Let's travel back in time... to April 17, 2009...

(I had been certified as a Zentangle Teacher, just one month earlier! Wow- time flies!) In April of 2009, I posted my first "Tangle of the Week":

Notice the lovely Tangle Trading Card shown? You all know that I am just a tad OCD, (just a tad)... So I had designed these cards as a way for me to catalog and organize all the 100 existing Zentangle® patterns, plus the ones that I was creating on my own. I still sell the small packs on my Etsy store and you can get bulk packs (100 cards) in my Zazzle store. It's funny that I still use this Tangle of the Week card as my sample card in the shop. :-)

Fast forward to last summer, 2012, and my publisher has asked me to create card decks with the tangle steps drawn in.  I spent the entire summer drawing... 120 tangle cards, plus instruction cards, PLUS three tangle puzzles!

Here is one of the pages from my sketchbook showing the art for the fronts and backs of three tangle cards - Puff-O, Punkin, and Revel.

And this page is the art for one of the puzzles in the card packs:

I designed one card pack for each of the books - companion cards. There is a Totally Tangled pack, a Yoga for Your Brain pack and a Zentangle for Kidz! pack. Also a smaller bag of DIY, blank cards so you can record your own tangles.

A year later - the Tangle Cards are coming! The Tangle cards are coming!!
The cards will be available in September!!! September 2013!

It's like being pregnant for over a year but then finally meeting your children and discovering they are everything you ever dreamed of. Can you tell I am really proud? ;-D I've never been great at tooting my own horn, but I find it pretty easy to toot these cards. Fox Chapel (my publisher) sent me some packs and I couldn't stop fondling them. Here are the really cool features:

The card decks come in sturdy, color-coded boxes. The edges of the cards match the box, so it is easy to sort and clean up - if you feel inclined to keep them together. Each card is numbered as well. (See? OCD dream come true, right?) There are little boxes in the corner where you can put codes like "ZT" for original Zentangle tangles or "JP" for Japanese inspired, and an index card to record your categories.

Each pack has 40 cards with a tangle on each. There are 10 cards with info, instructions, ideas and an index. The backs of 9 of those cards have a piece of a puzzle. There is a different puzzle (and different info cards, too) in each pack.

Here is one of the professional shots from the publisher:

Perhaps you are thinking, "How hard could a 9 piece puzzle be?" Well, here is a little video of a few certified Zentangle teachers trying to assemble one in my studio:


You're up for the challenge? You are wondering how you can get your hands on these?

They are expected to hit stores (with a thunk) in early September and are available on Amazon for pre-order (Yoga for Your Brain Tangle Cards

, and Totally Tangled Tangle Cards

). I also have them for pre-order on my own webstore (http://bumblebat.wazala.com).

If you have no intention of buying the cards but want to get some more "free" tangles, then go to Amazon because they have a peek-inside feature. If you are totally addicted to Zentangle and think that being able to pull out certain tangle cards to work on and sorting patterns makes you smile - then I made these cards for YOU - and you should buy them directly from ME. I wholeheartedly believe in bribery. And collectibles. So these packs (directly from me) will each have a special little prize in each box. Only from me. Mine. Just mine! ;-D

NEED to get your hands on a pack sooner? Read the next blog post!

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Art & Illustration Review Zentangle