dramatic browns

  I have a mini-tutorial for you this week!

  For this week of Joey's challenge, we had to use the pattern, "Frames". I saw possibilities with it, but felt that I could simplify its step-outs further... Here's the tile that I created for the challenge.

  And here's the mini-tutorial on how I drew a simplified version of "Frames", if you'd like to learn.

  Other than that, I've been super excited to show you what Debra Huff did to the embedded letter tile I sent her a while back. This was, of course, for the Travelling Tangles Project. Here's my start:

  And here's how Debra finished it:

  Absolutely stunning, isn't it? There are so many tiny details, I keep finding new things each time I look.

  I'm finally back to creating videos.... I have upcoming videos already completed. So if you're not subscribed to my YouTube channel yet, you totally should. And if you live in Singapore, you should totally come attend a weekly Zentangle class with me. May is going to be the last month that I'm teaching as I'll be going for my maternity leave from June onwards. Find out more about my classes, via this link.

  As always, thanks for dropping by. I'll see you next week, and until then, keep tangling!

a bouquet of Mookas

  For this term of my weekly classes, I've been teaching my students how to draw Mooka. So I think that explains why it's popping up so often in my personal art works... I've been having great fun teaching this month's classes, and I can't wait to convert those classes into online classes.

  This was what a student did in her sketchbook as homework:

Very lovely.

  Here are my tiles for this week's Zentangle challenges. Joey asked us to use Relly-Telly-One. The Diva asked us to use Shattuck and Tripoli. I kept things really simple this week, letting shading take centre-stage.

   Some Travelling Tangles Project tiles:

with Beth Detzler

With a six-year-old kiddo by the name of "Jazz White".
I coloured the tile rainbow colours, cause' every kid loves a rainbow.

  A Cubine tile from Michele Werner...

Before

After

  Lastly, a tile that was created as a thank you present for someone.   :)

  The background was done using Peerless watercolours. The gold accent was done using Finetec paints. Featuring a bouquet of Mookas, Printemps, and Diva Dance Waltz. I'm so pleased with how this tile turned out.

  Thanks for popping by. I'll see you next week. :)

Review of Paperless Post

  If you've been reading my weekly posts, you'd know that I'm currently pregnant. How exciting, I know. :) I've just crossed the six months mark and if all goes according to plan, I should be due on the 13th of July 2018.

  One of my best friend, Hush, decided to plan a baby shower for me. Funny thing; the Chinese do a "full month celebration" or a "100 days celebration" for the baby, so I thought that baby showers were the Western version of that. Apparently not. Baby showers celebrate the parents and happen BEFORE the baby is born. Who'd have thought.

  I've got catering done. Balloons will be bought. Decorations have been planned. Now I just needed a way to send out invitations. It just happened that I discovered a company called "Paperless Post" to do just that. Paperless Post creates e-invitations to any events that you might have. This was a great option for me because I didn't want to send out physical invitations, but just sending a text message to my guests seemed a little too casual. Electronic invitations seemed like the perfect in-between.

  Paperless Post has beautiful design templates, with an easy-to-use interface. And the best part is, people can RSVP directly through the invitation- no more phone calls or text messages needed. I can also see that this would be great if you have an informal gathering for cocktails, or a really large event like a wedding, or if you didn't want to contribute to paper wastage.

  To start, you can use your Facebook or Google account to sign into the website, or you can create an account. You can then go ahead and add email addresses to your "Address Book".

The red arrow is where it's at.

  After that's done, you'll get to the fun part- designing your own invitations!

  There's so many designs to choose from, for so many different occasions... Birthday parties, weddings, happy hour get-togethers (that sounds fun)...

  I was glad that the baby shower invitations were not all pink or blue, or gender reveals... I never liked the idea of that. My baby shower's theme was going to be teal-white-gold-coral.

Literal baby shower? hehe

I liked this coral-gold combination.

 There were storks, and flowers, and animals... In some designs, you could even upload your own photos. Lots of designs were really pastel and soft, and I'm a more... *coughs* loud, sort of person... So I picked this design:

  You can change everything from the text that's written on the invite, to the fonts, the sizes of the words, the colours of the words... You can even add a backdrop for your card. One thing I wished you could do, is to have multiple boxes, so that you could add texts in a staggered fashion rather than align left/centre/right only. 

  After that, you get to choose an envelope and a liner. For an additional coin, you get to pick your own stamp design.

  What's this "coin" thing I'm mentioning? It's a virtual currency that you use to buy the designs on Paperless Post. After you've finished designing your invites, the site will tell you how much it'd cost per invite, and then you can use the currency to purchase however many invites you need.

  You can also add additional "pages" should you need to tell your guests how to get to the venue, or when to arrive, or whether food/drinks will be served. Here's how mine looked like:

  After you've done the invitation design, (and that took me forever in its own right... there are literally so many design options to choose from...) you get to fiddle with how you want your guests to reply. I discovered that you could ask for their mailing address, which seemed like a great option if you were having a wedding and wanted to figure out how many people would be free to attend it before you ordered physical invitations to send via post.

  I just picked the RSVP option, so guests could just click "will attend" or "will not attend". Paperless Post then got me to fill out a form that included the event's name, venue of the event, date and time of the event... and then it gave me the option to include my phone number for the guests to reach me, and also an additional box if I wanted to ask them a question. (I asked whether they would bring additional guests.) Here, you can also get guests to give you their mailing address, add a comment, and you can even include a gift registry.

  After that, you click "Next" and it's just a matter of making sure everything looks good by clicking on "Preview Invitation". If all looks swell, you can import your contacts from your address book, and then send out to e-invites to your guest list. There's even an option to send yourself a test email.

  I checked and re-checked, and double re-checked the card to make sure all the details were correct... and then finally hit the "send" button. I sent one invite to myself just to see how it'd look like on the guests' side. I was very pleased. The cards that I had spent so long creating were there. The last card told guests to reply below. After you scrolled down, you'd see the date and time and venue of the event. You could even click a button to get directions on Google maps to the event. And you could send a message to the host by clicking another button. And the little buttons for "will attend" and "will not attend" would follow you as you scrolled down the page. Great attention to detail.

(Address blocked out for obvious privacy reasons..)

  After you click "send", Paperless Post directs you to a page with a list of all your guests, and whether or not they have replied. An easy way to check on how many guests will be attending, and whom you need to check-in with as the event date draws closer.

(Emails blocked out for privacy reasons. Mine is shown, because it's all over this blog, so it's not like it's a secret.)

  Oh, and... If you're a more traditional letter-by-post sort of person, I happened to find out that Paperless Post has a sister site that sells actual physical invitations. Find out more here: https://www.papersource.com/

  I'm beyond thrilled at how the invites turned out. Now, I just need to wait for all my guests to RSVP. All in all, I would use Paperless Post again... I even have remaining credits. They also do "thank you" cards, but I'll be creating mine by hand and gifting them my guests on the day of the baby shower. Perhaps I'll do a Christmas card for this year.


  Expect pictures of the baby shower. :)  I have a couple of cute things planned.

  I'm excited. A new chapter of my life. It feels surreal, at times. Or I'll forget that I'm pregnant, and then I'll feel the baby kick and then be reminded. Stephanie: Artist, Certified Zentangle Teacher, daughter, wife, and now soon-to-be mother... I can't wait to see what the future holds.

a splash of colour

Here's my sketchbook page for this week's Joey and Diva Challenge. The Diva wanted us to use our hands to create a string, and Joey wanted us to use the tangle "Breach". I added Flux and Crescent Moon. The background was created using Finetec paints. The white pen is a Uni-ball Signo Broad.

  In a similar fashion, I created some Bijous with my Finetec paints to complete last week's of Joey challenge. We had to use Mak-Rah-Mee, which is a lovely tangle. I added lots and lots of Mooka to the tile, draping outwards and downwards.

  For Travelling Tangles, I completed a tile sent to me from Jules Mack.

  I added Fe-Ba as a background to try to echo her flowers. I think it worked well.

  I also sent out my tiles for April's Kite Swap. I created hand-made envelopes for this swap, and had a lot of fun with it.

(Addresses have been blurred out for privacy purposes.)

  Here's a mosaic from one of the classes I taught last week. :)

The bottom left tile that has no shading is mine.
The top right tile was done by an adult. The other two were done by kids.

  And lastly, here is a page from my sketchbook of a flower I drew in ballpoint (Biro) pen. Lots of fun.