Tangle Tuesday

I may go back and shade inside the quib - can't quite decide!

Some tangles I used here include:

• quib
• rain
• strircles
• checkered zag
• ixorus
• pawnbridge
• screen
• checkers
• cinnamon rollz
• amoeboid
• betweed
• beadlines
• adente
• sparkler

Tangle Tuesday

It's been 6 months (exactly!) since I created a zentangle! Yesterday, I hauled out my markers, papers, and other accoutrements, and got to tangling:

Some of the tangles I used here include:

• aquafleur
• Hollibaugh
• balloja
• showgirl
• pack'd
• drop strand
• my huggie
• go 4th n multiply
• thumbprintz
• eye test
• paradox
• zigzag aura

Tangle Tuesday & Etsy SEO

It has been a long time since I tangled! My last one was August 6 - a month ago (seems like longer). I have been caught up in a beadweaving frenzy, taking projects home every weekend and beading like a fool, and after I finished the latest one last week, I needed to get back to some metal working, which isn't really a portable project (although I tried! - but there're so many tools, and chemicals, and heavy hammers, and I just don't really have the set-up space at home. Waaah!)

So I found myself with 2 whole days with nothing creative to do (and I certainly was NOT going to clean house - that's CRAZY talk!). I decided to dive back into Zentangling.

Some of the tangles I used here include:

• twisty-blob
• thumbprintz
• paradox
• checkerboard
• sponge
• go 4th N multiply
• Hollibaugh
• betweed
• seasick
• aura

Zentangling is supposed to transport you to a Zen place, and I have read blogs by other tanglers, who happily report the peace they achieve through tangling.

Me? Not so much. This one, more than any of the others I have done, was a chore.

I wanted to incorporate some color (I always want color!) - even though what initially attracted me to tangling was the graphic beauty of the simple black and white designs! My mind is such a paradox.

And I failed miserably (IMO) with my color here - I see other tangles with color, and love them, but I just can't figure out the secret. Adding just one color? Coloring the whole thing? I decided for the middle road here, and don't really care for it.

I always have a thousands thoughts at once scurrying around my brain, and couldn't shut my brain down to enjoy this tangle. I just wanted to be done - and several hours later, I started falling back on familiar, space-occupying, simple tangles like Hollibaugh and SeaSick. And voila - I quickly finished.

Not sure when I will try again.

So the tangling was on Sunday - that left Monday with nothing "fun" to do, either. So I decided to tackle something I have been putting off for a long time (no, not housework!): SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in my Etsy shop.

I think I suck at SEO, even though I have read (and read, and read) articles about SEO and Etsy. Etsy SEO is different, because you want to attract searches on engines like Google, but what works for Etsy search doesn't necessarily work outside of Etsy (for instance, the tags that are so important to search on Etsy are NOT even seen by Google). So you have to play games with your titles, your descriptions, these Etsy tags, and choose your keywords wisely - and by wisely, I mean, think like a searcher - in my case, a jewelry customer.

This is WAY harder than it sounds, at least for me - I am a very technical person, and familiar with all the terminology that jewelry designers use. It's a very comfortable little "foreigh language" - foreign in the sense that words I use to describe one of my pieces are NOT necessarily the words a customer would use to search for one of them! For instance - the most popular term used to find my Etsy shop is "kumihimo necklace", and I have several of them - but the problem is, that search term is NOT converting to sales, and I discovered that the reason is while yes, they are kumihimo necklaces, the average jewelry shopper has never heard the term "kumihimo"; hell - the majority of customers in my bead shop have never heard it, and most of the ones that have heard it, don't know how to pronounce it! So why is it the number one search term in my shop? Because other beaders are using it to find ideas for making their own kumihimo designs. Hmmm.

It's kind of like the medical field - the nurses and physicians have a whole different language to describe what's going on in the lay person's body - headache becomes "cephalgia", indigestion becomes "dyspepsia" - and so on, so it boils down to the difference between a physician writing a medical article vs. a lay person writing it - which one could you understand? And my Etsy listings are basically the same - just because I describe something as an "etched Picasso Kumihimo oval blah blah blah whatever" - doesn't make it searchable on either Etsy or Google by the average jewelry consumer. The Etsy forums tell me to look at each piece "as a shopper would look at it" - and there's the rub. I only see my process, and can no longer look at it as a "regular" person (because I am highly irregular, thank you very much.) I need a regular person to wander into my life (please!) and help me think up descriptive terms for my jewelry!!

So I spent all day yesterday re-writing my titles, descriptions, and tags - I don't think I made any real improvement. But I did change quite a few things - we'll see if it translates into sales. Fingers crossed!

And during the whole shop review, I discovered quite a few pictures I need to retake. Oh, joy. Pictures can always be improved, but I just don't know the secret - but I will spend some time trying to improve the worst offenders! Fun, fun, fun!

Tangle Tuesday

I have been crazy busy, but took time this weekend to tangle:

Some of the tangles I used here include:

• wavy
• bunzo
• bubbles
• pawn bridge
• unyun

Tangle Tuesday

Tangles used here include:

• waves
• seasick
• Hollibaugh
• op art
• over & under
• betweed
• paradox
• cracked
• static
• checkered zag
• ixorus
• pepper
• allium
• vache 1
• eye test
• adente
• plait
• w2
• hached
• pompoms

Tuesday Tangle

I took a break from beadweaving yesterday to create a new Zentangle:

Some of the tangles I used here include:

• twisty-blob
• adente
• plaited
• wisket
• stonework
• maroko
• confettus
• waltz

It's back to beadweaving for me, now!

Happy Tuesday!

Tangle Tuesday

Tangles I used in this design include:

• cracked
• checkered zag
• hached
• peaks
• queen's crown
• florz

 More pictures of new jewelry designs tomorrow!

Tangle Tuesday, and a bead show

We almost didn't have a Tangle Tuesday this week .... stay tuned for details (below). But I knew how you guys LIVE for seeing my weekly tangles, so I just had to come through for you :)

To begin with, I used something I call an "amoeboid string." It meanders around with lots of enfolding loops, similar to the pseudopodia on an amoeba. I really like the way it turned out!

Some of the tangles I used here include:

• static
• corn rows
• zewm
• waves
• warped eggs
• Hollibaugh
• aura

Last week was crazy - I was out sick Tuesday and Wednesday (sorry beaders - bead shop closed) with a killer 3-day migraine - I had it Monday, too - on my day off :(

It was one of those bad, bad headaches where it hurts too bad to sleep, and you can't concentrate. Can't watch TV, can't read, can't work on the computer. And SO much nausea. You just kinda want to die after a day or so ... much less, 3 days.

Then a crazy busy day Thursday at the bead shop, and then the bead shop was closed (again) so we could road trip to the big Franklin Gem and Mineral (BEAD!!!) show - where more craziness ensued.

It was interesting to see all the new beads, and what beads are trendy: the big thing was gemstone rounds with a "belt" of pave rhinestones set around the widest part of their circumference. These were absolutely everywhere, in every color imaginable. I finally asked one of the vendors what they were called, since I haven't even seen these in the beading magazines. He said "agate." (In my head, I said, "thanks, Sherlock") - I'm sure these trendy paved beads have a name, but you won't learn it from me! (I just searched Google, and can't even find a pic of them.) I actually thought they were the next closest thing to tacky, and didn't buy any of them. Not a single strand (which means they'll be on the front page of Bead & Button next month, and 250 people will be asking for them before the month is over.) But I got hundreds, and hundreds, and thousands, of other cool beads, focals, and findings! I'll have to take some pics and post them here!

I spent all day Saturday and Sunday restringing and pricing them, and will now be spending however long it takes to get representative samples of ALL of them put out in the shop.

So that is why we almost didn't have a tangle today - I seriously did not think I would finish on Sunday, and would be at it all day yesterday (Monday, which is my tangling day). But I was on a streak, and my DVR was storing Once Upon a Time, Revenge (2 hours!), Mad Men, and some other stuff WHILE I was watching Celebrity Apprentice (Go, Penn!) - so I just kept watching recorded stuff while stringing and pricing, and before I new it, I was on the last show (Mad Men), I priced the last strand, with 15 minutes of Mad Men left to watch - and it was 4:30AM.

Finished Mad Men (wherein Don Draper is more of a shit than EVER before), went to bed, slept very late, and finally got up. And tangled!

Have a great week - enjoy the tangle, as there most definitely won't be one NEXT Tuesday, because I am teaching a 3-day Cold Connections workshop this Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Crazy!

Tangle Tuesday

No strings - I tangled this one without drawing a string first.

Tangle Tuesday

Some tangles I used in this zentangle include:

• kurlllz
• cracked
• static
• puddles
• tri-linez
• accordion

Tangle Tuesday

This is one of my favorites so far!

Some of the tangles I've used here include:

• golven
• cirquital
• seasick
• podz
• bunzo
• groovy
• awesome overlap
• vache
• tornado

I finally got away from trying to use a tangle as a string - I kept trying to make this work, and was never thrilled with the result. I looked back through all my completed tangles, and discovered I really love these random string ones better!

My awesome overlap is too tiny - I learned it needs to have a larger scale for the details to be appreciated.

I really wanted to color in the tornado, but I wanted this tangle to be all black and white - so I'll be bringing tornado back in a future tangle, next time with color!

Tangle Tuesday

Another tangle where I used a tangle (Brigid's cross) as the string:

In addition to Brigid's cross, other tangles I used include:

• paradox twists
• foxtrot
• betweed (var)

 This one has a very geometric feel, and as I was working on it, I kept having deja vu. Once I finished it, I looked back through my other completed tangles, and saw why: it bears a striking resemblance to this one from December of last year:

It's a coincidence - I swear! Although, my brain really does gravitate towards these geometric shapes.

Tuesday Tangle

I used "That's Torn it, v1" as my string, making what looks like a stack of torn pages on top of each other, each revealing a spiraling zentangle underneath.

Tangle Tuesday

I have been exploring the use of tangles themselves as strings, and here is another attempt:

For this design, I used "Eyelet + Ribbon" as the string. This particular pattern presented my hardest challenge - trying to make it look like a ribbon coiling back on itself. I have ZERO formal art training, and no skills at 3-D rendering or perspective, so these are really hard for me. I threw 3 loops into my eyelet lace, and am not really happy with any of them. Plus, the eyelet lace effect is really lost now, with all the tangling around it - when it was the only thing on the paper, it really did look like lace (except for my pitiful loops!).

Other tangles I used here:

• punzel
• cracked
• podz
• betweed
• confettus
• zebra
• diamond net
• cables
• sponge

 I especially  like the podz (lower right corner)! I still need to work on my punzel. And cracked (lower left) was tons of fun! I just wish my lacy ribbon showed up better!

Tuesday Tangle: Mosaic Ammonites

"Mosaic Ammonites"

This zentangle was inspired by "Not Atoll," a mosaic by Sonia King. I love her mosaics, and this particular one had elements I thought would translate well to zentangling. (Her website was down at the time of this writing, so here is an alternate link to "Not Atoll").

"Not Atoll", a mosaic by Sonia King

Unfortunately, the pic of my Zentangle doesn't show the effect I achieved by using Sargent Art Metallic Markers for the blue and silver - they gave a wonderful metallic shine to the piece!

Here's a little recap of my weekend full of "Possibilities:"

Naturally, beading won out. No surprise there. I had taken home a pattern from an old, old Beadwork Magazine - I had torn the page out of the magazine way back when it came out, and the page doesn't even have the date on it. Sorry!

So this is how I spent Sunday afternoon: The pattern is called "Beaded Pillow Beads" - and basically calls for stitching up 2 peyote/herringbone triangles, and then stitching them together to make a puffy beaded bead.

This is the same pattern I played with weekend before last, but I had chosen galvanized beads, and the colors were coming off on my fingers (leaving no color on the beads!) - so I had chosen some non-galvanized beads this time.

Here is my bead:

The pattern called for making the triangles have 13 rounds; I stopped at 11 (it has to be an odd number of rounds, in order for the triangles to stitch together properly). I'm glad I stopped at 11, and didn't waste any time making these any bigger, because I'm not real thrilled with the result.

It's cute, and a clever idea, but if you look at the pics, you can pretty quickly see that these "beads" don't have any holes for stringing.

My plan had been to make 5 of them: 1 larger than this one, 2 this size, and 2 smaller, and then string them as the centerpiece of a beadwoven rope. But I don't want to mess with trying to string beads with no holes - I know it can be done, I just don't choose to. Plus, the triangles are really tricky to sew together; if you look at the last pic (click to enlarge), you can see my thread showing at the lower left, where the corner of the bottom triangle (the dark blue beads) meets the middle of the side of the top triangle - I should have pulled harder and reinforced this stitch, but I didn't see it until this macro shot called it to my attention!.

So I have a little, lone, novelty peyote puffy bead.

But wait .... there's more!

I naturally spent several hours Sunday and Monday morning on Pinterest (which was on my list of possibilities). Check!

Sunday afternoon I made the bead. Check!

Monday afternoon (hold on to your hats...) I vacuumed and mopped my whole downstairs. That's a big deal for me. I wanted to do the upstairs, but once I had finished the downstairs, I was over it.

Clean house - partial Check!

Then I spent several hours finishing my Zentangle. Check!

So I was surprisingly productive! I even squeezed in a little reading. Yay!

Now, back to work on my freeform netting, which is almost finished - double yay!

Tangle Tuesday: Moo(ka)lips - Happy Spring!

Mooka is a challenging tangle pattern for me, because of the curving lines: curved lines are hard for me to tangle with - they want to go everywhere except where I want them to go!

When I look at mooka, I see flowers; tulip buds, to be specific - Mooka looks like a tulip, waiting to unfurl. I wanted to see what would happen if I tried to use Mooka as actual flowers, and this is the result:

"Moolips"

I call this one "Moolips"- tulips made of Mooka!

Naturally, I wanted big, bold, red tulips! Tulips are my favorite flower ever. When I lived in Indiana, I used to plant hundreds of tulip bulbs every year, adding to my growing tulip explosion in the Spring, but here in the South, they just do NOT come back every year, because our winters just don't get cold enough, so I ultimately gave up (after trying for a few years). I miss them! But I still have my daffodils!


In addition to Mooka, some of the tangles I incorporated into today's Tangle include Toeter and LinQ.

green parrot tulip - do you see the resemblance to Mooka?

Tuesday Tangle

I'm still exploring all the tangle patterns out there - this one looks like a quilt to me!

I wanted to use all new (to me) patterns, but found myself falling back on some old favorites, too.

Patterns I used in this tangle:
paradox
beadz
W2 (variation)
Double Deez
crescent moon
web (do you see the spider?)
strircles
tempest blockz
fern
amoeboid

Tuesday Tangle: A River Runs Through It

A River Runs Through It

My idea was to have a zentangle "stream"  meander through my zentangle, acting as the string. So I thought, "why not use the 'River' tangle pattern as the stream? And pretty, meandering streams are blue, so let's use a blue pen for this section."

My meandering stream quickly turned into a raging river, taking up WAY more space on my paper than intended. This is a problem I keep running into (see last week's flower) - so I need to work on this!

I decided my river needed some river rocks lining its bed, and then I was left with very little space to tangle.
I put a striped, curvy Hollibaugh at the bottom, one I am calling Blockz in the middle, and then "Egyptian" at the top left. (This tangle may have another name - I don't know. I found it on a video of a master zentangling class, and the person using it called it "Egyptian" so that is what I call it, too!) In this case, now that I look at it here, it looks like the sun shining down on my River! 

Tangle Tuesday

My latest Zentangle:

I wanted to use a central tangle of some sort, and then have different tangles radiating outward from it. I'm still experimenting with different tangles, so trying to find ways to incorporate lots of different ones into my creations.

I decided to go with a central flower, and started with a cabbage rose center - I labored over what size to make the center, because I didn't want my completed flower to end up dominating the page (oops!) - I thought I settled on a perfectly sized center (any smaller, and the pattern wouldn't have shown) but by the time I added a couple of layers of petals around it, my flower was huge. Then I decided to add some leaves and tendrils. Then I got fancy and added some color.

Once the flower was finished, I added some dividing lines (strings) for the tangles, and ended up with 13 spaces to fill - this was a lot of fun. There are so many tangles I still haven't tried, and yet I ended up using a few of my favorites from previous efforts (over and under, W2, and river).

W2 is one I really struggle with - no matter how careful I am, I screw up and get the little black squares out of alignment (every time!) AND manage to get some of the other lines in the wrong place, too. In the interest of full disclosure:

The section indicated with the red arrow started out to be W2. I drew the little black squares, and they were sort of aligned. Sort of - there was a bit of a deviation where the arrowhead points. But then, I started adding (what I call) the innies and outies - the lines that alternate on the inside and outside of the little squares. And right where the arrowhead is, I screwed up (as usual) and put an innie where an outie belonged. With my sakura felt tip marker - so it was permanent. No way to fix it, so I improvised and made the weird, warped plaid-ish grid you see there now.

I don't get very zen when I tangle - I want to be precise and perfect!

Tangles I used in this doodle (not including my weird warped plaidish grid):

• paradox
• tutus and tiaras
• spearls
• tendrils
• chainging
• W2
• river
• kloonz
• tentacles
• amoeboid
• seasick
• strircles
• over and under
• slalom
• ballot
• stoic

Are you a Zen doodler, or an anal doodler? (ooh - that sounds bad)

Tuesday Tangle

I created this zentangle over several days, adding bits and pieces here and there as the mood (and time) struck. I am really enjoying using this larger watercolor paper for tangling.

I wanted to use more colors in this one, and got off to a good start, coloring the chlink and string of beads as I drew them. But my color muse left me in the lurch after that, so other than making the leaves green on my vine, I stuck with black and white.

Patterns I used in this tangle include: chlink, string of beads, lacy, paradox, aah, crescent moon, river, squid, leafy vine, galoo, waves, facets, and bunzo. The squid was an afterthought, and if I had it to do over again (and I just might, next time...) I would draw it first, before the string, and draw everything else behind it.