Brad Paisley Concert in Viva Las Vegas

We just got back from Vegas and had such a great time!

We walked around and looked at all the fun things there

and did a little shopping but the highlight of the whole

weekend was one amazing concert with 

Brad Paisley, The Band Perry and Scotty McCreery!

Scotty sounded awesome!  He is better than

he was on American idol and if you go to

the concert you will see why he was picked...

He is going to be one- huge- star someday!

 She has such an amazing voice and even

sang a song with Brad Paisley later in the show!

 The stage was really cool and he has lots of lights

and videos going on behind him..... 

 And... he came over on our side so I got this

awesome close up.....

If you get a chance to go to this concert somewhere

on the planet you really need to... Even my husband marked 

this down as one of his favorite concerts and that 

says alot!!  He played so many of our favorite songs

and the fishin song too!!  The picture below is from where he 

went all the way to the other side of the arena on another

little stage he had set up just to play for the people out there.... 

Yep... he is nothing short of amazing!!

It was a really, really fantastic concert!

Here are a few pictures I took of the gardens in the Bellagio.

They decorated for Chinese New Year so there were huge

dragons and waterfalls and flowers everywhere.  It was

really, really pretty and there were lots and lots of people

there looking just like us :)

 This is behind the check in desk... It's beautiful!

 These dragons scales were made of painted fabric..

and they move and have smoke coming out of them...

kind of got me inspired for a craft project!

 They also had lots of these little children around

and each of them has clothes made completely

of different kinds of flowers.  They were about 10 feet tall

and they were sooooo pretty!

This was a picture I took of the fountain 

behind the front of the Bellagio and you have a great

view of the Paris Hotel in the back... We

went there and had a really good Margarite Pizza for lunch...

 It was really yummy!!

This picture is inside the Hard Rock Cafe in the 

Mandalay Bay Hotel where we stayed.  They had

these colored lights on the trees and I think the 

picture came out pretty neat!

Anyway thanks for stopping to see my photos

from this weekend and I will be heading out to 

CHA tomorrow and Tuesday so I will share some

fun things I find and hopefully friends I run into too.

Lots of Hugs,

Teresa

Prima Cards to share today

Happy Wednesday everyone.  I trust your week

is going great and life is good today so far.

I made a few new cards to share today that

don't have anything to do with Valentines.

I have more to share but it was fun to take

a creative break and get out some older paper

and make something fun for my giveaway box.

All the cards were done with Printery from

Prima and bits of Basic Grey.  For this

card I used 2 Spellbinders dies

(Fluer de Lis Pendants & Blossom tags & Accents)

 for the top and layered rectangles under it in different

prints for the backround.  For the ribbon

I tied a bow at the top of the die and then tied

another bow on it to make it bigger.  The 

words from this are a sticker from Mrs Grossman

and the tiny pearls are from Kaisercraft.

I really like this card!  It kind of gives me that

20's kind of look all clean and black and white.

For this card I cut 2 pieces of backround print

and then 5 flags of various sizes and layered 

those.  Then I used my Spellbinders circle die

to create a mat for the black flower tag and used

a sticker for the sentiment from SRM.  I popped this

up to give it more dimension and then added the

tiny ribbon and butterfly to finish it off.

And just to make the envelopes look snazzy I ran

them all through with a embossing folder.  Not so

plain and boring anymore.... cute don't you think?

This last card was the easiest but looks like it is more.

One of the sheets in the book is already blocked out

so I cut a portion of it for my backround and then added

tiny Thanks letters from Cosmo Cricket.  Lastly I tied

a faint green striped ribbon around it and into a bow

and added some cute roses.  The little leaves on this

are punched with a Martha Stewart punch...  

That's it for today... I taught a super fun flower

class last night with some amazing ladies so I will

have some photos from that to share and maybe a 

few tutorials... be sure and check back for that soon...

Lots of Hugs,

Teresa

Card Club for January

It's time again for Card Club at the store and this

month we are doing love themed cards with a twist.

The stores are filled with lots of love and heart 

related papers and I always hear I don't have a

Valentine to give out---- so why not create something that you 

can give anytime of year to express how much 

you care or even just thinking about them.

Say like You're my favorite, or Thinking of You,

or Thanks or the clock card is Time to Celebrate.

We actually are doing 7 projects this month and

are trying to focus on creating with flags and

of course Spellbinders dies :) Each card is embossed

too so that it gives each of them that much more

dimension and added interest.

My papers are from Basic Grey, Bazzill, WeR,

Reminisce, and the gorgeous rose paper is

from K & Company.

The stamps this month are from Hero Arts, 

Darcie's and My Favorite Things. There are 

so many cute stamps out it was hard to pick this

month as always but I hope that these inspired you

to get out some ink and paper and create a few

for your card box for later!!

I will take some photos the next 2 days of the 

ladies in class to share and until then.....

Happy Stamping to all of you,

Teresa

I Won BG papers!!

I just Love Basic Grey and have for a very long time

and I got an amazing surprise today when

 I got a wonderful email from Melanie

over at Basic Grey and I was the random person

selected for the page challenge!! Yay!!!

And---- I get to pick any paper pack of my choice and

was that ever hard to do because I love All of Them...

so after thinking and thinking and thinking

 I went with Marjolaine so I can do my album

of my Sequoia trip... Can't wait--- guess I will have to

stalk the mailman all next week :)

Have a wonderful happy, happy day,

Teresa

Lots of New Spellbinders Cards today...

You can probably tell that the creative juices

are flowing pretty good these days and it helps

that I love making Valentines Projects too.  I made 

4 new cards so far to share today and have used lots of

different Spellbinders dies on them.

I love this card and mixed lots of prints and my

Spellbinders dies to create it.  I think that is the

part I love the most is how versatile they are and

how gorgeous they make things look.

I embossed all the pieces and layered them up

a little using foam dots so it really pops out

with lots of dimension...

I had lots of inspiration for this card from some

special people in my life who are going through tough

times with family members in hospice and passing 

away.  I think the longer I live the more important

it becomes that you "Make every Moment Count"

in your life.  I originally wanted to make this as

a removable medallion so the person could take it

off and wear it as a pin so I guess I will have to do another

one for me to wear now... Don't you love the colors?

This is just a simple card that I created with strips

of paper and a doily cut along the edges, inked them up 

a little and made another medallion heart shape

with my Spellbinders Heart Circles.  For the center

of it I layered stickers from the My Minds Eye 

Love Me Set.  The papers are also from them too!

I really love the tiny prints on this and it makes

me get even more in the mood for heart season!

My last card for today is also from the Love Me set 

of papers but the chipboard LOVE is from Crate paper.

The heart for this is 2 embossed Spellbinders 

Scalloped Hearts on top of each other and the top one

 I sanded just a little with a sanding block to make

the design pop out a little more on the red paper.  

I have lots more love to share this week so be

sure and check back for lots more ideas....

Lots of hugs,

Teresa

New things to share

 This is my photo from day 7 of my class and since

everyone was doing these serene photos of snow-

I thought I would take this picture of the "quiet beauty"

of my snow scene in my house.  Since we don't have

much snow in sunny California besides up in the mountains,

 I thought I would snap this photo to remember my snow.

The lighting made the colors look old fashioned

and I really like it :)  I decided I am going to redo

an old recipe box I have and keep all my photos 

that I take each day and some journaling. I thought

my moma razi paper would be great but now I just

have to find it.... hmmmm ...could take awhile..... 

Anyway, taking this class has

really inspired me to think different about what i 

see in my world and should make for some pretty

fun pages and projects this year.... 

This is a page i just did with the New Crate Paper 

Valentines.  I have a cousin that shared some

photos of her recent wedding and thought it was

so awesome and had to scrap some pages of it.

The chipboard pieces are great for this line, there

is so much variety and great flowers.

I am going to put them all to good use in lots

of cards and pages for this year...

These Valentine papers are from TPC Studio and are 

super cute for more simple and monochromatic

pages.  I am creating some wall art to decorate the

house and thought this was perfect to do of my DH and I. 

I went out and got a few new things from Echo Park

and My Minds Eye today to work on so I will share those 

later this week.  Love all this Valentines paper----

and I am definitely going to lose some sleep creating

with the new things I got.

Glad you stopped by..

Hugs, 

Teresa

  

Fabulous News today!!!

Yep, I made it through one more round of the Spellbinders DT

Call and my name is here with some very, very, very talented

ladies. I am so very happy and doing my Petra Happy Dance

right now and probably for the next 2 weeks!!!!  Yay!!!

You can go to the link here to see the rest of the names...

Our next assignment is due soon the first
part of Feb..... Wish me luck everyone!!

It's the Season for Love :)

I think my favorite time of year is probably Valentines.

You can never have enough hearts, or tell people that you 

love and adore them enough and it has the best colors

of any season out there... I love it :)  

We are getting in lots of products so I am madly creating

lots of fun cards and books and momentos to give to

people. I think my favorite so far this season is Crate Papers
 New Valentine Collection.  I made some cards to show today 

along with a few favorites from Doodlebug.

Sometimes the colors work so great together it is easy

to put together lots of things pretty quick.

And... it helps if you love what you do....

So first I want to share 4 cards with Crate Paper Valentines. 

Of course I had to use some of my Spellbinders Dies

on a few( love them too) and I am quit happy with the results...

(This sketch from this card is from Mojo Monday)

I have so much fun creating with the 6x6 pads because
it is quick and easy and you have lots and lots of
prints to chose from and they don't have to all be
super elaborate.  I used lots of stickers and rub-ons
for the Sentiments to save time so that is another option
for you to try too. 

Next I made lots of cards and tags with the cutest

Valentine collection from Doodlebug.  There is the

cutest cupcakes, strawberries, layer cakes and dots

to work with and the tags and stickers made it

super fun to just keep creating until I ran out of paper.

By the end of the pad I had lots of tiny pieces so
I created this card with lots of ribbon looking pieces
hanging from an edged cut piece of paper.  This is
my favorite and yep it has lots of things going on
but I really like it and I am going to have to find
someone special to send it to this year!!

Doodle bug has packages of bakers twine with
lots of coordinating shades so if you find some be
sure and load up on this product because it is fun
and really inexpensive to use on things...

All the Doodlebug cards are something that you can
create quick with just the pad and tags and bits of ribbons
that you have in your stash.  In an afternoon you can
have a dozen cards or more to send out or keep in
your box to send at a later date... and the cards don't
always have to be Valentine themed either. You
can do them for friends or thinking of you or maybe
even a Special Thank you to someone.

I hope you LOVE these as much as I do and inspired
you to create a few for you this weekend!

Have a wonderful day,

Teresa

Basic Grey Sketch for January

I was out looking at all the fun things on the web and

came across another fun sketch from Basic Grey this

month and got a few sheets out of my BG stash and

made up this fun page to put in a frame for my

daughter to give her best friend for a going away 

gift this weekend.  I really love the border on it!!

The papers are from the Lemonade and Bittersweet collections

and I used my Spellbinders dies to create the heart border,

frame and heart circle for the backround.  I used the 

Daisy Heads Shapeabilities, Classic Scalloped Hearts,

Carnation Creations, Labels Eight and my Heart Circles dies...

I love to mix and match the dies and love the way

you can use them on pages too. Very fun :)

The brads in the middle of the flowers are actually

push pins from Office Max that I cut off the back of and glued
them down onto the middle of the flowers.  For the outside edge

I used a distress tool and then inked it with chalk ink

in chestnut roan just to make it look a little more vintage.

Hope you like my new page and thanks

for stopping by today.  I also have some Great knews
to share... I got a card published in Scrapstreet Magazine
and am I ever excited! I used my Spellbinders dies and
lots of MME papers and it's probably my favorite card
that I have done so I was really glad they liked it too!
I have lots of Doodlebug and Crate paper cards and tags
 to share on Sat.. so be

sure and stop by for some fun ideas!

Lots of Hugs,

Teresa

New Photo for my class

 For this photo we were asked to take

a picture of something soul searching or

touching with the thought that anything

is possible.. So what came to mind is

this simple cross that I got in an abbey in

Bologna Italy.  The church below is over

700 years old and it like the cross is

not fancy or ornate but simply stands

for a belief in God and a simple place to

worship with others who believe.

I took the photo of the cross on a simple piece
 of wood by the light of the window in the 

mid afternoon sun with no flash. I 

like the shadows and the simple way

the metal stands out but not in a 

glistening kind of way.

This old church was a place that totally took

my breath away.  Sometimes unexpected

things you find in your walk through life

leave with you with the deepest impression.

This is one of mine :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa

New Photo Class

As the New Year begins- I  have decided to try and step out

of my comfort zone a little more and try some new things ..

like new classes, yoga, trying new recipes, 

getting more into the messy kind of art again and taking

lots of trips to see our world...

My first this year is starting a photo class on Big Picture.

Everyday we are given an assignment to go out and

see the world with our camera's in a different way. 

I hope that at the end I will take pictures a little better

and in a more interesting way and see not just the big

picture of life but all the tiny little things inside it too...

For this assignment we were supposed to go outside 

and see something that made us think of a breath of fresh air....

and my camelia bush is blooming and the sun was just setting for the day

 so i moved in close and tried to capture

 the delicate beauty of all the petals of this flower and all

the tiny veins of the leaves.  Nature is amazing isn't it :)

Lots of hugs,

Teresa