It's starting to look a lot like Zentangle!

I had all sorts of wonderful tangling plans for this week and those ahead.  I started strong on Monday throwing some seasonal style at a couple of Persian Mosaic triangles (please take a look at my previous post if you want to know more about the Persian Mosaic scene).

Cobalt and Deep Scarlet Pitt pens, gold pen, graphite and white chalk - and lots of Baton

But life had other ideas when I hurt my arm on Tuesday morning.  I've rested it since, and today was the first time I picked up a pen, holding it far more tentatively that usual.  I had grand plans for a Poke Leaf Wreath (trying saying that in a hurry!) for the Diva's Holidaze challenge, but needed to scale back my plans.  Instead I managed to tangle a Zenbutton on some suitably deep green pastel paper.

Tangled with Sistar fragment, Mooka, Tipple and perfs

The wreath will still be there, for another week, another year - the good thing about tangled Pokes is they never wither however little you look after them!

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When I tangle I mostly tangle for tangling sake. I rarely 'use' my tiles for anything, and I hardly ever tangle objects. When I see other people making things with their tangle art I'm suitably impressed, but that's not what I want to do on a regular basis. For me the pleasure and the benefit is tangling with no destination in mind.

But there are occasional exceptions - and I thought I'd share a few festive pieces from past years as the build-up to the Christmas season gathers pace.

I've dabbled in Zentangle inspired greetings cards for my nearest and dearest. I've cut out Baton tangled holly leaves, with vaguely Bunzo berries. I've stacked various tangles on a large parcel label and mounted it to a card. But my favourite Christmas card is this one - where I used Distress Inks to colour a tile graduating from green into red. I then tangled using the unintentionally festive LitBee alongside my own tangle Tira.

There's always a tile in a simple frame that sits on a shelf in the room where I tangle and write these posts. It's usually a recent tile, one that I'm particularly happy with - it inspires me and guides me on those inevitable days when the line wobbles and my shading smudges. Sometimes I'll frame an additional tile suitable to the season and put it on a shelf in our lounge.

Any tangle takes on the Christmas spirit if you want it to!

But last year I took the plunge and tangled a set of four coasters for use on our Christmas dinner table. I coloured tiles with Distress Ink, and then tangled in black and complimentary colour with shading and highlights. As well as varying the tangles I made sure to repeat some over all four coasters to bring the set together. These tiles were then sealed inside a set of glass coasters that I found on Amazon. A pleasingly personalised addition to our tableware, and one that we will be pulling out again this year.