Class!

I took a design class, I am so tired of making pendants and then just hanging them on a chain, I wanted to do more with my jewelry pieces! Colleen over at http://www.beadmetaler.blogspot.com/ offered a class on how to design a necklace. Here is my finished piece! I learned how to make "stories" with other pieces and link them together to form a unique necklace, and it is not symetrical, like I always work in. Yeah, had to crawl out of the box to make this one!

Pretty cool!

Art and Soul

Wow, what a whirlwind 3 days! We checked in monday night, I stayed at the Paris and Christy stayed at Bally's. We ate our meals at Paris and we shopped and had classes at Bally's, it was fun and we got a lot of exercise from walking back and forth! Tuesday morning we ate crepes at The Creperie, I had the suzette, orange slices and cream, it was yummy, christy had the neopoliton, various fruits and cream.

Tuesday 10:00 am found us in class with Julie Haymaker Thompson http://www.juliehaymaker.com/
What a fun and informative teacher she was, had all supplies ready for us and had instructions, she demonstrated and then set us off to work! If we had questions, we asked but it was fun to have a purpose and have the guidelines of what to do and what we would leave with. I say all this because wednesdays class was not like this at all and it was a horrible mess.

Here is my creation from Julie's class, the class named her Tiffany because of the blue color I got when I painted her and she is a little on the elegant side, like a Tiffany Jewelry box!

Her full name: "Tiffany Buys A Fish"

I still have to add more beads under her skirt as I did not bring enough to class, they will be on the white half circles, I have one already there! Her little crank turns and plays a music box with the tune of  It's a small world! I just love her to pieces!!

Tuesday night after class Christy and I had dinner at Le Provencal, I ordered the Cheese Ravioli, oh my gosh it was amazing!! I will be trying to make that over on my cooking blog so check there in a few days!
Then we went to christys room to watch American Idol.

Wednesday morning we got up and ate in the Le Cafe, it was ok, nothing to write home about basic breakfast, eggs and bacon and french toast.
Our class was with Susan Lenart Kazmer, soon as we got in class she announced her stuff was on sale, everyone wanted to buy her work so that took about an hour to get all over with. I was not there to buy her stuff, I was there to learn to make my own stuff?? She had tools on a table she demonstrated the tools and everyone was all gaga about them and asked where do we buy them, she said on her website for a lot more money then if you searced the tools on your own. So she said go cut and sand copper, bronze and silver pieces, so that is what we did for the rest of the class. My pieces have nothing to do with the bracelet we were supposed to make in class, see for yourself:

I had to connect my things the only way I knew how since she never told us how to attach stuff, I was so frustrated because even when I tried to ask for help she was so busy tending to people who purchased from her (the lady who bought a 1200.00 bracelet got lots of attention) or her groupies that could not stop drooling over her, that regular students had no chance to even speak to her. Christy and I decided to leave at 4:30 even though class did not end till 5:30, we knew nothing was going to change in the last hour.

Big fat disappointment! But it is a live and learn process, Christy and I have taken many many classes from quilting to scrapbooking, altered art to jewelry making. We have experienced many teachers and this woman was by far the worst we have ever come across!!

So after class Christy and I hopped on the monorail and met Tanya over at the Hilton and watched the Pink Floyd tribute band, see previous post! All in all we had a great time hanging out and being sisters again, it has been a long time. We will be together in April when we travel to San Diego for Scrapbook expo 2010!!

Shine on you crazy diamond...

Before I discuss Art and Soul, I have to tell you about Which one's Pink. I went to a show last night with Christy and Tanya, we went over to the Hilton to see a tribute band to Pink Floyd and we were all blown away by this band. It was an amazing show, the sound system was great, the band was great, the music was amazing, all the best songs were played. I posted a video of Shine on you crazy diamond, one of my favorite Pink Floyd songs, it is only half the song and the guitar solo in the song is played by John Stack, who I must say is one of the hunkiest and amazing guitar players I have had the pleasure of watching perform!! Turn the lights down low and play the video, and watch as John takes you to the dark side of the moon with his guitar in hand.......

Neglect..

Sorry have not been neglecting you, just very busy with things to do and places to go...
I am leaving you for 2 days to attend Art and Soul here in Las Vegas, Christy (sister) is headed to town to join me.
Here are the classes we are taking:

I will be back with lots of photos of the fun we have!

See you all soon!

Charming group!

I would like to thank Tanya for the group photo, as I forgot my camera!!
Here is our charm exchange group, 9 plus me, 9 of the most talented women I ever met! Oh if you are wondering why we have hats, it was a tea party and we thought it would be fun to wear hats! Oh and this is for my mom, because she can't find her baby daughter in photos: I am in the center of the back row, wearing my Stevie Ray Vaughan hat!! Sorry I don't do flowery hats!!

Betty (center of photo on swing) was our hostess, she has an amazing home filled with art, it was like touring an art gallery!! I loved it!! Anyway her theme was flowers, here are the charms, my charm is in the upper left hand corner, each one had a circle with a different saying and then a flower hanging in the middle, mine says Peace, guess you would not have known that, right?

Next hostess is June and she has declared, because she is our Queen of England, that it shall be themed "Alice in Wonderland" and the charms are due in June!!

The Retreat photo!

Here is the photo of the scrappin-escapes weekend! I am the red head almost dead center! Mary is standing to the right of me! That was a fun weekend!

(you can click on it to make it larger)

Birthday fun!

Yesterday was Charlie's moms birthday, she did not want to go out but wanted me to cook, wow, that must mean I am getting better at cooking because 2 years ago it was, "Oh no don't cook, let's go out somewhere" hahaha.
She wanted my roast chicken, carrots and roasted asparagus.
It was a nice dinner, we got her the hangover movie, she had been wnating to see it and missed it at the movies, we also got her some elizabeth taylor perfume.
I baked a cake but let's not talk about it...I am no cake decorator!! But then agian I don't want to be because I do not want cake in this house, it is evil!

Workout!

I decided to buy the Skechers shoes that are called Shape-ups, we have a skecher store right by my house, I love all their shoes and have worn them for years! I got my shape-ups on monday and have worn them all week, my thighs and butt muscles are screaming! Oh these babies work! I have been doing 1/2 hour on the treadmill each morning and the shoes really add to the workout! I highly recommend them, they are very comfortable and cushy and cute! And they add about 2 inches to my height, so that is another plus since I am only 5 foot 1 inch! They cost 99.00, and are worth every penny!

Girl's night out!

Colleen, Tanya and I went to see a Doors Tribute Band last night. Called Wild Child, not bad for a cover band. The audience was into and clapping pretty good so I am sure the majority enjoyed the show. I did.


When I first met my friend Debbie, her friends were huge Elvis fans and they would go to every Elvis impersonator show possible, that was how I discovered Las Vegas. I have seen more impersonator shows then I care to recall, but it taught me to apprieciate the really good ones. And you can tell when they do thier research and study their subject. Wild Child lead singer Dave Brock sounds real. The tickets are not priced to high for the show you get, so if you are headed to Las Vegas and are a Doors fan, check the Hilton out and see if they are playing. We had a fun time and I would like to thank my hubby for driving so I could have wine with the girls!
Next stop I think we are interested in seeing the Queen tribute band, so stay tuned for more entertaining news from Las Vegas!

Goodbye Captain Phil!

Captain Phil Harris passed away, he was a favorite of mine on The Deadliest Catch show. My thoughts go out to his sons Josh and Jake and the rest of his crab catching family, crew and friends.

You will be missed Captain Phil!

Happy Birthday! 44!

It is superbowl 44, so that means I am 44 years old...the superbowl and I share the same birthday year...great way to remember how old I am, I just have to ask what superbowl year is this?
I am cooking lots of goodies and it will just be me and charlie and his mom.
I am betting on the Saints to win!

Photo fun!

I bought a light box to photo my stuff I sell on etsy. I got it at http://www.adorama.com/ they have great deals on camera stuff. This box came complete with lights, storage bag, tent, cloth that has blue or gray sides. You get all this for 29.99! I also bought the remote control for my camera 17.99, that way I just set up my camera for the shot and I don't have to worry about blurring shots anymore, just push the button and click it's done without all my coffee shake going on. So today I will retake most of my etsy shop jewlery pics, I like the guitar photos I took so I will leave those, but the rest need to be updated!
I was very impressed with the whole set up....here is one of the photos I have taken so far:

Not too shabby! Oh, and this ring is in my etsy shop, it is called blueberry swirl!
Ok I am having too much fun with all this!! Rainy day today so I want to go bake something..Oh, check the cooking blog I will have all my superbowl grub on there tomorrow!
Go Saints!!

Shout out!

Hey, giving a big shout out to a friend of mine who just opened her etsy shop!
Her name is Tanya from http://www.beadandneedle.blogspot.com/

Her shop is here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/beadandneedle

Go check it out, she does fabulous beading around old tintype photos and she etches her own copper pieces and makes beautiful jewelry with them!

Way to go Tanya, good luck on your new venture!

More scrappin'

I can't have a post with out discussing food! We ate at the cafe for breakfast, but the first dinner we had the Irish pub, good fish and chips! We had starbucks every now and then. Saturday night we had the japanese steakhouse, where we ate sushi, salmon with rice, yellowtail with rice, and shrimp with rice. It was delicious!
Mary and I would highly recommend Shizen restaurant at the Rampart/Marriott resort!