Talent Show, October 17, 2009

What a fun evening performing at the Mesa Amphitheatre for the City of Mesa "Community Spirit" talent show to raise money for Longfellow School.

It was a beautiful evening under the stars with friends and family performing and watching the talent of the employees of the City of Mesa.

I have always wanted to perform at the Mesa Amphitheatre and now that dream has come true. It was a great stage and to enjoy it with my friends and students was fantastic!!!

Below is a group shot after our performance and a photo of our groupies :-)

Sonaran Rose - Melissa, Kyla, Jennifer, Elizabeth, Carrie, Rachel, Debbie, Kelley and me

Melissa and Rachel came and watched us perform

> Sword duet with Melissa

Drum solo

Smooth

Yasmina's Fall Belly Dance Swap Meet

The fall swap meet was a fantastic day filled with shopping, meeting new friends, seeing friends and dancers you haven’t seen in a long time, workshops and an evening show.

It was a glorious day of sunshine and even though the weather guy said it was 88 degrees it seemed a lot hotter :0)

The day started early with getting to the Women’s Club of Mesa at 6:00 a.m. The vendors were eager to start their day and started arrive before 6:30 a.m.! Even the shoppers were arriving before 8:00 a.m. when the swap meet was to start.

It was a really nice blend of vendors this year with 23 showing up to sell their wears. Welcome to the new vendors that joined us this year and thanks to everyone for making the swap meet a success.

Gina (Ginici) was the first workshop instructor for the day starting everyone with slow and slithery moves with a twist. Holly put the workshop students through their paces with pops ‘n locks 2. Habib started the lunch hour with “heavy duty beat patrol” learning how to tweak the visual impact of your musical interpretation. I ended the day with some new combinations in cabaret and tribal style flavors.

After my workshop all the vendors packed up and we prepared the Women’s Club for the evening show. I should say Kelley and Qianna did all the work they set up over 100 chairs for the evening festivities.

The show was fabulous; what talent we have in the State of Arizona. I didn’t perform in the show I ran the music and had the best seat in the house right up front! For me it was so nice to be able to watch a show almost in its entirety. I was taking photos and getting the music for the next performance ready but all in all I got to see a show.

Thanks so much to Morgiana for emceeing the show. Personally I hate talking into a microphone and Morgiana does it with such ease; she can adlib with the best of them!

Huge thanks to Kelley for helping in the booth, keeping an eye on Habib’s booth while she taught her workshop and for help with cleaning up after the show; this girl can run a mean vacuum! Also thanks to Paula for helping with clean up after the show.

What can I say about my hubby he is priceless; I don’t know what I would do with out him; thanks John for all you do.

Photos from the show:

Divine Chaos

Rukshana

Desert Menagerie from Safford

Gypsy Chicks from Flagstaff

Habib from Sedona

Qadesh

Sonoran Rose

Sonaran Rose

Mitra

Ginici

Ginci and Sherry

Dancers of DeNile

Hadara from Tucson

Banat Tabla from Yuma

Anaya Tribal


Thanks for all those that attended this years event I hope you found a lot of new treasures, learned some new moves and just had a wonderful time. See you all next year, Yasmina

Holiday Card Class

It's hard to believe that I'm ahead of schedule and have created the 8 projects for the holiday card classes for October 17th and November 12th.

We will be creating 7 cards and one treat or tag bag. The projects this year are gift card holder, a card with embossing, a paper bag card, shaker card, a card with dry embossing, Dahlia fold, side step card and the top for the treat bag will be a crayon resist technique with a punch Santa.

Group shot of all the projects we will be making


The gift card holder is made with two top note Sizzix die cut with a tag inside.



Using white embossing this card uses both a wheel and stamps.


Cute Frosty paper bag card that can hold a small gift


This year's shaker card uses a small plastic cup to hold the beads




The background on this lovely tree card is dry embossed using a Sizzix texture folder


This card has a dry embossed tag made with heavy duty aluminum along with an embossed background behind the Dahlia fold flower


The side step card is simple and unique


Sorry for the glare on the photo it is difficult to see how cute the little Santa tags made with 6 different punches are. The top note die cut is the topper to the bag filled with either treats or gift tags. The one shown in the photo contains a dozen tags. We will use the crayon resist technique to decorate the glossy white paper.


Enjoy your week and see you all in class...

MAC Show on Sept. 11, 2009

Friday night was a warm evening in downtown Mesa and we were performing outside on the walkway at the Mesa Art Center in celebrating the season kick off.

There were lots of entertainers there that night from bands, jugglers, fire performers, Japanese drummers, ballroom dancers and so much more we didn't have a chance to see. As the flyer stated “live music, mayhem and merriment", and they were so right.

Some of my intermediate students from the cabaret and tribal classes performed throughout the evening alternating with the ballroom dancers. It was a fun event and we had a blast and were wringing wet by the end of the evening.

Our 8:30 show got cancelled since Mother Nature decided she wanted to blow through and stir up a little dust along with spreading just a little bit of moisture when we were going to go on. So what do belly dancers do when they can't perform and haven't eaten? You guess it we all went out and ate! :0)

Below are photos of us during our breaks...

Group before we started performing. Back row: Melissa, Elizabeth, Michele, Dawn, Paula. Front row: Me and Debbie

Rachel

Melissa striking a pose

Elizabeth, Melissa, Debbie


Group after performing. Back row: Dawn, Elizabeth, Michele, Me, Melissa. Front row: Kelley, Debbie, Paula, Rachel, Melissa.

Zill dance with Rachel, Kelley and Me

Card Class Projects, 9/12/09

Here are two projects we will be making for our card/craft class on Saturday Sept. 12th. I have one more to make and will post it soon.

The first project is a Halloween tag made with the shaving cream technique and the second project is a toilet or paper towel roll mini album.

You need to use regular shaving cream not the gel style for this tecnhique. This technique is very simple, a little messy and the marble affect is so cool.

The bottom paper is the marble effect that you get from the ink and shaving cream. The top is the finished project.

Here's a close up of the finished Halloween tags.


For the mini album the background on the tube sleeves were made with marbles; great effect. The tags I used a brayer with rubber bands for another cool effect. Topped off the album with lots of fiber and ribbon.


Each tube has a "joy" in my life. My husband John, our dog Ratso, our cars and my passion for belly dancing!























Start saving those toilet and paper towel tubes and create your own mini albums.

Techniques Card Class

I'm finally finding time to blog the last card class I taught on August 8th. What a fun technique class and a really messy class!


Next month's class will be more techniques using shaving cream, marbles, rubber bands and bleach; can't wait :-)

Below are photos of the cards we made in class with a short description of the technique.


Photo of all the projects


Coffee filter technique

Using ink refills drop several drops in 2-3 different colors on a plate, spray with water and dip the coffee filter in the plate until totally covered with ink. Lay aside to dry or use a heat gun to dry coffee filter. Cut into the size you need and use for a great texture background.


Ink, spray and smash

This is a very fun technique using ink refills and glossy white paper. I cut two sheets of glossy white paper and used 3 colors of ink refills and dropped ink on one sheet of paper glossy side up. Spray the paper with water and take second sheet of glossy white paper, glossy side down and smash the two pages together. I used a brayer to spread the ink around the paper to make sure they were really coated. Pull the pages apart and let dry or use a heat gun if you can't wait :0) I didn't want to use the paper as a background so I used a flower punch to for something different. I outlined the flowers with a black marker to give them a little more character and placed a clear rhinestone in the center of each flower. I had an extra flower and place it in side of the card. The center of the card is cut out revealing the sentiment inside.

Smackin' Acetate

This is a really cool effect. I stamped the pail of apples on a piece of white card stock and on a piece of acetate using Stazon ink. Turning the acetate over I colored it with markers then misted water on the acetate and flipped the acetate over to line up the images. Rub the layers together and remove the acetate and you have a water color effect on your card. I found this technique on the Internet by a Stamper in AZ, Diane Gibbs she does awesome work.

Split negative technique

I also found this card on the Internet by Jen Peel. You stamp the same image on two different color papers using opposite color ink. Cut the image in half and line them up in a cool effect. This technique is very simple but effective.

Pillow boxes using wax paper resist

This is another fun technique. I used two different Sizzix texture plates to create the designs on the pillow boxes. Your start with a piece of wax paper and run it through the Sizzix machine to create the embossed image. Take two pieces of glossy white paper and with glossy sides facing the wax paper iron the paper to get the wax onto the paper. Ink you a brayer and run it over the paper. When you wipe the ink away with a paper towel the image is revealed; cool right? :-)

Plaza de Anaya Anniversary Show

What a fun event and show last night!!! The event was the one year anniversary celebration of Plaza de Anaya.

Congratulations to Kimberly and Tiffany on one year of hard work, great friendships and a whole lot of fun!!!

The performers were past and present teachers at the studio and I performed with Gina (Ginici) and we danced to Baila, Baila, Conmigo by Missiego from Baila Habibi vol. 3 a really fun skirt dance. Gina also performed a Bollywood number from her workshop she taught earlier in the day. Thanks to my hubby who is always there with the video camera; our performances are below.

I have only a few photos from last night the lighting, my camera and were we were sitting just didn't work out :-(

My favorite camera man

Gina and Clint

The bunny ears and tails were worn by the instructors that night.

Gina and I performing what I call Warda Skirt