QUANDARY

Wait--wasn't that me who was freaking out yesterday because the laminations didn't work on my rug-that-can't-be-shown yet?  Didn't I take them all off?  Didn't I go out and spend a small fortune on things so that I could try another method entirely of adding the mixed media to the rug?

It was indeed me.  So why am I putting the laminations right back on the rug? 

I can't tell you, this wasn't in the plan.  Not at all. 

But, after trying out my other idea ("Plan B") with the mixed media, and seeing how vulnerable it would leave the mixed media, I began to feel that it wouldn't work either.  I ran into some additional technical problems with Plan B, and the result was a disaster.

Talk about a quandary.

By coincidence, I was also reading a Facebook group specializing in Zentangle® and one person had posted that she has never mastered the tangle by the name of...Quandary.  Interesting.  I had learned this tangle years ago and had no problem with it but hadn't tried it in a long while. I got out my journal and began working with it to see if I could still do it. This was the result--still very much in progress but here's what I have so far-->

After tangling for a bit, I sat at my table and was sort of in a blank state, wondering what in the world I could do about the quandary with the rug project.  My eyes fell on the previously laminated objects I'd taken off the rug.  With nothing else to do, since I really couldn't think how to move forward, I found myself admiring them and wishing I could still use them.  But clearly I could not re-apply them as they were.

I picked one up and began cutting most of the lamination away, leaving only a tiny border (and taking a risk, since the tiny border meant the lamination could peel off). 

After all, I really couldn't use them...could I?

Could I?

Hmmm.  Hey.

Maybe I could.  So the bottom line:  I cut every one of them way, way back, so that basically only the surface of each is laminated, with a tiny border.  I re-rounded all the corners.  Then I punched holes in the tiny border on each.

And I had a brainstorm--use French Knots to attach them to the rug.

So that is what I am doing.  And although I'm afraid to say it, it seems to look much better.  I won't know until I actually finish, but this may do the trick. 

"Round 2" turns out to be more of same--with less.  I cannot wait to see if this works.

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