I had a Michael's craftstore gift-card burning a whole in my pocket for a while and I was waiting to get something new, something fun, something that was not yarn. I already have more than a few large boxes full of yarn and if I buy anymore before I use up what I have I know my mother will not be very impressed. In the end I got the Zentangle set, two Canson Multi-media sketchbooks, and an Artist's Loft multi-pack of fine-liners and markers to experiment with.

Photo By Kimberly Lawton

When I walked into the store I was looking for fine-liners in as large of quantity and variety as possibly for as little as possible so I could begin practicing with all the styles and sizes. I also knew I needed to get a sketchbook with marker or water-color grade paper because the sketchbooks I currently use absorb the ink and causes feathering of the lines. I'm looking for solid line work so it was time to upgrade.

Photo By Kimberly Lawton

Here is what is included in the 12 Piece Zentangle set:

1. Black Micron size 01

Its a standard Micron marker, for what I was doing it worked well although for filling in larger areas buying a marker with a larger nib is definitely worth it when trying to fill in larger areas.

2. Brown Micron size 01

Another standard Micron which was extremely useful considering there was the other marker of differing size to use.

3. Brown Micron size 05

Yet another standard marker which was fun to experiment with.

4. White Pencil

The pencil is small and with the size of the box it is possible that a larger pencil could have fit in the box, but seeing as the paper was also small it was probably intentional. The pencil itself worked extremely well after I accidentally crushed the first few millimeters of the tip off.

5. Pencil

The pencil was a standard pencil, besides being small.

6. Two Smudging Tools

7. Five Small Pieces of Mid-tone Paper

When working on the paper with the markers in the set I found that if you oversaturated the paper little fuzzies would start to gather. On other papers I have used when this happens it means the marker has begun bleeding through the paper however when I flipped the piece over when I finished there were no bleed marks or even impressions in the paper.

All in all it was a good little kit for about $6.00 on clearance.