highlights.

  Pat will be fondly remembered and dearly missed.

  With Travelling Tangles, I also completed this tile from Kim-Geck Lim. Debbie New had taught a Whatz-Itz class, so I applied what I learnt to that tile.

  Love the red accents.

  Zentangle HQ also recently released a new tangle to Certified Zentangle Teachers. They've called it "Ratoon". Here's a tile I did featuring it with a gemstone.

  Thanks for popping by to take a look at what I've been up to the past few weeks. Perhaps I'll see you again soon. :)

My Christmas/New Years Cards For 2018

  I'm Eurasian- half French, half Singaporean Chinese... And let's just say my family is really mixed. My mother is Chinese with Christian leanings. My godmother is a black women whom is Jewish. One of my favourite uncle is African Muslim. I married into a Catholic family. And both of my best friends are Christian. I also have another uncle and a dear friend whom are both atheist.. So the holiday season is a little crazy for me... Some people get Christmas cards. The rest get New Years cards because they don't celebrate Christmas.

  But I love making hand-made cards. It's time-consuming but it's a labour of love. I also think in this electronic era, where people often opt to send text messages to say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy New Year", a hand-made card is all the more treasured.

  So here are all the cards I made this year for the important people in my life. I thought you might be inspired by them, somehow.

  What I'm showing you are tiles that I then slipped into plain square cards, and then I wrote messages inside the cards. So, for example... This is the tile I created....



  And then on a plain dark blue card, I drew Flux using a white pen, then used a penknife to cut slits along the Flux... Then I slipped the tile into those slits.


  And then I stuck a white tile on the inside of the card, so that I could pen down a message. :)


  Here are the rest of the tiles I created:

  The backgrounds were created using my faux watercolour technique with Tombow's dual brush markers. Here's a link to a video tutorial on how to create your own faux watercolour background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GSeyh3CBeQ

  If you'd like to learn how to draw gemstones, I also have a playlist of tutorials right here.

  The gold paint is Kuretake's Gansai Tambi paints. Shading was added using Derwent's Coloursoft coloured pencils. And the white highlights were added using a Uni-ball Signo Broad pen.

  I hope you're having a great December... I know the end of the year can be a little crazy for some of us, but I also think it's great to remember that the holidays are about spending time with the people you love... making goals for the upcoming year... and being grateful for the wonderful memories you've made in the past year.

  May 2019 be your best year yet.

Much Love,
Stephanie