Apollonian Gaskets and a Christmas Card

So I was watching this video the other day about doodling (scroll down to Infinity and Elephants if you click that link) and became fascinated by what she was doing, which I learned was a version of Apollonian Gaskets. (There is a link underneath her video for Wikipedia for a scholarly definition.) I don't pretend to even understand what they were saying in the definition. I asked my husband if he had ever heard of Apollonian Gaskets (I love saying those words!) and he, the scientist, engineer and all around extremely bright math person, was stumped! Ha! I felt proud to know something he did not, although truth be told, I did not actually KNOW anything about it except that it looked cool. I showed him and he said "Oh, that. It's another term for fractals.". Ummm, ok. Well, not knowing anything more than I did before, I thought it might be fun to try. So I did one free hand (it really isn't so easy!) in pencil on cheap printing paper:

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I confess, I did draw the original circle with a stencil. You can tell the freehand ones, some of them look like ovals! Oh well, I enjoyed it enough to try one on card stock with Sakura Gel Pens and Starlight Pens. I did use stencils, and the original circle was a tracing around a cafe au lait bowl. But I did a lot of freehand as well, and doodled some in a few of them:

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Some of the ink smeared, but that's OK, it was for fun and learning purposes. It reminds me a lot of Zentangles, only usually more shapes are used, but in reality, using just one shape is fine.

Also, for the past few days, I designed and created a Christmas card. It's more of a prototype really, to perhaps use next year. My vision is still not 100% and it's driving me batty sometimes, so I won't be sending out handmade cards this year. I had fun with it.

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The card is made from card stock folded a special way to form pockets. I made a tag out of a card I received last year, and added ribbon and an angel charm. The card was stamped and distress inks were used. Gold foil covers one of the pocket edges

(click for details)

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Certainly not something to take your breath away, but fun to do and since I am still having trouble focusing, I was quite pleased that I was able to do SOMETHING! I have a few ideas to jazz it up a bit for next year and one of the things I need to do is start in October, if not earlier! 

Hope your Christmas season is progressing along nicely!!