Monday, August 10, 2015

It's a String a String Thing" #104 Very Happy Birthday Tiles

Happy Birthday!

Thank you all for making this second birthday of "It's a String Thing"so very special.

Thank you for reading, following, participating, and sending encouraging and supportive emails over the past fifty-two weeks and beyond.

It is a privilege, week after week, to be on the receiving end of your works of art as well as your personal notes and updates.

In a conversation with Maria Thomas, I commented that Zentangle® attracts the nicest of people.
She readily agreed and then added, "Perhaps Zentangle makes the nicest of people."

My experience over the past four years would support either theory.

So, from the nicest of people, here are the entries for this second birthday - along with a little surprise. What would a birthday be without a little surprise?

Just for fun, I posted  first birthday tiles from last year under this year's tiles sent in by the ten artists who've participated in both celebrations.

I have enjoyed studying them and admiring the development of individual styles over the past twelve months.

Here are the birthday gifts for all of us to enjoy ~

From Lily (Hungary) ~
...here is my tile for your weekly challenge.
Happy Second Birthday!



From Sarah Antoinette (Michigan) ~
Hello from Sarah at hungrycorgistudio. And wishing you well on this anniversary!
In celebration of this anniversary I picked a colored tile and attempted all three tangles. Meringue is going to take some more practice, but it's coming along. The string was a challenge! But I did it and it's great to get through a technical part like that. Happy Birthday, and wishing you another year of great challenges to share with us!

From CZT Joan Delony (Florida) ~
Happy 2nd birthday. Congratulations on the success of Tickled to Tangle.






From Annie Taylor (Spain) ~
Lovely tangles and string to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of 'A String Thing '. I have been unable to do the challenge in the last couple of weeks due being busy but really enjoyed this one. I was a bit worried it might look Christmassy as I chose to keep the String obvious, but Meringue is a candle flame and Prestwood has a wonderful melting look to it.. and so I had no choice at all. In red and green and gold, I could imagine a nice Christmas card. But not this week... it's just far too hot here!
Happy Anniversary and here's to many more.




A very warm welcome to Randi Robinson (West Virginia) ~

Challenge 104 using Drupe, Meringue, Prestwood, and Ahh. Ahh felt right for a celebration.


From Sabrina (Lammi , Finland) ~
Here is my tile for your two years anniversary of Its a string thing. Congratulations!!:) I posted it also on my blog  :)


From Linda (UK) ~
Happy 2nd Birthday Drupe was a new tangle for me and I enjoyed having a go with it. Wasn't happy with my finished tangle, it seemed incomplete somehow, so I sneaked some Fescu and Msst in.




From CZT Lucy Banta (New Jersey) ~
Happy Birthday to It's a String Thing! Quite the accomplishment to achieve 100+ challenges and two years of challenging the tangling works. Thank you.
Here's my tile [and on]  my website
Loved the tangles you selected!





From Anita A Westin (Dalarna, Sweden) ~
What a challenge! I really didn´t know what to do with it. I couldn´t avoid to see the two candles in the middle. So this one has up and down. Which a pure zentangle shouldn´t have I guess. First I tried to make a colored tile. But that one didn´t work at all. I was planning at that was a mistake. Then I nearly gave it all up. But to give it up is nothing that suits me so I Went on to it once again and kept the black-and-white-style. I am afraid it is a little bit hard shaded But this is what came out. Did I tell you: I love challenges. Especially when I have to struggle with it!

A very warm welcome to Ana (Spain) ~
Since i'm a very beginner one, this is my first attempt at one of your challenges, although I follow your blog every week.
I think challenges are a great way to improve ¡¡
Thank you so much


From Lisa Preston (Georgia) ~
Wow, the 102 and 103 string things were awesome. I always feel so blah when I see what other people come up with! There is so much incredible vision out there.
Last night I had a free evening - no hubby! So I got to do this in one sitting. I would consider myself a purist for the most part (black and white, no color), but I was very curious to do a Zentangle with a fountain pen, because I love the quality of the inked lines that come out. I think my nib was too broad (for my taste), and, yeah, I went for the obvious. But as someone else pointed out, after you let your tile sit overnight, it really has a tendency to grow on you. No shading this time because of the turquoise ink. I like it, but I think I'm going back to my Microns. As far as tangles go, I particularly liked Drupe this time around.
Happy Birthday, IAST. I'm so happy I found you. And thank you, Adele, for the weekly fun!

From Michele Wynne (California) ~
Congratulations on another It's a String Thing Milestone. Here's my birthday card. This one was quite enjoyable though I really didn't think outside the box. The patterns were perfectly chosen for this string.
I've not used any of them before and was delighted by Margaret Bremner's "Prestwood". I've seen it before on several of her tiles and it's always a standout, yet I've never explored it before.
The challenge here was "Drupe", just trying to figure out how to make it sing. When all was said and done it ended up reminding me of fireworks which seemed perfect.
Thank you for this invaluable source of inspiration. I've gone into a little more detail on my blog


From Jesse Plouffe (Connecticut) ~
Hello and happy 2nd birthday to It's a String Thing! I decided to
modify the string in order to accommodate Prestwood as the border. I
placed Drupe in the bases of the candles, and used the Tipple portion
of Meringue as the flame.


From Tina Kirchhübel (Germany) ~
Happy Birthday "It's a String Thing"!
Because it's the 2nd anniversary, I wanted that the Candle-String really looks like birthday candles. And I hope I have succeeded.
Every week your challenge brighten up my day and I look forward to the next years.



From Linda Goncalves (Pennsylvania) ~
As usual I am not sure that I have actually gotten the tangles "right". Sometimes I do alter them on purpose but this time I struggled to follow the how-to directions. I also had much trouble deciding where to place the tangles in the string. I settled with this because it looks like a wrapped present to me. Maybe a box of bonbons. Happy Second Birthday!! I am so thankful to be part of this Tangling Journey. 


A very warm welcome to Jennifer Sparrow, CZT (North Carolina) ~
I'm a newcomer to your challenge! This is my first posting. (I did the last few strings; just didn't get them in on time!) I love the structure of your challenges. Reading them always put me back in the magic of the CZT seminar (last month!). I love seeing how we all have different perspectives and ways of expressing ourselves.
Wishing you all the best,



From Karin (Germany) and a very happy birthday to her as well! ~
this challenge was a very special one for me!
When I drew the string I immediately knew where to fill in which pattern. Then I have noticed that you will post the tiles on monday and that´s my birthday so that made it even easier and I tangled the candles both for the second birthday of your challenge and to celebrate my own birthday.
When I finished my tile and started shading I realized that I made a mistake when tangling “Drupe”… I just forgot step 2… so it didn´t look so much 3D as I wanted.
Last year (a few days after my birthday) I bought my first book about zentangle and started trying. So I thought I could draw another tile for my own “zentangle birthday”. I just changed the positions of prestwood und Meringue
Somehow I got the feeling of drawing a halo and I really had lots of fun with prestwood.
Many thanks for this week´s adventure!



From Beth Gaughan (NC) ~
Congratulations and happy anniversary greetings for your weekly tangle challenge!
These patterns were all new to me. I quite like Drupe! Meringue kept wanting to look like a cornstalk but I hope I brought it out of the cornfield.
Thanks for the challenge!


From Henrike (Germany) ~
Happy anniversary, dear Adele,
I hope you’re going to continue “It’s a string thing” for many more years. Even if I don’t paticipate very regularly I always like to come back. I especially appreciate that you take the time and effort to handle all the emails, look at every single tile and give a comment in your blog. It’s also very special that no blog or account of any kind is required to paticipate. And – most important – the results are not published before everyone is finished. This makes it possible to tangle an uninfluenced tile for everyone.
So – thank you again. And here comes my tile...



From Ragged Ray (UK) ~
Happy 2nd Birthday to your wonderful challenge!
Two candles, surrounded by a halo of Drupe - one side filled with Meringue, the other with Prestwood. Two tangles that I'm not that comfortable with, but like a whole lot more having used them this week.
Thanks for another year's worth of encouragement, inspiration and visual awe. Here's to the next one!




From Ilse Lukken (The Netherlands) ~
Congratulations to 2 years It's a String Thing, and thanks for all the work you put in...
This week's tile is on my blog as well 


From Elisa (Paris - France) along with a very happy birthday! ~
Thank you for your warm welcome last week. Here is my contribution to celebrating the second anniversary of your challenge. I find it cool that my second participation coïncides with this birthday! I discovered zentangle a few month ago together with a couple challenges on the web. These are great opportunities to learn new patterns.
The 3 patterns we had to use here were new to me: I had lots of fun with all three. In addition to the 2 candles, you will easily notice how my association of Drupe and Meringue turned out looking like 2 flowers...



From Susan Theron (South Africa) ~
This is a "gagga"-tile. From an artistic point of view I don't like it. I did not know where to put which tangle and would like to see what the other participants did.
On my blog




From Emily Shelton (Kentucky) as posted on her website ~
I won't necessarily say "Congratulations" to Adele Bruno for starting her 3rd year with the "It's a String Thing Challenge." Mostly I'll say "thank you." It's a lot of work to come up with the challenges, respond to the submissions and blog out the results.
To celebrate the challenge's 2nd birthday, Adele challenged us to use a new string she came up with for the occasion and to incorporate as many of the following challenges as we'd like:
Drupe by Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts
Meringue by Kelley Kelly, CZT and
Prestwood by CZT Margaret Bremner.
I also used:
Abundies by Hanny Waldburger
Inapod by Carole Ohl and
Heartfully by Helen Williams



From Cathy Cusson ~
Love this string!! I think I may use it to decorate some birthday cards I need to do. I also love all of the tangles you chose! Great picks! It provided a tiny zen moment in all the school prep I am trying to do!




From Judy Wanner, CZT (Pennsylvania) with "Love and Big Hugs" ~




From CZT Margaret Bremner (BC, Canada) ~
And congratulations! It takes commitment and effort to keep a weekly thing going for an extended period. Well done.
Truth be told, I'm not thrilled with either of my offerings. I did two as I wanted to use all three tangles and they weren't fitting into the first tile I started!
The tile with Drupe in the background uses a classic Prestwood for the candles. The other tile uses a variation of Prestwood (on the right side) that I've been using a lot recently.
Many happy returns of the day... year... years to come!





From Jenny Hopkins (Australia) ~
Congratulations on two years of fantastic challenges. Another truly great achievement appreciated by so many of us.
I enjoyed this challenge. I can see why the tangles have been among previous favourites. They were all new to me and I enjoyed drawing them. They worked well with the string although I can't imagine being able to rotate the tile in any other direction. I look forward to seeing how clever everyone else has been.



From Portia Hyde (Michigan) ~
This definitely has an up and down but aren’t rules meant to be bent? Happy Birthday?



From Beverly G (Texas) ~
Happy 2nd Birthday Adele! Congrats on previous successes and on all future successes.
Birthdays always call for bright happy colors so I decided to pull out my sparkly gel pens. This was the perfect string and perfect tangles for this challenge.
 my link 


From Sue Agnew (Arizona) ~
Happy birthday! What a fun two years this has been!
I looked back at my one-year-birthday tile and realized I'd used Meringue for the candle flame, so I knew I couldn't do that again. I enjoyed doing Meringue with the added "pearls" because it reminds me of one of my favorites, Inapod. For Drupe, I didn't like giving up quite so much "real estate" to the dividers, so I did it similar to Ixorus, where you put one parallel line along the intersecting lines (and I used three intersecting lines instead of four, because I thought it made a more gracefully shaped oval). I haven't previously done much with Prestwood, so it was fun to get to know it. What a great birthday celebration!




From Sharyn Penna (Massachusetts) ~
Happy birthday String Thing Prompts!
Such a fun string and tangle mix this week. I've played a bit with Prestwood recently ... I really love Margaret Bremner's v2 of her tangle.
The last week of August my family celebrates summer's unofficial end with a New England clam 'n lobstah dinnah ... This tile reminds me of a lobstah! Wishing you sunny summer skies as the season slowly comes to a close. Cheers! 

From Becky Welty (North Carolina) ~  "Two candles."




From Marla Mendenhall (California) ~
I once had a painting teacher who, after passing by my easel week after week and seeing the same canvas with, to his eye, little significant change, would take my painting, store it in the locker and tell me it was done. "You're noodling," he'd say, and hand me a fresh canvas. (What? Didn't he see I'd changed the aquamarine to cobalt, and what about the shape of the highlight?)
Well, I fear I may have noodled this tile. While I rejoice in the celebration of this memorable event, I seemed to be lacking inspiration this week (perhaps my muse was on vacation). Drupe struggled deciding where it wanted to be placed, and Meringue and I have a ways to go yet for a comfortable relationship. I do enjoy Prestwood, and the "accident" of a loop-thru created a rather interesting effect...and thus the noodling.

Nonetheless, I'm honored to participate in this momentous milestone. Happy String Challenge Birthday!


From Audrie Wiesenfelder (Arizona) ~
Haven't had much chance for challenges this week ..here it is at the 11th hour again, and not my best effort (or efforts, couldn't come up with just 1 that I liked. But I wanted to send in something for the Birthday celebration). I'm sending in all 3 that I did; use whichever you choose...







From Simone (Germany) ~
At least I did it... I have not had enough time this week for the challenges ☹
But I had the ideas in my head and I wanted to draw them.
Even if the result is not as perfect drawn as I intended (I started with the wrong glasses....) I send this tile as my part to "It`s a String Thing 104"
Congratulations, dear Adele, for this two years challenge. I think it is a lot of work every week to review all our works..
Thank you for that !
Best wishes from Dresden!



From Sidney Kapinos (Virginia) ~
Since it is a special occasion I didn't want to miss out..
My tile is attached. Also I have it posted on my blog
Congratulations on the second birthday for It's A String Thing!


From Talia (London,UK) ~
Many congrats on the second birthday of It's a String Thing. It brings so much joy to so many people. I hope it continues for many years to come xxx



A very warm welcome to Rose O Keeffe (Ireland) ~
Yay! It's my first entry and how exciting it is that it's for your second birthday challenge :-) All of these tangles were new to me so thanks for that and as always I struggle with the string but I hope I made it work! Congratulations and Happy Birthday!




Time to make a wish and blow out the candles!

Many thanks to the creative minds behind the tangles we used this week, along with my string ~

Drupe by Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts

Meringue by Kelley Kelly, CZT

Prestwood by CZT Margaret Bremner


Stop by Tuesday afternoon for "It's a String Thing" #105!





No comments:

Post a Comment