Walking CHA

As I get more and more exhausted, I find it harder to type much on this little iPhone. But I see so many things I am anxious to show you! I can't control where the photos end up on the blog post since I am not at a real computer so I hope you can bear with me and figure out what matches up with what.

Everyday the girl wears a different dress and gets painted differently! Today she had a dress with lips, so her arms had lips, her necklace, socks, and boots were all painted on too! The paints used are new body paints from Tulip. Tomorrow will be an Egyptian theme!

I was wearing my tangle body stickers and stopped in the Art Glitter Institute booth where she glittered me up with new skin safe glue and glitz.

I had my name written out beautifully by Lisa Engelbrecht. Watched Tim Holtz charm the crowds of women. I met Marie Browning. Watched Suzanne McNeill demo her tangled stencil designs. (notice my books on the wall behind her?!) I saw my books on the wall in the Alvin booth too!

There was a party that evening in the DO/Fox Chapel booth to celebrate Suzanne's Industry Award. Here's a bunch of pics from that too. The one with two champagne glasses is my mom. I'll have to add names to the pics when I get back home. Tomorrow is my demo day in the booth so I need to get to bed ASAP!

CHA CHA Brain Buzz

I just got back from dinner with Suzanne McNeill and Cindy Sheperd (and my mom). We laughed a lot and I talked too much and too fast... It's funny how I can be hyper and exhausted at the same time. But it is impossible to spend the day looking at cool new art tools, amazing displays, and talking with fascinating people... and not start generating ideas at a supersonic pace!

I had a lot of fun chatting with Stacey from James Button and Trim about designing custom buttons. (see the picture with the cute sunglasses). And Joanne Fink- who did the Zenspiratons book, is a licensing coach and I HAVE to go back to talk to her again tomorrow! I met a lot of designers who do the demos and create samples and projects for different companies. I got a really cool wheeled cart from Tutto luggage. In purple! And, and, and...!

Oh, I need to go to bed... But first I have to look through the pile of catalogs. I wonder if I should restart my stamp company... Or kids clothing... Or make stuffies....? My brain is way too excited to sleep!

(the girl posing is wearing a dress, but the artist has been painting her body to match the fabric! Her arms are finished, but her legs were just started. Isn't that amazing?)

Baby Bro in LaLa Land

We spent most of today driving around Hollywood and Studio City with my baby brother, Dave. The bestest part was visiting his office. Big woop, right? But my brother works as the assistant art director for game development at Neopets. Which is owned by Nickelodeon and MTV. He gets to draw amazing creatures and color them and play games all day. In a very cool office. One hallway had paintings he had done of some of the characters all hanging in fancy frames. The enormous room full of cubicles where the artists work had a giant mural running all the way around the room. Dave had combined all the different Neopets characters into storylines and printed the art onto vinyl. Some of these characters were so cute I had to zoom in and snap their pics! I couldn't take any pictures of his current projects, but his computer is a tech geek's drool fest. He has an enormous Wacom tablet that is basically a giant touch screen, and then a second screen just to see the artwork. All the cubicles are filled with toys! The break room has every kind of gaming device and giant TVs and comfy chairs... The downside to this heaven- yes, there is a downside- he can spend ages working on a very cool project just to see it canned for some minor detail. It just disappears into a file drawer.

He drove us around pointing out all his favorite haunts and laughing at the tourists. My heart skipped a beat when I saw a giant Kermit the Frog on top of a pretty brick building. When I gasped, he casually said, "oh that's the Muppet's Creature Workshop". Ahhhh... Someday, I want to go in THERE!

On the way to LaLa Land

Isn't it amazing how things can seem to go wrong, and yet fate or serendipity is really working over time?

Snowstorms kept schools closed the day we flew out and also caused delays for the flights coming in to the airport. Before we had even left the ground we realized we would miss our connecting flight in Detroit! Our replacement flight was a few hours later so we explored the airport. It's actually quite a lovely airport! I was surprised. There was an underground people mover that changed colors and played relaxing sounds like the one in the Chicago airport. And there was the most amazing choreographed fountain! It would go really quiet so the surface appeared flat, then shoot thin streams of water that looked like clear plastic tubes. All the water ran over the sides like an infinity pool (is that the right name?) we stood there mesmerized and then the streams of water started shooting in little bursts across the fountain! It was insanely magical!

When we finally boarded the plane to LAX, the lady who had been seated in the third seat grabbed her stuff and moved to the back where her friend was seated. I was absorbed in my book and paid no attention as a passenger seated herself next to me. Hours later, I looked up and we started chatting. "where are you headed?" "to Anaheim for a convention...." "me too!" and the coincidences continued as I learned that she was there because of a guest blog post I had done for Creative Imaginations using Twinkling H2Os and her product, Pearl Pens from Viva. So she was exhibiting at the CI booth. I think we talked non-stop until we landed! She asked me to create some samples for her other products. Fun!

And to think, if we hadn't missed our connecting flight, we wouldn't have seen the cool stuff at the Detroit airport or met this really amazing lady!

CHA CHA CHA!

On Friday this week, I fly off to California for the CHA Winter Show in Anaheim. CHA is the Craft and Hobby Association and the show is an ginormous trade show of crafting insanity!! I am SOOO excited!! (And nervous). Every big craft manufacturer has a booth there and shows off the new products for the coming year. My publishers Fox Chapel/Design Originals have a huge booth and there will be a party on Monday night to honor Suzanne McNeill. She is receiving an important industry award. On Tuesday I will be doing Make & Takes and demoing in the booth. It should be a lot of fun.

I hate flying, but I am focusing on how excited I am to explore the different booths. I'll be stashing ideas away for my new biz venture... And I am also excited to see my brother, Dave. I haven't seen him since my grandmother's funeral a few years ago. He's an animator in Hollywood - ooo la la! He was a character animator for the cartoon "Hey, Arnold!" and then he got promoted and moved on to working with Neopets and kept moving up the foodchain... so now we don't actually know what he does. I am sure it is very cool though!

I am also looking forward to meeting up with some other CZTs who will be out there. And, if I am lucky, I'll have time to visit the DKE toy warehouse. And maybe Kidrobot....  it's one of my dreams to have my own "Munny" type figure in a Lilah Bean shape!! Oh, how COOL would that be?!
So, I just wanted to give you all a head's up that I have plenty of Totally Tangleds available right now, finally, but I will be putting the Etsy store in Vacation Mode as of Wed. night or Thursday morning until I get back from California. So if you need something, order it before then. :-)

Hurry, Hurry... Relax!

Yeah! A whole BUNCH of people have signed up for UN-Tangle!!! It's filling up (don't miss out!) Linda actually contacted The Beachmere to reserve another block of rooms. Don't freak out though - we didn't decide to accept a ton more people - it's because a lot of people actually want single rooms. I admit that I always choose a single too, when there is a choice. It is nice to be able to recharge on your own. Sounds like there are a few day-trippers too.  If you are thinking about coming to UN-Tangled, but have questions, please email me or Linda Pearl (she's doing all the left-brain stuff).

Tangled Talent from Taiwan - Christy Lin

Recently I received the following email from Christy... this is the kind of message that really helps shake you out of a mini-pity-party! And as an added bonus (grin) she has created some truly beautiful pieces of tangled art! Be sure to look at all her other Calligraphy Doodle Art in her Etsy shop, Enjoy...

My name is Christy, I came from Taiwan four years ago as an art student and currently living in St. Louis, MO.

I want to thank you for your great talent and generous to share them with the art lover, I am very much appreciated it and there have more that I like to share with you, that how much your work inspired me and even changed my life. This is exciting, and I think you would love to know about it : )

One day, I went to an art store and saw your book "Totally Tangled" was right on the book case, it catches my eyes and I couldn't put down the book for 20 mins, I got so exciting about this book because I always into details drawing, tangled patterns but didn't know there have a name "zentangle". I ended up brought this book home, and enjoy each pictures over and over again, one week later, I created a piece of artwork for then boyfriend (now my husband) .

the pictures is the name of my husband : Shawn 尚恩

I translated his name Shawn into Chinese character 尚恩, and then designed his name with all the things that he loved (cat, ocean wave, boat...) it's my first pen and ink zentangle drawing, and it's hung on our wall ever since.

Since then people always ask about it and told me how much they love it, so I started to customize people's name as a gift, because I did a lot of work for people as a gift, so it's also developed my skills and getting better each time, one day there have a local juries art show, I applied for it, and it became my first art show, my journey started from there because all the link from the art show is started to unfold in front of me, I start to custom art for local gallery, have my calligraphy handmade paper items in the gift shop, and also have my Etsy shop, everything began at the moment I picked up your book.

I wanted to write this mail a while ago, but I think prefer to write after I have more artwork, I want to say thank you so much for your inspiration!  

I hope you would like it : )   

Your name in Mandarin character would be 珊蒂

Thank you
Christy

I asked Christy if she could send me some more images to share with you on this blog and the explanations of the characters...

Valentines is on the way, so I choose two of my work ideal for couple and as a wedding gift.

The first love artwork is meaning "LOVE" in Chinese character 愛

I drew a peacock carrying a flower in the bottom, the flower growing out with many heart shaped flowers to represent love is growing strong.

The second artwork is a wedding customized artwork, I translated the bride and groom's name to Chinese character.  Kelly (Above) 凱莉, Amit (bottom) 俄明  I have a butterfly fly on the left corner to represent the bride and the bird open the arm on the right corner to represent groom welcome Kelly into his life, their names surrounding by beautiful flowers to meaning in full bloom happy marriage.

 

Thank you very much again Sandy, it's being a pleasure to share my word and art with you.

Sincerely

Christy

Calligraphy Art and Design

www.calligraphytzl.etsy.com

 

 (Note:  I apologize about any strange formatting you may see! I know I shouldn't "cut & paste" into Blogger, but I like to capture the exact words and the Mandarin characters, etc. that are used in the emails.)