Yasmina's Joy of Belly Dancing

17th Annual Swap Meet

2012-01-15T14:12:00.000-08:00

The weather was beautiful, a perfect day to have my annual swap meet. The day started early, 4:00 a.m. for me and John my loving husband. We loaded up the truck and car and headed off for the Women's Club. We started setting up at 6:00 a.m. with some of the vendors showing up early to help out. There were 24 vendors busily setting up and getting ready for a fun day of selling, bartering, visiting and just having fun. I think we buy more than what we sell :-) Below are photos of some of the vendors that were enjoying the day.

The first workshop started at 9:00 a.m. with me teaching fan veil. Thank you everyone that took my workshop I enjoy teaching all of you and I hope you learned a lot and I gave you some good ideas on moves for your performances. Sorry no photo; it's hard to take photos when you're teaching :0)

Rukshana taught the next workshop on how to clean your costume and the kitchen was full of eager students listening intensely at her every word.

Rajani from Safford taught the next workshop on TNT: Travel and Turns. From the noise coming from inside the Women's Club they were having a great time.

Janie from Las Vegas had a full class teaching Boobology 101. Love the name of this workshop and no it's not the study of boobs but how to cover a costume bra ;-)

Andrea from Clarkdale taught a great workshop on Tribal Combinations. When I snuck in to take a photo everyone was in groups of 3 or 4 working on group dynamics and having a great time.

Carrie from Sedona ended the day with her workshop of Tribaret Combos. Her workshop was full and when I snuck in to take photos they didn't even know I was there they were all so enthralled with learning the new combos.

At 3:00 the swap meet was over and vendors were breaking down tents and packing up. Thanks to Kelley and Jody for setting up chairs for the evening show and helping John and I breaking down our space.

John and I got home around 4:30 and unloaded the truck and car and it was back up to the Women's Club to get ready for the show.

The theme for the show was 1970's music both belly dance and popular and thanks to Rajani for picking our closing number, We Are Family by Sister Sledge. The show was fantastic and so much fun!!!! I wanted to watch everyone perform and I was able to see some of the show between performing and costume changes. Below are photos I took behind the scenes before the show started.

Carrie started of the show with a solo to George Abdo music. His music is still popular today; so classic. Blue Dragon, Andrea's troupe performed next to Sirocco's vol. 1 music, Country Dance. More classic belly dance music from 1979. I love Sirocco's music and it was so great hearing it last night. Rukshana performed with her tray of candles to Pink Floyd's Have a Cigar. Desert Menagerie lead by Rajani followed with a Spanish Fusion dance to Hotel California by the Gypsy Kings. They had a new member Marie performing for her very first time; excellent joy Marie! I was the next performer and dance to Nahno Wil Amar Jiran by John Bilezikjian's first album La Orientale or how most of us called it The Blue Door due to the blue door on the cover. I performed with my fan veils for this piece. Janie from Las Vegas really got the crowd going with her version of the Hustle performed to the song of the same name. White Lotus lead by Carrie rocked the house with Shake Your Groove Thing by Peaches & Herb; ladies loved the costumes!!! Andrea dazzled us with her solo to more of Sirocco's music from vol. 1. The Dojo Girls in their wild 1970's inspired costumes performed to Aerosmith's Walk This Way with a little cane action thrown in. Rajani returned with Ekaja and performed a duet to Houdini, Houdini by George Abdo and ladies the hair was amazing! Their comedy routine had the audience laughing like crazy. I was the last performer of the evening dancing to Carol King's You've Got a Friend. Of course this was a veil piece; love veil and love this song ;-) All the performers ended the show with our finale of We Are Family by Sister Sledge. We were out in the audience and after our bows we turned the song back on and the audience joined in and danced around. I think it was Rajani who started the Congo line.

Thank you to all my workshop instructors for their hard work, love of the dance and sharing their talents with everyone yesterday. To all my helpers, without you this event would not happen. Rajani and Clara for emceeing and running the music you both are hired for next year! My husband who puts up with me and my craziness. He takes the day off of work to help me and although he says he'd rather be at work instead of working his butt off all day with me; he likes seeing everyone.

A huge thanks to everyone that came out to shop, vend, take workshops and just hang out. A special thanks to those who traveled from out of state! We had visitors from CA and Janie from Las Vegas and my friend Susan who came all the way from Billings, MO.

Next year the swap meet will be on January 12th. Hope to see you there...

Exciting News!!!

2011-11-11T22:45:00.000-08:00

Starting in January I will be teaching at the City of Gilbert McQueen Rec. Center!!! I will be teaching beginning tribal belly dance, beginning belly dance and intermediate belly dance on Monday nights from 5:00 - 9:00. The winter session runs January 9th - February 27th. I will have more info on my website, www.joyofbellydancing.com when the brochure is out.

Upcoming Events for 2011

2011-10-30T09:11:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it, it's almost November and the holiday season is upon us along with the end of 2011!!!

I thought I would list the events coming up for November and December of this year.

My Mesa Arts Center classes started last week and our class recital will be on Wednesday Dec. 14th from 7 - 8:30ish in the Acting Studio in the Arts Studio Building.

The class will also be performing in the Chandler Parade of Lights on Saturday Dec. 3rd. The parade route is through Historic downtown Chandler and starts at 7:00 p.m. Here's more info on the parade, http://chandleraz.gov/default.aspx?pageid=164.

I will be having my first Saturday of the month workshops on November 5th and December 3rd. November workshops will be combinations, 7 veils and drum & zills. The workshops for December are combinations, double sword (or single) and drum & zill. I have the entire schedule for 2012 up on my website, http://joyofbellydancing.com/classwrksp.htm.

To start the New Year off right I will be having my annual swap meet; number 17!!! For more info on my annual swap meet check out all the details on my website, http://joyofbellydancing.com/swapmeet17.htm.

Hope you too you at one of the upcoming events...

Weekly Belly Dance Lessons on YouTube

2011-10-04T12:12:00.000-07:00

I finally did it! I'm offering weekly belly dance lessons on YouTube!!! I just posted lesson 2 on fan veils.

Last week I started with a lesson on veils. It was pretty bad but I know I will improve each week which I did this week. You would think after having a belly dance TV show for 13 years I would be use to this but it has been awhile :-)

These lessons are short, each week having a different topic. So far they are just over 7 minutes; I'm sure they will get longer in time.

Here are links to the first two classes:
Lesson 1 - veil
Lesson 2 - fan veils

My YouTube Channel is ShimmyBliss if you'd like to check out my 90 some videos I have posted of performances, class choreographies and now my weekly lessons.

Enjoy my belly dance lessons, more to come...

Wiggles of the West 2011

2011-07-29T10:57:00.000-07:00

What an awesome trip filled with blood, sweat and tears! :-)

Four of us left on Wednesday morning in our RV for 6 days of vending, teaching, competing and having fun. For Rebecca and Rachel this was there first time to Wiggles, Debbie had been before but this was her first year to compete. I've been lots of times actually competing in the very first Wiggles of the West in Sparks, Nevada just outside Reno. This was the 15th and last Wiggles of the West so I needed to compete one last time.

Thank goodness our trip there and back was uneventful. The last 3 years when John and I went the RV would always blow a tire; not this year!!!! You have no idea how happy I am that the RV didn't break down; no idea :0)

It took us about 6 hours to get to Vegas stopping along the way to eat, gas up the RV and such. It was really nice not having to go through Laughlin, the bridge was open over the dam and it was so much faster going this way. Since 9/11 large vehicles could not cross over the dam and had to go through Bullhead City and Laughlin to get to Las Vegas and added an hour onto our travel; not any more; yeah!

We arrived at Sam's Town where Wiggles was held and the girls were off with their luggage to go check into the hotel. I stayed in the RV at Sam's Town RV park and was so proud of myself for getting everything hooked up since I've never taken the RV out on my own. My hubby and puppies stayed home this trip; I sure missed them.

We all met for dinner that night at one of the restaurants at Sam's Town and then off to Wal-Mart to purchase food for our stay. So much cheaper than eating out all the time.

Thursday morning it was time to work! Gail brought her truck over so I could load up all the inventory I brought with and we drove over to the parking garage to unload and start setting up for 4 days of vending. We had to wait until after the workshops started at 8:30 before we could go in and start setting up. I had so many wonderful helpers this year! Debbie, Esther Alice, Gail, Kelley, Rachel and Rebecca were there to help with set up, sales and tear down; thanks ladies!!!!

We were set up and organized in no time and I was off to teach a cane workshop that afternoon. I had 6 cane students twirling not one but two canes. We had a blast with not too many injuries :-) A few canes went flying and a few legs and arms were smacked with canes and just a little blood was shed! I taught moves, group moves, hitting canes, twirling and a choreographed routine. I forgot my camera so I didn't get a photo of everyone :-(

After my workshop it was back to the booth for finishing touches and selling. Thursdays are usually our best days of sales and this year was no different. Thursday night there is a meet and greet or hafla and this years show theme was Old Vegas. It's a dinner buffet and this year the event was packed! What a great show and it was so nice to see Gaylene perform I've never seen her dance before. The Old Vegas theme was perfect! The music was wonderful, a great combination of the old classic belly dance music and songs that you would have heard performed in Las Vegas from Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, etc. Great show ladies!!!

Friday morning we started at 8 a.m. and I taught a fan veil workshop from 8:30 to 10:30. This time I remembered the camera and took a couple of photos of the class in action and a group shot. Another fun class; thanks ladies you were awesome.

I was competing in the Headliner category that started at 2 p.m. that day so around noon Gail and I went upstairs to get ready. Rachel thank you so much for doing my hair and makeup you rock! A huge thanks to Kelley and Esther Alice for holding down the booth Friday! Gail and I both competed in Headliner and wasn't at the booth much on Friday.

Both Gail and I were towards the end of the category and there were 6 of us from Arizona competing in this group; 18 competitors in all. I was very relaxed for some strange reason and once I started onto the stage with the wrong foot it didn't get to me. One judge, Tanya Popovitch, was really getting into my music with a huge smile on her face and dancing in her seat she made me feel relaxed and I went for it! The veil got hung up in my flowers once other than that it was smooth sailing. I wasn't going to do the drum solo I picked since it was 2 minutes long but I'm so glad I did a perfect ending to my routine. The roar of the crowd when I exited the stage was deafening and what a feeling that gives you that the audience loved your performance.

After the Headliner was the Alternative Ensemble. A new category this year; dancing to non-belly dance music and creating a theme. Just before the competition began there was a mob flash! Zaina Hart set this up via email and YouTube. What a blast!!! The song was Foot Loose and several dancers in the mob changed into period costumes from the decade. I was still in my costume since I didn't have a chance to change yet; great fun.

Lucci never winning. I've taken 2nd & 3rd so many times. Janie and Chris started to name 3rd place and it wasn't me and I went okay, than they said 2nd place and it wasn't me and I thought oh well I didn't place this year but I had a great time and gave it my best shot. I haven't competed in years and there were so many great dancers in this category several of them having won titles in other competitions I was happy with what I did. Than Janie said she wanted to pause for a moment before reading the winners name and I was in shock, could I have finally done it????? Then she said my name and I just stood there and screamed I couldn't believe it! The entire corner by my Shimmy Bliss booth exploded with screaming and jumping and hugging I couldn't get to the front to get my trophy. We had our own seating and cheering section in from of my booth; needless to say the AZ group was very loud and rowdy. Thank you Kristen for pulling me out of the mob and pushing me up front. Chris thought I had fainted on the floor since they couldn't see me within the mob of people. I was crying my eyes out, I'm still in shock even after being home for 4 days. Gail called John my hubby so he could experience the tears and joy; love her! I tell you if it hadn't been for Gail's beautiful costume she made me at the last minute and Rachel doing my hair and make up I don't think I would have won. The criteria is not just your dance but hair, make up and costuming play a big part in your scores and that's were I was always lacking. Thanks ladies!!!

After the evening festivities we all went to TGIF for dinner and we were going to go see Harry Potter but dinner took so long we decided to call it a night. I went back to the RV worked a little bit on running charge cards from the days sales, talked with John several times and tried to unwind but still so excited from the day I couldn't. I think I got around 3 hours of sleep before I had to get up and start the day at 8 a.m.

Saturday was going to be a long day with vending during the workshops in the morning and the Ensemble and Entertainer categories starting at 2 p.m. There were 17 Arizonians that entered several of the categories this year a great showing for AZ. In the Entertainer group there were 6 with Ekaja last years winner of Rising Star taking 2nd Place!!! Ekaja (aka Erin) has been dancing for only 2 years under the direction of Rajani both residing in Safford, AZ. Ekaja was fantastic that day, she looked marvelous in her costume and danced sublime. Congrats Erin!! I think we finished up around 9 p.m. and I kicked everyone out of the booth and I closed up shop and headed back to the RV. I think I got 4 hours of sleep that night!

Sunday was the last day of Wiggles. We started at 8 a.m. with a breakfast buffet and show something new this year. The show was great and the breakfast was pretty good. After the show was a new category, Critique. There were 4 dancers that performed for the judges feedback; there were no prizes since it wasn't a competition. Great idea. The competition started at 11 a.m. with Rising Star and than the Alternative Wiggles category. I entered the Alternative category and was the very last dancer. Not only the last dancer in this group but the very last dancer ever to perform at Wiggles of the West; no pressure at all :0)

In my mine I wasn't competing in this category I was performing in a show doing a veil piece that I love dancing to. The original song is by Metallica, "Nothing Else Matters". It is performed by Apocalyptica a 4 piece cello group from Norway. The first time I heard this song it gave me goose bumps; thanks Kim for turning me on to this group! Again I wasn't really nervous since I told myself it's a show go out there and entertain the crowd. I must have done well since there were tears flowing it's such a moving piece. I was really shocked when Janie read my name for 3rd place!!! There were 23 entries in this group and so many fantastic performances a very difficult category to judge every performance is so different. Belly dancing needs to be 50% of your performance with something else fused in and dancing to non belly dance music.

After the awards we packed up the booth in no time; love my helpers!!!! Gail drove me over to the RV and we loaded it up and it was off to the buffet for dinner and a movie; finally. Since Harry Potter wasn't playing at Sam's Town Cinema we went and saw Captain America; it was better than what I thought it was going to be.

Sunday it was unplug everything on the RV and go pick up my RV mates. We hit the road around 9 a.m. and it was smooth sailing home. I'm very happy with my RV at the moment it was a very good vehicle this trip!

Below are photos from the trip; what a trip it was!!!!

A quick shot before we hit the road

Rachel and I at Love's Truck Stop outside of Kingman

Rachel taking high score at Love's

Wednesday night dinner with Rachel, Kyla and me

Shimmy Bliss booth! Have no idea how we get so much in a small space

Fan veil class in action

Fan veil class; what a great pose

Me in costume after competing

Gail (Rukshana) in costume after competing

Gail and I

Me after winning Headliner with my trophy and tiara

Dinner Friday night at TGIF

Rachel and Kyla

Kyla and I messing around

Kyle modeling Kyla's wears

Kyle and Kyla

Kristen and John

My straight hair for Alternative category

Janie, me and Chris

Thank you Janie and Chris for 15 years of great memories and wonderful friendship! Wiggles will be missed but I'm sure you will be doing something special in the future :-)

Below is my winning Headliner performance.

Here is my 3rd place Alternative performance

Fusion Day 3

2011-06-12T15:22:00.000-07:00

What a fantastic day yesterday at Fusion Day 3!!!! The day started at 5 a.m. getting ready and everything loaded up in the car and truck for a full day of fun! Ro (from Ro and Rea) was the first vendor to get at the Women's Club of Mesa. She arrived before Rea which is amazing :0) Mona was the next vendor to arrive from Canterra Designs. She was helping out Canterra who couldn't make it due to a family emergency. Naj from the Bellydanceshoppe.com arrived and we were all busy getting our booths set up for a full day of vending.

The doors opened at 9:00 a.m. with a few people wondering in to shop. Rajani and Erin arrived from Safford and we got Erin set up to do henna.

The first workshop started at 10 with the lovely Helena Vlahos teaching "taxim". The workshop was full of eager dancers following every move of Helena's and listening to every word. Helena was incredible yesterday teaching her workshop; she had everyone dancing, laughing and having a great time.

Rajani taught the next full workshop called a "pinch of salt". The handout was a book! Her workshop encompassed so much information touching on negative vs. positive space, stage space, energy, hands, stage fright, costuming and more! It's so great to see workshops with so much movement, laughing and everyone having a blast!

I ended the day with a tribal workshop on working with partners and groups. A huge thanks to my helper Lisa I couldn't have done this without you. I warmed everyone up to get their blood flowing and muscles ready for their dance workshop. We started with reviewing all the moves that were going to be in the combinations. The first combo was slow and we worked it as a duet than what it would be as a trio. The second combo was faster paced and we first learned it as a duet and barely had enough time to work it out at as a trio and quartet. It was nice to hear cheers when the groups got the combos!!! It was another full workshop and no one ran into each other during all the turns; you all rock! :0)

During the 30 minute breaks between workshops there was a lot of networking, shopping and people getting henna; Erin had them line-up waiting to receive one of her masterpieces.

We closed down the building before the show and opened back up again at 6:30. The audience was wonderful! Lots of clapping, yips and zaghareets all night long! The performers were spectacular in both their lovely costumes and dancing. Taking photos was Santa Joe and a new comer Angie Marie; I can't wait to see the photos from the show!

Below are photos that I snapped throughout the day; sorry no photos of my workshop I forgot to tell the hubby to take them.

Mona from Canterra Designs

Rea & Ro

Shimmy Bliss booth during set up

Some of the students in Helena's workshop

Rajani's workshop

group shot from Rajani's workshop

Erin (Ekaja) doing henna on Rajani's arm

helpers Kelley and Clara

my hubby helping at the check in desk

Helena

Ekaja

Pamela from Flagstaff

Jackie

Christine

Naj

Rhonda

Mahin

Josie

Stephanie

Thank you to everyone who helped out, shopped, took a workshop and performed; you all made Fusion Day 3 so special!!! My next big event is my annual swap meet on January 14, 2012 hope to see you there it will be number 17!

Rachel Brice Show, 6/4/11

2011-06-05T14:42:00.000-07:00

What a fabulous evening!!!! Kimberly from Plaza de Anaya brought Rachel Brice to town for 3 days of workshops and an evening show. By the time I found out about Rachel being here her workshops were sold out :-(

I was honored to be asked to perform in the evening show; thanks Kimberly for the invite I had a blast. I met the most wonderful down to earth woman; what a great soul Rachel Brice has she is amazing.

Normally with the craziness of a show you never have time to chat with the stars but not so last night I was able to spend some time getting to know Rachel.

The show started with Melissa performing to the musical talents of Elissa on dombec. Following them was Ellisah doing a double veil routine and ending with a drum solo. Ava Fleming was breath taking with her dance from Moulin Rouge, Roxane. It was so nice to see Heidi perform and drove the audience crazy with her African fusion dance. Eric Salazar from Albuquerque was next and boy can he move. Melissa graced the stage again with a special effects light projection show with Voidmine; very cool. Bastet's fan veil routine was incredible! I really liked the short fan veils and might be cutting a pair of mine off :-) Ending the first half was Rachel Brice. What can I say, perfection! Her first number was short and fun great teaser for what was coming up.

I opened the 2nd half of the show with a veil dance to Apocalyptica. Anaya Tribal (Tiffany & Danna) was after me and sorry to say I missed it :-( Helena Vlahos graced the stage with such elegance as only Helena can. I love watching her dance she was magnificent last night. Bastet & Eric Salazar did a duet and love, love, loved it! They are great together. Rachel Brice ended the evening and wow!!! Her last song was a Smokey jazz piece and her dance was amazing, astonishing and breathtaking.

I only have a few photos from the evening. There was no flash photography allow and my camera doesn't do well in low light so no photos from the show. Below is a group shot with crew, group shots of some of the performers and a photo of Rachel and I. Thanks so much to the gentleman that was sitting in the front row before the show started to take these pictures for me.

group shot with crew

group shot with some of the performers

A Plaza de Anaya tradition, a funny shot

Rachel Brice, Heidi and I

Rachel Brice and I

Next event coming up is Fusion Day 3 on Saturday June 11th. Hopefully I'll have more photos to show :-) See you there...

Ground Control 3/12/11

2011-03-13T07:54:00.000-07:00

Wow what a night last night 2 shows!!! Kelley, Rachel and I started the evening off at Ground Control in Goodyear; thanks Bea for asking us to perform. We started the evenings performances since we needed to be in Tempe at TC's event to perform with Debbie and Lisa later on the night.

Our first dance was tray and we ended our performance with hand candles. After us was Bea and Martha and than the Dojo Girls performing a very fun set. Mannie was next and than we were off to Tempe to for our next performance. Sorry Diosa we couldn't stay and watch you all dance.

We made it to Plaza de Anaya where TC's annual event was happening in record time! When we got there they had just started so we didn't miss much at all. We were going on second to last which gave us time to practice our veil and candle dances. We started out in the parking lot behind the building since it was so much cooler outside; the place was packed!!! We than moved into the back studio to run through the numbers again.

It was a great show with all styles of dancing and several groups with live music. TC you did it again!

Below are photos from Ground Control; thanks to Kyla I got some very interesting photos some I can't post :-) Sorry no photos from TC's event too crowded I couldn't get close enough to get some good shots.

Next event is County Fair on April 17th.

February Events 2011

2011-03-07T23:00:00.000-08:00

What another busy, busy month!!! Classes are still in session, my normal 1st Saturday of the month workshops, Estrella War vending with Kyla and taught a workshop in Safford.

Estrella War was something else this year. Kyla asked me back to vend with her so John and I went out on Sunday to set up the vending tent. Gail helped Kyla during the week and John and I went out with the puppies and RV on Friday. I opened shop on Friday with Gail popping in and out during the day so Kyla could be at home due to the lose of their dog Willow. Friday was very busy and the weekend looked very promising with sales. Saturday arrived and it was pretty nice in the early morning and than 11:00 came and so did the wind! I held the center pole of the tent till about 2:00 when I had to go check on John to see if he was okay. Around 2:30 it started to rain and it rained the rest of the day. I went back to the vending tent around 4:00 and started to clean all my stuff from the dust storm. Kyla had been cleaning and finished her side of the tent and took off for the rest of the day. I finished cleaning my side and locked up shop and went to get some dinner for the night. Ran into several ladies from Plaza de Anaya and spent some time chatting and catching up with everyone. Kimberly and I decided to brave the rain and went to get some food. Back to the RV to eat and watch some movies and watched it rain. Sunday the morning was beautiful and people were out shopping. Than the wind started up again and Kyla and I decided to call it a weekend and started packing up. John and I left around 4:00 that afternoon and hit rain on the way home. The puppies did very well for their first camping experience and the RV survived another trip.

I didn't get many photos since it was such a miserable weekend. Below are a few shots I had a chance to take on Friday. The first one is of the puppies with Nitro telling me he wanted out of the pen. The next few photos are of my items from Shimmy Bliss and the two remaining photos are of Kyla's work; she makes some awesome works of art. Her hair items and jewelry are breath taking.

Of course I forgot my camera when Gail and I went down to Safford for my Tribal Asian Fusion workshop sponsored by Rajani. Gail and I started out at 6:30 a.m. since Google Maps said it would take 3 1/2 hours and the workshop started at 10:00. The drive was uneventful thank goodness and it only took 2 1/2 hours to get there. Rajani was already at the gym setting up when we got there. We unloaded her truck and my car and set up Shimmy Bliss. The ladies started arriving and Rajani put out a spread of food that was amazing; love the chicken salad! Erin makes the best cupcakes and she brought two flavors, hummingbird and lemon! Erin please bring more cupcakes to Fusion Day in June and Wiggles in July; pretty please with sugar on top :0) The workshop went well the ladies in Safford picked up everything so quickly you all Rak! After the workshop was more eating, talking and shopping. Thank you Rajani for having me back it was a fantastic day!!! Gail and I left around 2:00 and had another uneventful drive home thank goodness. Next year I'll remember the camera!

January 2011

2011-03-07T22:25:00.000-08:00

January was a very busy month!!! Classes started on the 11th all 8 of them and my annual swap meet was on the 15th.

The swap meet was so much fun!!!! There were 4 workshops during the day with 18 vendors outside in the yard. This year's instructors were Divine Chaos, Holly, Sherry and myself with the evening show featuring all the instructors along with Holly's troupe, Sherry's troupe and special guests Rajani and Ekaja.

I taught a veil workshop at Simplicity Yoga on the 29th and of course forgot my camera. I really need to stop doing this!!! Thank you April for sponsoring me in another workshop I always have such a great time teaching at your studio.

Below are photos from the swap meet. I handed Kyla my camera and she took some great shots. She also took some really interesting photos as only Kyla can; sorry they didn't make the blog :-) Sorry to say none of the photos from the evening show turned out; thanks Melissa for trying; it wasn't you it was my camera.

Thank you all who attend the swap meet, see you again next year.

December Events

2010-12-25T16:44:00.000-08:00

December was a very busy month with workshops, the Light Parade in downtown Chandler, Desert Mirage at Grandma's Kitchen and classes ending.

I finally have time to post on all my blogs what has been happening since we are having a break between classes.

December 4th was a very busy day! It was the first Saturday of the month which is my day to offer workshops in my home studio. I am now teaching 3 workshops, 2 dance workshops and 1 drum and zill workshop. The dance workshops that day were combinations moves and balance where we mainly concentrated on tray and sword props.

That night was the Parade of Lights in downtown Chandler which is always a lot of fun. I posted photos from the Light Parade with a short video clip of us during the parade on my Belly News blog, check it out when you have a chance.

Here is a group shot of most of us before the parade.

Saturday December 11th I taught a card class in the morning and that night it was off to Grandma's Kitchen for Desert Mirage. Not many people showed up that night so it was an early evening. Sorry no photos from the nights show. To see the projects from the card class check out my Crafty Belly Dancer blog.

I also opened an Etsy store this month with the same name as my blog, Crafty Belly Dancer. I'm selling my belly dance themed art along with belly dance and craft supplies. I'm still working on my Etsy store and listing new items.

Wednesday December 14th was our last class recital and what a fun class it was. I really enjoyed this class recital I only messed up on one dance this time! :-) We had several soloist and group number it was a great last class! Due to our puppies being neutered the day before the hubby wasn't there to take video of all the class performances he was home puppy sitting.

Below is a group shot before the recital started.

Thank you students for a great 2010. Classes start on January 11th, 12th and 13th. I'm offering a new class next session, Drum and Zill class on Thursday nights from 8 - 9. Check out my website for a list of all my classes at the Mesa Art Center.

Enjoy your holidays and see you next year...

Grandma's Kitchen November 2010

2010-11-14T09:34:00.000-08:00

What a fun night is was with 2 gigs!!! We started the night performing at the Community Spirit show at the Mesa Amphitheater to raise money for the Hawthorne Elementary School. This show was a talent show put on by the City of Mesa. The intermediate tribal class performed 3 numbers and we watched the rest of the show before heading off to Grandma's Kitchen to dance some more.

Below are photos from the Grandma's Kitchen her new location on the south west corner of Country Club and Main in downtown Mesa.

Stacey, Rachel, Kelley, Melissa and the back of Lisa's head

Kay (left) and Stacey (front) performing Staar Kids

Candid shot of Lisa getting ready

Debbie performing a solo

Kay, Stacey and Lisa performing

I posted photos for the talent show on my Yasmina's Belly News blog, check it out when you have a chance.

Until next event take care...

Desert Mirage at Grandma's Kitchen

2010-10-18T12:16:00.000-07:00

What a fun time at Grandma's Kitchen in downtown Mesa!!! Congrats to Debbie and Paula for putting on a great event!

This was the first time for this monthly event and it was great dancing with all my students and watching them perform.

Next month Grandma's Kitchen will be moving I'll post the new location and such before Nov. 13th.

Enjoy the photos from the evening.

before the dancing started, from left to right: Elizabeth, Kay, Pamela, Stacey and Lisa

Kelley and Rachel

Laurette and LA

Lindsey

FCBD routine with Kelley, Elizabeth and me

Kay with fan veils

Lindsey

My solo

Stacey

Paula

Debbie

open dancing

Sorry the rest of the photos didn't turn out I think I need a new camera!!!

Until next month enjoy...

Belly Raqs! a Flagstaff Middle Eastern Dance Collective Show

2010-10-03T10:36:00.000-07:00

What a fun day yesterday going to Flagstaff to be a part of Belly Raqs! Thanks to the Gypsy Chicks for inviting me to be one of the performers in their show I had a blast.

A huge thanks to Kelley and Kyla for making the drive with me you both Rock!!!!!

We started out around 1:00 from Kelley's house and hit a Circle K for goodies for our trip. We made awesome time and found the Coconino Center for the Arts with no problem; okay one U-turn but that was it :0)

We made it to the Center by 3:30 and chatted with the Gypsy Chicks and went to grab something to eat before rehearsal at 4:30.

The weather in Flag was soooooooooooooooo niceeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! We left 105 degree temps in the Valley to nice cool 80 degree weather in the pines in Flagstaff; we even hit a little rain on the way up the mountain!

We had rehearsal for the opening and closing numbers and a few of us ran through our numbers and it was time to get ready for the show. We all started to get ready inside the Center and when the doors opened we moved outside to a tent to finish getting ready. This was really challenging since there was no lights outside and we had two mini lanterns inside the tent. I think I did pretty well putting on my eyelashes and make up by lantern light :0)

The show started a little after 7:00 and finished up around 8:00. Being in two numbers I wasn't able to watch the show but Kyla and Kelley filled me in on the way to Cold Stone Creamy for well deserved ice cream after the show.

We made it back to the Valley in record time even going through some nice rain, winds and the most beautiful lightening show for the drive home.

Below are photos from the day. My camera is a little slow and takes awhile to focus so most of the photos are blurred. Kyla took photos with her camera which is a lot better than mine; I can't wait to see them. Thanks Kelley for taking photos with my dinosaur of a camera during the show.

Group shot from the Circle K Parking lot - Flagstaff here we come!!!!!

Opening number rehearsal before the show

Topaz with the Do-Op Girls

Querida

Tribal Collective

Troupe Shuvani

Part of Gypsy Chicks

Janet & Meredith

Lightning Laura

Mikaela

This month is a very busy month dance wise with lots of performances through the end of the year. Check out my Belly News Blog for more happenings with my students from the Mesa Art Center. We have the State Fair, MECDA Festival, City of Mesa Talent show and the Chandler Parade of Lights to name a few events coming up.

Thanks again to the Gypsy Chicks and to the dancers of Flagstaff for making me feel so welcome.

Wiggles of the West

2010-08-01T01:46:00.000-07:00

I know it's been a very long time since my last post; sorry.

I just returned from Wiggles of the West in Las Vegas were I vended, taught and performed. What a great time we had; thanks Janie and Chris you both Rock!

Congratulations are in order to Michele for winning the Hobbyist category and to Ekaja from Safford for winning the Rising Star category. Congratulations to Diosa's troupe Osirus for taking 3rd place in the Tribal Fusion Ensemble; it was a great year for AZ dancers!!!

Michele after winning Hobbyist

Ekaja before the competition began

Enjoy the photos from the trip. Yes I remembered to take my camera and as you can see I wasn't in too many of the photos since I was taking them :-)

Gail and Ekaja at the Shimmy Bliss booth

The hubby helping set up

Gail and Kyla goofing around

Dojo Girls after competing

Gail as Barbie; great routine

Barbie turned into Tribal Barbie midway through her routine

Kyla before competing

till next time....

Photo Shoot at the Mesa Art Center

2010-06-05T20:14:00.000-07:00

I finally had a photo shoot on Sunday May 30th at the Mesa Art Center (MAC) a place I've wanted photos done for the past year. I've needed updated photos for so long and my friend David was so kind to take the photos.

Kyla came over in the morning and did my hair; a huge thanks to Kyla she worked wonders with my hair. Kyla creates the most beautiful hair accessories and jewelry; she made everything that she put in my hair. Check out her website site to see her beautiful work.

John took our scooter up to the MAC since I was running behind schedule to let David know I was on my way. Kyla and I showed up and the fun began. David took over 300 pictures all over the campus. The MAC is a great place to have photos done there are so many little venues all different that are great backgrounds.

Thanks David for some magnificent photos!!! I had such a difficult time narrowing down the ones I really liked.

Below are photos from the day...enjoy.

Mesa Art Center Class Recital, 5/19/10

2010-05-25T15:58:00.000-07:00

What a great evening loaded with lots of fun, fantastic dancing and family & friends to share it with!!! We had a new room to perform in with lights and lots of room which made the night extra special!!!!!

Below are some photos from the evening and a short video of highlights from all 6 classes.

Group shot

Debbie performing with fan veils

Jadeh performing a cabaret number

Roxy performing with a veil

Stacey performing tribal fusion number

Melissa and Kelley enjoying the show

Highlights from the evening class performances

Summer session starts June 1st, 2nd and 3rd hope to see you in class.

County Fair 2010

2010-04-18T22:27:00.000-07:00

A beautiful day to perform at the County Fair, not to hot with a nice breeze from time to time.

Fifteen of us arrive at the State Fair Grounds to spend an hour together having fun and performing for friends, family and fair goers setting a spell to enjoy our dancing.

Below are a few photos from the days adventure before my camera died.

Group shot before our performance - Carol, Kathy, Pamela, Stacey, Paula, Kelley, Elizabeth, Kay, Roxy, Jadeh, Melissa, myself, Debbie, Dena and Lisa

Carol during the 6 minute routine

Jahed during the 6 minute routine

Pamela, Stacey, Lisa and Dena performing in the tribal fusion skirt dance

Myself in the Thai nail dance with my partner Melissa

Thank you everyone for a fun day....

Two Week Break From Classes

2010-03-29T08:28:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe we have been off for two weeks for Spring break from my belly dance classes!!! Classes start tomorrow night March 30th.

During the break I performed at India's Grill in Mesa. Clara thanks for bringing your sister and coming to see me dance. It's a great little restaurant and the food was really good.

On March 25th eight of us from the intermediate tribal class performed the skirt dance for Jackie's Spanish class at MCC. That was fun I'm not to sure what her classmates and instructor thought :0)

Of course I forgot my camera and have no photos of either event! I need to just keep my camera in my purse at all times!!!

On Saturday March 27th I held two workshops at my home studio. I taught one and Carrie Konyha from Sedona came down and taught the other workshop. Everyone loved Carrie's workshop she is a fantastic performer and fabulous instructor. It was a great day enjoying our wonderful Spring weather and dancing. Thank you to all who that attended the workshops I know I had a great time.

After the day was all done and I was saying goodbye to Kelley it hit me I forgot to take pictures of the workshops! I had no excuse the camera was right there in the house!!! I guess I need to wear the thing around my neck :0)

April is going to be a very busy month. Classes starting, my 1st Saturday workshops, performing on April 10th at the Phoenix's First Ladies show, teaching a workshop on April 17th and performing at the County Fair on April 18th and vending, performing and teaching a workshop on April 24th in Cottonwood with Anaya Tribal and Carrie. This month is going to fly by and my goal is to have the camera with so I have photos :-)

Last Class Recital, March 9, 2010

2010-03-12T08:49:00.000-08:00

What a great performance on March 9th!!! I'm so proud of my students they work really hard on all their dances and what a show they put on Tuesday night. Thanks to everyone that helped set up the room with chairs and putting everything back when we finished. The audience was fantastic moving to the dance room to watch the intermediate tribal class perform the skirt dance since the drama room was too small for flying skirts :0)

Below are some photos from the evening performance. Thanks Gail for taking such great photos during the show.

Group shot before our performance

Beginning Thursday night tribal performing to the song "I Like To Move It"

Beginning Wednesday night tribal class performing a basket dance

Beginning Wednesday night cabaret class performing a fusion dance

Beginning Tuesday night cabaret class performing a 1980's dance called "Bellyrobics"

Intermediate Tuesday night cabaret class performing an Oriental dance

Intermediate Wednesday night tribal class performing a skirt dance

More skirt dance

Jade performing a solo

Roxy performing a sword solo

Michele and Kay enjoying the show

Next recital will be in May...

Catching Up January - February 2010

2010-03-01T19:54:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since my last post and so many events have taken place.

My dance classes at the Mesa Art Center (MAC) on January 19th and I'm now teaching 3 nights a week Tues., Wed. and now Thursday evening with a new beginning tribal class.

On January 23rd I held my 15th Annual Belly Dance Swap meet and even this week and one of the worst storms in AZ it didn't dampen our spirits. Attendance was really down due to the unusual weather since dancers from out of the Valley of the Sun couldn't make it due to so many road closures. We will do it again on January 15, 2011!!!

Helena's workshop at the 15th Annual Swap Meet

On February 6th I danced at TC's Belly Dance Gathering at Plaza de Anaya as a solist and with some of my students. It was a fun show with lots and lots of dancing and chatting with friends.

Kelley, Kyla, myself, Dena and Debbie at TC's show

I vended with Kyla and Gail at the Estrella War Games in Florence, AZ Feb. 9th - 14th. This was my first time vending at War and doing henna for a day. I saw so many people I hadn't seen in so long; next year I'm not driving back to town we'll stay and camp.

Our vending tent at War

Kyla, Gail and I at War

John and Ratso

Last Saturday I taught a veil workshop in Safford, AZ and what a blast!!!! The women in Safford made me feel so welcome, like one of the group. A huge Thank You to Rajani for inviting me to teach; now Rajani know how to throw a party! My hubby and dog Ratso came along for the ride and although I can't speak for Ratso my hubby had a great time!!

I am going to do my best to make sure I bring my camera with to all events in the future. There are several events in March and OMG April is filled with workshops and shows every weekend along with a road trip to Cottonwood. I can't wait to see everyone in Northern AZ.

Till next time...enjoy

Upcoming Events

2009-12-26T22:15:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone had a great holiday; mine was fantastic!

During the break from my Mesa Art Center classes I will be teaching a bellyrobics class on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings from 6:30 - 7:30 p.m. If you would like to join in on the workout send me an email to register, yasmina@joyofbellydancing.com. Classes will be $5 each and will start Dec. 29th & 30th and continue the 1st two weeks in January 5th, 6th, 12th and 13th.

I am starting something new the first Saturday of the month mini workshop. I'm adding a second workshop that day from noon until 1:00 p.m. The entire 2010 schedule is posted on my website; check it out when you have a chance.

My Mesa Art Center classes will be starting January 19th, 20th and 21st. Below is all the info on these classes.

Tuesday

beginning belly dance (American Cabaret Style)

CAW10DNC003-01 T Jan 19-Mar 9 7-8pm $47 R $55 NR

intermediate belly dance (Oriental Style)

CAW10DNC004-01 T Jan 19-Mar 9 8-9pm $47 R $55 NR

Wednesday

beginning dance (American Fusion Style)

CAW10DNC003-02 W Jan 20-Mar 10 6-7pm $47 R $55 NR

beginning tribal style (Basket Dance)

CAW10DNC001-01 W Jan 20-Mar 10 7-8pm $47 R $55 NR

intermediate tribal style (Skirt Dance)

CAW10DNC002-01 W Jan 20-Mar 10 8-9pm $47 R $55 NR

Thursday

beginning tribal style (Tribal Fusion, song Move It)

CAW10DNC003-02 W Jan 20-Mar 10 6-7pm $47 R $55 NR

register by calling the Mesa Art Center box office, (480)644-6500, or drop off your registration at the Art Studios at the Mesa Arts Center lobby.

late registration call (480)644-6500

brochures are at the Mesa Art Center or visit the Mesa Arts Center website, http://www.mesaartscenter.com/index.php/classes/dance.

My first big event will be January 23rd at the Women's Club of Mesa. This will be my 15th Annual Belly Dance Swap Meet. Below is more info:

Mark your calendars for Saturday January 23rd from 8:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Enjoy a day of shopping, workshops, networking with other dancers and having fun.

The event will be held at the Women's Club of Mesa - 200 N. Macdonald, Mesa, AZ 85201 (cross streets - University & Center)

Vending space is $10.00 (setup will start at 7:00 a.m.)

Please bring your own table(s) or rugs, setup will be outside. If you would like shade bring a tent.

Four workshops this year!!!

9 - 10 Yasmina - New Dance Combinations

10:30 - 11:30 Sherry - Fusion Belly Dance

Noon - 1:00 Helena Vlahos - Arm and Hand Movements

1:30 - 2:30 Aradia Rose - Zumba

Workshops are $5 each.

To reserve your vending and/or workshop spots please contact Yasmina - 480/962-6303 – yasmina@joyofbellydancing.com.

Workshops are starting to fill up; email or give me a call to reserve your spot.

Enjoy your weekend and have a fun, safe and wonderful New Year...

Chandler Parade of Lights

2009-12-24T10:33:00.000-08:00

Sorry this has taken so long; what can I say it's that time of year! :0)

What a fun night it was and a very chilly night for us in AZ. The first Saturday of December was a very busy day. I started the day with teaching a dance workshop in the morning and that night was the light parade in downtown Chandler.

We needed to be there by 5:00 p.m. to get set up and ready to be judged for our category Best Lit Musical or Dance Troupe. The "lit" part was for lights on the costumes not "lit" inside :0)

I had my own contest going for the class and Dena and Paola won best lit dancer (again it was the use of lights) and Kyla won best use of glow sticks.

A huge thanks to Kelley and Melissa for getting us drummers to provide the music for us as we danced down the parade route with our lit candy canes.

Below are photos of the event and I'm already planning next years route!

group shot with the early birds

Roxy

Michele

Melissa and I

Melissa

Jade

Melissa, me and Ginn lit up

Jackie in the parking lot

Elisabeth

Kelley

group shot

Everyone have a great holiday season and a very happy New Year...until next year take care.

Craft class on November 14th

2009-11-09T12:56:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone,
I know it has been awhile since my last blog it's my super busy schedule and living life to the fullest!

Below are the boxes we will be creating in class on Saturday. These boxes are great for small gifts and candy treats.

group shot of all the boxes

Small acetate box with stamped images; sorry they are really difficult to see

Box in a bag

Mini bags using the Sizzix Top Note die cut

Small box using the Sizzix Top Note die cut

Triangle box

Mini pizza box with a turkey made with a stamp set by Stampin' Up called Fall Whimsy. The turkey is made with leaves, pumpkin and an acorn

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

Talent Show, October 17, 2009

2009-10-18T15:01:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-11T17:57:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-29T12:36:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-14T21:13:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-18T17:36:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-15T21:36:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-09T11:04:00.000-07:00

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

Wiggles of the West 2009

2009-08-02T10:41:00.000-07:00

What a super delicious weekend at Wiggles of the West!!!

We started out our day running behind schedule due to our scooter “Stella” not wanting to get on the back of our RV. I had the RV all loaded Tuesday night and all we had to do is put Stella on the back in the morning. When we went to put the bike hitch on the RV we couldn’t find the bolt to hold it in place. My ingenious husband put an over size drill bit and bungee corded the hitch in place. Needless to say I was very nervous about what he had done and envisioned Stella coming off the back of the RV going down the freeway; yikes!

After an hour and half messing with Stella we were on our way. First stop the QT to top off the gas than on to pick up Kelley. Made it to Kelley’s house with Stella still on the back than it was off to Wal-Mart to get a bolt for the hitch; yeah!!!!!

Finally we are on the road to Las Vegas to Wiggles of the West for 4 days of vending, teaching a workshop and watching the competitions. Well that’s what we thought… We just turned off the I17 onto Carefree highway and blew the front right tire!!! We blew a back tire when we were on the way to Sedona 2 years ago in the middle of no where when I went to teach a dance workshop.

We called our insurance company; yeah Progressive, and they sent a tow truck to change the tire and put a spare on for us and we were off to 7th St. and Cave Creek road to Discount Tire to put 2 front tires on the RV. Okay now we have 6 new tires on the “Beast” my loving name of our RV, and we are finally off to Las Vegas; 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday!

The rest of the trip was awesome, no more vehicle troubles!!! Kelley thought I was totally crazy playing word games like the grocery store game and name game on the way up but I tell you it certainly passes the time away on a very boring drive. Since we have a large vehicle we can’t go over the Hoover Dam and have to take a detour through Laughlin. Through Laughlin there was a wreck a semi truck had turned over on its side cab and all. We couldn’t tell if any one got hurt it only seemed to be the semi that was involved.

We finally made it into Sam’s Town Las Vegas at around 7:00 p.m., hooked up the RV at Sam’s Town RV Park and went to check out were we were going to be vending on Thursday. We checked the place out, got Kelley registered at the hotel were she was going to be sharing a room with Gail and Debbie, hit Panda Express and back to the RV for dinner. What a long day!

Thursday morning came really early. I called Gail to arrange time to get everyone together to go set up our booth. They had a late start on Wednesday and got in after midnight. We could start setting up at 7:00 a.m. but I chose to get everyone together at 8:30 a.m. Gail drove her truck to the RV Park with Kelley in tow and we loaded up 15 tubes of goodies that we will be selling. Thank goodness we have a basement in our RV to store Shimmy Bliss :-) The hubby was terrific through the entire trip loading, unloading, loading, unloading and loading & unloading the RV with all our stuff!

Debbie, Gail and Kelley

We get to garage 2 3rd floor to unload only to find that there is VIP parking close to the elevators so we put the racks together and large cart we have and loaded everything on wheels and made it one trip! We found the Ponderosa conference rooms and we got the best booth in the entire room. We were in a corner next to a mirror and a small closet area behind us was perfect for a dressing room to try on the costumes we brought and best of all it had an electrical plug for my laptop!

yeah the booth is done!

We started setting up the booth and it took us several hours before we had it the way we wanted. Gail brought one of her dress forms, “Squishy” which we dressed every day. We had a theme for the 4 days we were vending and Squishy was one of the girls modeling the theme for the day.

Squishy

Thursday was filled with workshops through out the day from 8:30 a.m. ending at 6:00 p.m. Starting at 7:00 p.m. was the Meet and Greet with buffet and show. I performed at the Meet and Greet and was open for vending during the night. I performed with my fan veils which will be the workshop I will be teaching at next years Wiggles of the West. It was a fun evening ending at 9:30 p.m.

Kelley modeling a shell belt

I ran back to the RV to change and John, my hubby and I met Gail, Kelley and Debbie at the movie theater at Sam’s Town for the 10:00 p.m. showing of Star Trek. Great film and will need to watch it again to catch all the things I missed from the first viewing J It was midnight when we got out of the movies it was time it get some sleep.

Friday morning I met Gail at the booth at 8:00 a.m. to open up shop and it was off to teach my Tribal Fusion Indian Styling workshop at 8:30 a.m. I forgot to take my camera to class and I didn’t get a photo of everyone :-( It was a great workshop and the students did great learning all the mudras (hand positions) and dance steps. I barely got through everything in 2 hours and it was back to the booth to relieve Gail so she could take the Aradia’s drum solo workshop at 10:45 a.m. Her workshop was held in the large room where everything was happening so we got to watch :-)

view of Wiggles from our booth

At 1:00 p.m. they closed the large room to give the vendors a break for lunch which was a buffet and show at Sam’s Town Live. What a fantastic room with a large stage, 2 large screens on both sides of the stage, great sound system, lights and more. The show was fantastic and it was good to chill for an hour. Thanks to the lovely ladies of Anaya Tribal giving me their Friday buffet ticket, this way I could have lunch with my hubby. I returned the favor and gave them my Saturday ticket so they could enjoy the food and show which I heard was just as great.

Tiffany and Cari of Anaya Tribal

The doors opened at 2:30 p.m. for the competition to start at 3:00 p.m. Friday started with the Headliner group than Mini Ensemble ending with Alternative Wiggles. Every contestant did great and Wiggles Alternative brought the house down what a fun category! The winners were announced and prizes were given and we all got out of there at midnight; what a day!

Kelley, me and Kyla

We started Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m. and Gail and Debbie took an 8:30 a.m. workshop with Inara and Kelley helped out in the booth until we broke again for lunch from 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. We all went to Friday’s at Sam’s Town and inhaled lunch so we could get back to the booth to get ready for the 2:30 p.m. opening of the doors. Saturday competitions were Hobbyist, Ensemble (troupes) and Entertainer Preliminaries. The ensembles were fun to watch and the group that one, Troupe Amara of the Midnight Mirage School of Dance was huge and it was amazing how they all fit on stage! There were 28 Entertainer of the year competitors performing that night and they cut that down to 13 finalists for the next day. Winners were announced and prizes were given to the Hobbyists and Ensemble categories and it was midnight again before we closed up shop and called it a day. Congratulations to Candice for winning the Hobbyist category!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday morning 9:00 a.m. we all met at Friday’s at Sam’s Town and I took my crew out for breakfast. A super huge thanks to Gail, Kelley, Debbie and John for helping at Wiggles I couldn’t have done it without you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The doors opened at 11:00 a.m. for the start of the competitions for the day; Rising Star, Tribal Fusion Ensemble and Entertainer Finals. My favorite was the Tribal Fusion Ensemble category, yeah Tribal!!!! The winners were Orchid Belly Dance from CA. They were great and they were customers of mine for years so it was super exciting to meet them in person! Tribal Moon Rising from CA was terrific being my best customers at Wiggles; ladies thanks so much for shopping with us! Maha Dansori was fun and they shopped with us on Sunday, they took 3rd place. Congrats to all the winners of the Tribal Fusion Ensemble category.

lovely ladies of Tribal Moon Rising

The day ended around 7:00 p.m., an early night. We packed up the booth got it all back to the RV, loaded it up and we all met Kyla and Nisha at the buffet in Sam’s Town for dinner. What a riot that meal was, we closed the place at 9:30!

Kyla thanks for keeping us so entertained throughout the weekend you were a blast. Every morning we would have the panty reveal and girl you have some great undies! I still can’t believe my husband got in on the act showing his skull boxers; yikes! :0) Through out the entire weekend you lifted our spirits when we were all so tired we didn’t know if we were coming or going; thanks!

Kyla

To Janie and Chris, the Two Old Bags, Awesome Party!!!!!!!!!!! Wiggles of the West keeps getting better and better and I love that you move it to Vegas!!! I was there at the first Wiggles in Sparks, NV and wow has this event grown! We will be back next year and can’t wait!

Chris and Janie (Two Old Bags)

Technique Card Class

2009-07-03T23:09:00.001-07:00

Hi Crafters

Finally the technique class you all have been waiting for. Saturday the 11th you will be learning 5 different techniques and making 7 cards. There is still room in this class let me know if you would like to join in on the fun.

Below are photos of the techniques you will be learning and some of the cards you will be making.

Faux Leather

This is a really cool technique and easy. It is done with masking tape, ink and clear embossing powder. Very simple and the photo doesn't do it justice.

Baby wipe

Another simple technique using a wipe, re-inkers and a silloutte stamp. Very messy and easy :0)

Wrinkle free distress

I made four tags from the ink I placed on the wax paper. It's amazing how the tags turned out so differently using the same 3 colors of ink. This is a really messy technique and very fun.

We will be making two tags and cards in class.

Burned Batik

Very cool technique that took some time to achieve. I did two different sheets of paper and the pairs turned out so different. In the above photo the top two I used a thinner stamp and only two colors of re-inkers and the bottom two I used a thicker stamp with three colors of re-inkers. We will be making two cards from one sheet of paper.

3 colors, wide stamps

2 colors, thin stamp

Spotlight

I really like this simple technique that spotlights an area on the card. Very simple to do yet it gives a really cool effect.

Great news I will be teaching card/craft classes starting in September at the Mesa Art Center. One workshop a month on different topics on a Saturday from 9 until noon and one class on a Thursday night. The brochure with all the workshops will be out in August.

I've had so many request for the CD album and paper bags class I will be teaching these classes along with a box workshop, technique class and holiday cards.

Have a fun and safe holiday...

Fusion Day What a Blast!!!

2009-06-28T16:14:00.000-07:00

I survived Fusion Day!!!! :0)

Thanks to all who attended yesterday’s event. What an awesome day I had a blast. I enjoyed meeting everyone and seeing old & new friends I haven't seen in awhile. You all made this event very special and fun.

Huge thanks to Melissa for manning the booth while I taught my fusion skirt workshop; girl You Rock!!!

Elizabeth sorry for putting you on the spot to partner with me; you did a terrific job helping me demo in class; thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Sabrina what gorgeous henna you created; your artwork is fabulous. Thanks so much for coming and sharing your art.

Cari and Carrie thanks so much for sharing your talents everyone enjoyed your workshops!!!

Thanks to Paula and Dawn for helping me pack up everything when it was all over with!

To my hubby whom I can not thank enough, you rock my world I'm so lucky to have you in my life! You were terrific yesterday helping out!

Below are some photos from Fusion Day.

Sabrina hard at work

Fusion skirt class

More skirts flying

Cari from Anaya Tribal starting her class

Carrie Konyha teaching her 9/8 workshop

Some goodies from Shimmy Bliss

Thank you all again for traveling from all over the State to join in on the fun!

Next event is my fall swap meet on October 10th. I will have info on this event on my website next month. Hope to see everyone there...

Fusion Day it's Almost Here!!!!

2009-06-23T17:44:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited Fusion Day is happening this Saturday, June 27th!!!

I'm working on getting everything ready for the event.

If you have registered for the workshops remember to bring the fullest skirt you have for my fusion skirt workshop and zills for Carrie Konyha's Tribal 9/8 technique workshop.

Bring lots of cash for all the shopping and to get a henna tattoo by Sabrina.

It's going to be a fun day and you still can join in on the fun. There is still some room left in all the workshops and you can reserve your spot by contacting me, yasmina@joyofbellydancing.com or registering on my website via PayPal. You can register at the door if there is room.

Hope to see you on Saturday doors open at 8 a.m.

Projects for Card/craft Class This Saturday

2009-06-10T15:29:00.000-07:00

Hello fellow crafters are you ready for Saturday's workshop???

This month's topic is "mini". We will be making small cards, puff box, mini album and a small purse along with the request from last month the flower pot card.

Below are photos of this Saturday's projects.

Here are all the projects for Saturday

The mini album contains 6 small tag holders that you can decorate in any style or theme you like.

The mini purse holds a surprise a piece of candy! It is difficult to see the faux alligator affect from the photos. It's a messy technique but it has cool results.

We will be using a CD to create this cute little box that will hold any small gift.

These are mini tags great for gift bags or presents.

You asked for it and here it is the flower pot card!

See you all on Saturday...

Thank you Flagstaff!!!!!!!

2009-06-10T15:08:00.000-07:00

On Sunday June 7th my husband, dog Rasto and I headed up to Flagstaff. It was a great trip up and back with no problems along the way; yeah!

We arrived in Flagstaff around 11:30 and found the dance studio I was going to be teaching a fan veil workshop at 1:00 that afternoon. We headed off to find some food and located a little restaurant up the road a bit.

After lunch we headed back to the dance studio where I met Pamela and unloaded the car to get ready for the workshop.

The ladies started to arrive that were taking the workshop and I enjoyed meeting all the new dancers and it was wonderful to see old friends that I haven't seen in years!

Every one picked out their fan veils and I started the workshop. Fan veils are a beautiful prop to dance with and can really add to ones dance with all the flowing silk. The hardest part about dancing with them is opening them and keeping them open! Once you master that it's smooth sailing :0)

The students did awesome! I put a lot in this hour and a half workshop. Technique, moves and a double fan veil choreography. Ladies here's the link to the routine I taught you.

I forgot so many things on this trip and one was my camera, sorry no pictures :-(

Pamela H. thanks so much for all your help in putting this event together, you rock!!!

I hope the Flagstaff dancers will have me back up North I'd love to teach another workshop next summer.

Super Busy

2009-06-05T21:40:00.000-07:00

It's been way too long since my last post and I have so many things to post!!!

On Tuesday night May 26th several of my students and I went to Dooby's to take a free belly dance class with Mitra, perform and of course eat! :-)

What a fantastic evening; good friend's good food and belly dancing what could be better.

Mitra teaching with Dema following along

more of the class

another angle of the class

Jackie, looking good; you go girl!!

Kelley having a great time

Shveta; thanks for dancing!

I was having so much fun I didn't snap many photos; sorry. Thanks to all who came out to have some fun and perform; we need to do this more often!

On Saturday May 30th was Egyptian Cartouche's 3rd Annual Belly Dance Festival held at Plaza de Anaya. It was supposed to be held at the Women's Club of Mesa but some how it didn't get written down in the reservation book and Morgiana found out 2 days before the event she didn't have the Women's Club.

Huge, huge thank you to Kimberly and Tiffany of Plaza de Anaya for doing some switching of classes on Saturday and making room for Egyptian Cartouche to hold their festival both workshops and show at the Plaza!!!

I vended along with Rea & Ro, taught a workshop my tribal drum solo routine at the request of Morgiana and performed in the show that night. It was a wonderful day seeing lots of dancers I haven't seen in such a long time.

My workshop was full and several dancers told me I worked their, you know what off! :0) I love hearing that! I only had an hour & a half to teach this intermediate dance routine and we did it. Thanks to all who took my workshop I had a great time teaching it I hope you enjoyed it. How are those snaky feet coming along :-)

The evening show was awesome. It started at 6:30 and it was after 10:00 when we left. I couldn't see too much of the 1st half. There was no place to sit so Qianna and I hung out in the back looking through pillars and heads trying to watch the show.

After intermission there were some chairs open so Qianna and I grabbed some next to Debbie and Paula and was able to sit and watch the second half. Helena Vlahos little grand daughter performed at age 4 and even rolled a quarter on her belly! Her and Helena started the second half of the show. I was on 5th and missed a few dancers before me getting ready to go on. After performing it was back to the audience to enjoy the rest of the show.

I was so busy in the morning I didn't get many photos and none at the show. My hubby couldn't make it so no video of any of the performances.

My classes started on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week and students I will be getting up the videos on YouTube before classes next week.

This weekend I'm teaching 2 dance workshops, one Saturday on shimmies and one on Sunday in Flagstaff, single and double fan veil. I can't wait to see everyone and enjoy the nice cool pines of Northern Arizona.

Still room to register for any or all the workshop at Fusion Day on Saturday June 27th! Workshops are $15 each until June 15th you still have time to get the discount price. Workshops will be $18 each after the 15th and at the door. Here's more info on Fusion Day, http://www.joyofbellydancing.com/Fusion%20Day.htm.

I've been asked to teach next session at Plaza de Anaya. The new session starts on July 6th and I'll be teaching zills on Thursday nights from 8:30 - 9:30. I'll be teaching zill patterns to some of the popular rhythms in Middle Eastern music and a zill dance to just the music of our zills. More info on the new session will be up next week. There will be some cool classes so check out the schedule when you have a chance, http://plazadeanaya.com/.

In August I'll be teaching a mini session at the Mesa Art Center. The session is only 4 weeks and if you have ever wanted to try belly dancing or a different style than you are use to taking this is a great introduction. The cost of this session is $26 for Mesa residents or $30 for non Mesa residents. Check out my website for more info, http://www.joyofbellydancing.com/classwrksp.htm.

I finally signed up for MySpace, http://www.myspace.com/joyofbellydancing. I don't have a lot up yet but I'm working on it. If you are on MySpace let me know.

Have a great weekend and hope it's filled with dance...

"It is What it is" MAC show on May 16, 2009

2009-05-19T18:15:00.000-07:00

What a great day Saturday was! Very long and fun!!!

My intermediate belly dance classes were invited to perform four numbers in the show. Marlina Kessler director of the dance companies at the Mesa Art Center (MAC) invited us to be a part of her show.

My cabaret class performed a sword routine and a Lebanese Pop number and my tribal class performed a tribal drum solo and Voi routine.

Here are the links on YouTube to the performances from the night:
Tribal Fusion Drum Solo
Voi
Sword
Lebanese Pop

The day started out with dress rehearsal for the "it is what it is" show at the MAC. Of course nothing is ever on time and today was no exception :-) Dress rehearsal was supposed to start at 10:30 so we all got there at 9:30 and you guessed it full dress rehearsal started at noon!

I was hoping to make lots of mistakes through out our numbers because we all know a bad dress rehearsal makes for an awesome show :0) I didn't make any horrible mistakes but enough to know it was going to be a great show!

Dress rehearsal ended just after 2:00 so we all headed home to make adjustments to costumes, get something to eat and try to relax before heading back to the theater at 5:30.

The show started right on time and ran smoothly. Our first number was the tribal drum solo and there were 7 of us. It's difficult in the video to see faces due to the lights on the stage and my husband sitting in the balcony filming. Back row left to right Dena, Kay, Debbie, Michele and front row Me, Elizabeth and Dawn. Check out those crazy lights the tech group was giving us along with the patterns that they were putting on stage. I told them to do what ever they would like and they did :-)

Our next number was the Voi dance or poi veil. There was not a lot of room on stage for the 11 of us plus the Voi but we did it! If feel that the veils purpose in life is to mess up the dancer; sometimes veils can be so flowing and really add beauty to one's dance than the exact same veil can turn on you and make your life miserable! So was my veil the night of the show. It was going well until it wrapped around my arm and I needed to spin in the opposite direction from my fellow dancers. Than during the 8's it decided it no longer wanted to stay in my hand but I got it back right away. The rest of the dance it calmed down and started to behave and looked gorgeous spinning around :0) Everyone did great on this number what an array of color!!! Back row left to right Kay, Melissa, Debbie, Renee / middle row Michele, Lisa, Elizabeth and front row Jackie, Me, Nicole and Dawn.

The second half of the show we started with the sword dance. Although I taught this routine to my cabaret class it has the flavoring of tribal style; what can I say I'm a tribal girl :-) You go girls - no swords dropped!!!!! Back row left to right Margaret, Paula, Kay Beth / middle row Melissa, Lisa, Dawn, Kathy and front row Jackie, me and Dawn.

Our last number was the Lebanese Pop routine I learned from Jillina's new DVD series. I went into the second row next to the wings for this number to let my students shine they did a fantastic job on this routine and they didn't need me center stage. Back row Margaret, Paula, Kay, Beth / middle row me, Elizabeth, Nicole and front row Jackie, Kathy and Dawn.

I love performing with my students what a great group of women; they are such fun!!! Below are photos from the day and thanks Elizabeth for sending me the photos you took from the day.

back row left to right: Elizabeth, Renee, Melissa, Kay, Michele & Dawn - first row left to right: Jackie, Paula, Lisa, Beth and Nicole

back row left to right: Elizabeth, Kathy, Me, Kay, Margaret & Beth / front row left to right: Jackie, Nicole & Dawn

dressing room activity the night of the performance

Kay, Michele, Me and Renee

Nicole

Kay

Dena

Renee

Margaret

Paula & Beth

Michele & Debbie

Lisa

Elizabeth

Melissa

Beth

Until next show...Have fun!

Craft projects for May 9th class

2009-05-06T22:13:00.000-07:00

Hi Crafters,

Sorry this has taken so long to get this month's craft projects posted life has been really crazy!!!

Below are photos of the projects we will be making on Saturday.

Ribbon spool box

We will be using an empty ribbon spool to create a box. You will be able to put small goodies inside or make a photo album.

CD calendar 2010

Using 6 used CDs we will create a colorful calendar for next year. Hang it in your office, by your PC, by the phone were ever you need to check a calendar.

file folder album

Theme for the album is "friend" which could be a pet, a class buddy, co-worker, childhood buddy, family member like your mom, sister, etc. Mine is my hubby, he's my best friend :-) We will be taking a used or new file folder to create the album.

Enjoy your week and see you on Saturday...

Plaza de Anaya Recital

2009-04-30T18:32:00.000-07:00

Sunday April 26th was my first recital at Plaza de Anaya and what a great show. All the students did an incredible job in their dances.

This was the first session I taught at the studio and my class was single and double fan veil. I'm so proud of my students that performed with me that day. The first 4 weeks I focused on single fan veil and the last 4 weeks of the session I instructed double fan veils.

The video below is our performance of the double fan veils and Elaine and Karen did a tremendous job. They learned this dance in 4 weeks!!!

Elaine (left), Karen (right)

Elaine, me and Karen

Unfortunately my husband missed the single fan veil routine but he did get my performance of the double fan veils and my Voi routine the class I'm teaching this session.

My hubby and I had another event to go to that of course was the same time as the recital so we didn't see the rest of the recital. I performed 3 numbers and had to leave. I missed some really extraordinary performances :-(

Next recital I hope to be able to take photos of all the dancers and groups and share them with everyone.

It was a great weekend of dancing, 3 days in a row!!!

Double fan veil routine at Plaza de Anaya, music - Waiting Immigrant by REG Project from Arabianights: club & chillout classics

Voi performance at Plaza de Anaya, music - Lodi Garden by Desi Vibes from Dum Dum Project

Fees Middle School Performance

2009-04-28T18:07:00.000-07:00

Wow what a super busy weekend!!! On Friday night several instructors from Plaza de Anaya performed at the Fees Middle School Festival.

Thank goodness we were able to perform inside the auditorium on stage and what a show it was! Not only was both Tribal and Cabaret styles of belly dancing was represented there was also poi, staff and juggling.

My hubby was there to video and filmed several of us before the battery went dead and he couldn't find the replacement batteries in my bag. I think he was afraid to go into my bag and look :0)

Below are photos I took before the event and video of some of the dancing that night.

Morgiana

Lois and Edith

Rebecca (all above photos of members of Egyptian Cartouche)

members of Kamalah

Cari from Anaya Tribal

Jamie

Rahzi, Mia Donna, Cari and Kimberly

Egyptian Cartouche

Rebecca, myself, Lois and Edith

Tricia

County Fair April 2009

2009-04-19T10:48:00.000-07:00

What a perfect day to be dancing outside with a group of wonderful friends, my students. We arrived at the State Fair grounds in plenty of time. With freeway closures of the 202 and 101 it was difficult to get out of the East Valley! I hadn't been on the 60 in ages and wow all the changes along the way were amazing.

We caravanned in 4 cars and some how all arrived at the Fair grounds close together. There were 11 of us dancing at the fair; Michele, Kay, Dena and Melissa we missed you.

When we arrived at the Community Stage Santa Joe was there taking photos of all the belly dancers performing on Saturday; he was going to be there all day. Members from Desert Dancers from Casa Grande and Florence were performing after us so we had a great audience of fellow dancers along with friends and family.

I am so proud of my students they were tremendous and so much fun to dance with; they performed like pros! The stage was great although there were a few places where the wood was separating under the indoor outdoor carpet. It was a eerie feeling when you stepped on those spots wondering if you were going to go through the stage or not. This stage was 100 percent better, no 500 percent better than the State Fair stage we had last year :-)

Kudos to Shelbie for being our photographer during our performance; sensational job Shelbie you got some great shots!!! Below are photos of our performances and a few candid shots :0)

Group shot before performance

Hips Don't Lie

Indian Fusion

Debbie, solo

Fan veil

Tribal drum solo

Jackie & Kathy, duet

Warda

Blues Brothers, Do You Love Me

Zahira, solo

Fan

FCBD

Paula, solo

Ali

Sword

I Like to Move It

Zahira

Jackie & Kathy

Melissa - surprise :-)

Enjoy your Sunday...

What a Show!!!!!

2009-04-12T07:14:00.001-07:00

Wow! I'm still on cloud 9 from watching the best show I've seen in a long time. Tiffany and Kimberly awesome job ladies putting the Tribal Pura weekend together at Plaza de Anaya!!!

It was a packed house last night and so great to see friends I have seen in such a long time. The show started off with Kamalah a local ATS group from Phoenix and Heather teaches at Plaza de Anaya and studied with Devyania and Lenay from San Francisco.

Divine Chaos took the stage next a local Tribal Fusion group based in Phoenix with members previously from Bedouin Tribe. They performed to live drumming; fantastic job ladies.

Natium World Dance & Students performed next another local group from the Phoenix area. I haven't seen K-Lee in such a long time great to see her perform last night with Natium and her students.

All the way from Prescott, Troupe Salamat delighted us with their performance. It has been ages since the last time I saw them perform. The group had several new faces and loved the Balkan music ladies!

Ending the first half was Red Lotus sister troupe of FatChanceBellyDance in San Francisco. These 3 lovely women were so enjoyable to watch; the audience was just mesmerized watching them perform I know I was!

Devyania started the second half of the show off with director Megha from Birmingham, AL. Both Carolena and Megha are teaching the workshops this weekend. All I can say is Wow!

I missed most of the performance of the next group Samadhi from Phoenix. This group is a collective of dancers and musicians who share a common vision. I was warming up and getting ready to perform right after them. I didn't see their performance but I was able to hear them play and loved their music.

I was next, the only soloist in the show; yikes! :-) I performed a tribal drum solo I taught my intermediate tribal class last session to Djinn's Double Doom Drum Solo; great song with a combination of beat box and doumbec. The audience was tremendous last night and so supportive of everyone performing, what an amazing feeling to be a part of this event and to be a part of it.

Anaya Tribal took the stage next all dressed in white; so striking! Astounding perform by Cari, Danna, Jessica and Tiffany. I love watching these ladies perform they are so much fun.

What a blast seeing Domba perform again what a treat!!! They started their performance with a Bollywood routine followed by a sword number and the show would not have been complete with out their signature African dance! Terrific performance all the high energy, playfulness and just per fun you expect from Domba! Thanks for the reunion.

Ending the evening was FatChanceBellyDance and Friends. What can I say, magnificent!!! I don't think I stopped smiling through the entire show and the finale I was just captivated by all the music, color of the costuming, dancing and Carolena's belly work is just incredible.

Below are photos that turned out from last nights show along with video of my performance. A huge thanks to Melissa for taking photos and filming me.

Melissa and Shelbie

Kamalah

Natium World Dance & Students

Red Lotus

Devyani

Samadhi

Anaya Tribal

Domba

Tribal Drum Solo

Enjoy your week........

Card Class Samples

2009-04-03T16:07:00.000-07:00

Hi Crafters...Below are photos of the cards we will be making Saturday April 11th.

There are 5 this month and the theme is unusual shapes. I really like how the flip flop turned out! :-)

The shapes are popsicle, flip flop shoe, match book, flower pot and the last card is recycling an empty ribbon spool to make a fairy birthday card.

The flip flop I used bright yellow paper for a summer look and stamped polka dots for a little style. The strap I used striped paper and added a flower for flare. I drew around the outside in black marker to give it some depth. I gave one of these cards to my cousin for her birthday and she loved it.

The popsicle cards are so much fun and easy to make and yes the sticks are popsicle sticks and I should add unused :-) After some trial and error really heavy card stock works best. I used a scallop punch for the bite out of the popsicle and sandwiched white card stock between the front of the card and lining of the front piece. The bow keeps the card closed. I gave this card to a friend for her birthday and she thought it was so cool! This card I saw in Creative Paper magazine issue 73, 2008.

This card is in the style of a match book and uses a small bag inside the card to hold a tag. The first one I made I didn't fold enough edging to hold the card close; that is the card on the left. The card on the right worked out much nicer and my friend Amber was the lovely recipient of this card for her birthday. She's my friend and dance buddy so of course the card is vintage belly dancers.

This cute little flower pot card is screaming Spring!!!! This is a very simple card leaving 1" for the lip of the pot and cutting the sides in by an inch to the bottom of the card. I just purchased a Stampin' Up wheel of flowers and needed to create something with it. The flower center is a flatten bottle cap and I painted the center pink. I was going to use a button for the center of the flower but I didn't have any large enough so the bottle cap worked out perfect.

I found this cute Stampin' Up stamp set on eBay and never had a chance to use it until now. The base for this birthday card is an empty ribbon spool. I left a piece of ribbon on the inside of the spool and cut white card stock to fit inside the spool as if it was ribbon; stamped it with sentiment and attached sheer ribbon at the end and tied it in a bow. I colored the fairy with color pencils and highlighted the background with chalk. Unfortunately you can't really see the coloring in the photos.

Bonus card I made after I took the group photo and just needed to include in this months card class; it's a cup cake! I found this card in May/June 2009 issue of Paper Craft Magazine.

I still have 2 spots open if you would like to join in on the fun!

Have a great weekend...

Catching Up

2009-04-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

It's been a very long time since my last post; been super busy.

My Mesa Art Center (MAC) classes start this week along with my Thursday morning classes. During our break my MAC classes had their class recital at Dooby's and it went very well. When I walked in the restaurant and saw tables in front of the stage my heart sunk, the tables were not supposed to be there! There were 100 reservations and Dooby needed to use the dance floor; yikes were is everyone going to dance, the stage will only hold 6 dancers max!

We were able to move one table down front and a couple of numbers we needed to perform twice so everyone had a chance to dance so it all worked out. All in all it was a very delightful evening. My students did fantastic I was so very proud of them working in such tight quarters they were real troopers.

Of course I forgot my cameras that night so I have no photos or video :-(

This session I will be teaching Voi in the intermediate tribal class. I haven't taught this dance for awhile. This is a cross between poi (fire spinning) and veil. A fun dance with no fire!

My dear husband has spent the last several days coming up with a safe way to create the voi for my students. The first time he put them together the bolt when through the tennis ball with a nut and washers at the bottom. This really hurt when the tennis ball hit a body part during spinning it never failed you got nailed by the bolt. He came up with a design where there is no bolt coming through the tennis ball and it works great!!!! I must say he's a pretty awesome guy!!! :-)

I've been asked by Plaza de Anaya to come back and teach next session and I will be teaching Voi there also. I love performing with a veil no matter if it's by itself or attached to a fan or poi.

My Thursday morning classes start this week also along with my first Saturday of the month mini workshop; this month's topic is tribal fusion moves.

Next Saturday, April 11th will be my monthly card/craft class and that night I will be performing at the Tribal Pura show at Plaza de Anaya. This is going to be one spectacular show. It's not too late to get your ticket. Discount tickets are $15, $25 at the door. The show starts at 7:00 p.m. Here's more info.

I'll be posting photos soon of all the cards we will be making on the 11th; it's going to be a fun class.

There is so much going on this month with dancing. We have the County Fair on Saturday the 18th at noon. Plaza de Anaya recital class on Sunday the 26th with the new session starting on Monday the 27th and several of my MAC students and I performing at one of our favorite spots Maui Wowi on April 25th.

Hope you to see you at one of the many classes and events this month.

Paper Bag Album

2009-03-08T13:55:00.000-07:00

Finally finished my paper bag album on my dog Ratso and I must say it turned out pretty well for my first attempt; I see more in my future :-)

Below are photos of Ratso’s album and it's filled with pockets to place photos and keep sakes, tags, embellishments and lots & lots of pictures.

I used my Sizzix's machine to make small envelopes and other cut outs to add more photos to in the way of tags to the album. I went crazy with stickers and rub-ons; I hadn't used items like these before in crafting and of course different dog related designer paper and fiber. I even used a flatten bottle cap and some scrabble letters!

Not only is this the first paper bag album I've made but my very first scrapbook, I even added journaling!!! We will be making these in my card/craft class this Saturday. I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with.

Fun, Fun, Fun at Maui Wowi!!!

2009-03-01T10:16:00.000-08:00

Last night was so much fun!!! I was joined by Dena and Kelley performing some old and new routines and thank goodness Melissa was there to take photos she is so much better than I am! A huge thanks to my hubby for tearing himself away from the awesome car show to film us!!!

Before my hubby and I made it Maui Wowi last night we hit downtown Main Street to check out all the cool cars. Had I known there was going to be a cruise night on Main I would have cleaned our 1961 VW single cab truck so we could have joined in on the fun.

We walked around the event and than I needed to get home to get ready to perform with my friends.

Below are photos of some of the beautiful dancers from last night and two videos.

The first video is with Dena and I performing a single fan veil routine originally choreographed by Blue Damsel with a few modifications by myself and Kelley and I performing to Shakira's song "Ojos Asi". I'm teaching this routine currently to my beginning Tuesday night cabaret class.

My fan veil class starts this week at Plaza de Anaya I'm so excited to be teaching a class at Plaza; it's a wonderful studio and run by some really terrific ladies.

My Mesa Art Center classes will be having their recital at Dooby's on March 11th it's going to be a fantastic evening with great food, marvelous atmosphere and incredible dancing.

March is turning out to be a very busy month. I'll be teaching two card/craft classes, the Bug-a-ram at Firebird Lake and my Cousin from Oregon will be visiting; the antique stores will not be safe when the two of us start shopping :-)

Enjoy your week and hope to see you at one of the many events happening this month.

Love Working With Paper Bags

2009-03-01T09:20:00.000-08:00

My next card/craft class will be creating cards and bags with paper bags! I'm having so much fun with this ordinary useful medium.

I found some colored bags at Paper Plus a paper store near me and I was thrilled to find them. I was having a difficult time finding colored bags. All I was finding were gift bags with handles and it was not what I wanted. Now I'm on the hunt for small bags that are flat not like lunch bags and I can't even locate them on eBay! If any of you see small bags let me know; thanks.

Below are photos of what I've created and there is one more item we will be making in class it’s a bag album. I hope to make it today it will be on my dog Ratso :-)

The "friend" card is using one of the colored bags I found with dye cuts from my Sizzix machine and Stampin' Up stamp set "I Like Your Style". This is a great card to give a friend with several pockets to stash surprises in.

What a cute little purse to give a present in!!! I took a purple colored bag along with designer paper, some ribbon, several flower brads and a tab punch to make this delightful little bag.

The next card is a card and bag all in one. The bag is inside the designer paper which can hold items of various sizes you just need to adjust the flap. I embellished the front with a bottle cap and fiber.

I know I've shown my husbands Valentine card before; I just love how it turned out so I'm going to brag some more :0)

The stamp set I used is from Stampin' Up and its called "Classic Convertibles".

When I finish making the "Ratso" bag album I will post lots of pictures. I hope to start it today!!

This week I'm so excited the Mesa Stamp Convention is on Saturday and Sunday. After I teach my Pops & Locks workshop Saturday morning there are 3 of us going to check it out and hopefully find all kinds of cool stuff!

What an awesome day this will be dancing, crafting and spending it with friends; couldn't ask for much more.

Crafting Weekend

2009-02-15T16:48:00.000-08:00

No dancing this weekend so I spent my time creating cards and crafts. I will be teaching two card/craft classes this month, Saturday the 21st & 28th.

This month's topic is bottle caps and the classes will be making 4 projects; a post it note holder in the shape of a purse, a birthday box to hold a gift or attached money or gift card to the close pin, a match box with card inside and a origami card. Below are photos of the projects plus an extra match box card for my sister’s birthday.

Each project has a different bottle cap to embellish the craft or card. We will be using bottle caps as is and flattened. Inside the bottle caps will be photos that will be beaded or sealed with clear lacquer. One bottle cap will be a shaker with another cap having an accordion card attached.

Birthday box with flatten bottle caps spelling out Happy Birthday. The small cloths pin can hold money or a gift card plus the box can hold a small gift.

Match box with flatten bottle cap with vintage belly dancer photo. Inside the match box is an accordian card with more vintage photos and sentiments.

Post it Note holder in the shape of a purse using fabric and a flatten bottle cap with vintage photo and clear mini beads to and a little spice.

Origami birthday card with shaker bottle cap. When the card is opened it forms a star shape. I made this card for my Mom's birthday.

Here's my Sister's birthday card. It's 3 match boxes attached like a book. The bottle cap has an accordion card with happy birthday wishes. Each match box slides hope where I will putting surprises and money!

Next month's topic will be paper bags and if all goes well there will be 5 projects all using a paper bag. Below is the Valentine's Card I made my husband using a brown lunch bag.

I'm so excited; tomorrow night is a workshop with Kami Liddle at Plaza de Anaya. It's been awhile since I've taken a workshop and I can't wait to learn some new combos to add to my dance and teach my students!

On Feb. 23rd five of us will be performing at Leisure World in Mesa; should be a fun evening. The Illinois Club is always a fun group to perform for.

Last weekend my Royal Python Kaa and I performed for 2 hours at a employee appreciation event at Macayo's. It was a carnival theme and I was the snake charmer. There was a clown, mime, juggler, card reader, cartoonist, magician, carnival games and Larry on stilts or his unicycle; fantastic evening and it gave me hope that if this company could treat it's employees to an evening of food, fun and games things are starting to turn around!!!

Enjoy your week....

Tribal Night at Dooby's

2009-02-12T21:55:00.000-08:00

What a fun evening!!! Special thanks to Amber, Elizabeth and Kay for joining me at Dooby's for Tribal Night. We had a great crowd and danced for a full house. Below are some photos from the event; sorry no video this time.

Come join some of us at Maui Wowi on February 28th.

until next time....

Maui Wowi January 24, 2009

2009-01-27T15:15:00.000-08:00

It was a great weekend with teaching a card class, rehearsal for Dooby's show on January 31st, performing at Maui Wowi and spending time with friends.

Below are photos of some of the lovely dancers at Maui Wowi. I performed this sessions sword routine and tribal drum solo but the video on the sword routine is the only one that came out.

Here's my performance from the evening.

Hope to see you all at Dooby's on the 31st.

14th Annual Swap Meet

2009-01-18T10:55:00.000-08:00

What an awesome day! There were 30 vendors that attended my 14th annual swap meet my largest event to date! Usually the vendors are located in the grassy area of the Women's Club but this year the yard filled up very quickly so the vendors spread out along the sidewalk area next to the building turning the corner with more spaces in front of the Club.

The workshops were full and even the dancers who were on the waitlist got in to enjoy the classes. I started the morning out with combinations only 3 this year and thank goodness I kept it to 3 we just had enough time to learn all 3. The combos I taught were not short they were all 32 counts in length with twist and turns to challenge every dance level.

Holly taught Pops-N-Locks with Morgiana following with Single Veil and Carrie Konyha ending the day with Shimmy Variations and Layering. I heard great reviews about all the workshops. A huge thank you to all my workshops instructors you rocked the house!!!!

Below are photos from the day that my husband took. He was such an enormous help that day as he is every year. I can't say enough about this wonderful man I married.

We are going to do this all over again on October 10th with an added feature an evening show. We are going to make an entire day of it!!!

Class’s start this week, it's been such a long break between sessions; can't wait to see everyone. All the choreographies are ready to go, ladies hope you like them :-)

I'm starting a new class on Thursday mornings from 9 - 10 in my home studio. I'm limiting this class to 5-6 people and it's full! We will be working on technique and combination moves for the next 6 weeks.

I'm also going to be teaching a new class at Venture Out in Mesa. Classes start this week and will run for 6 weeks also. This is going to be one very busy dance week; yikes!!!

This Saturday will be a full day with teaching a card class, a rehearsal for Dooby’s and performing at Maui Wowi.

I’m excited for the card class we will be making the CD books, vintage valentine cards and small boxes filled with candy. I love making the CD books and seeing the artistic creations everyone makes. There will be 6 of us enjoy the day of crafting.

Enjoy your week...

Happy New Year

2009-01-12T08:55:00.000-08:00

Wow it's already January 11th and I'm just finding a little bit of time to blog; what a month already!!!

The first weekend in January I taught two dance workshops on Saturday; a great way to start the year. Thanks Kimberley and Tiffany for sponsoring me in a cane workshop at Plaza de Anaya I had a great time and yeah no one broke the mirrors with a flying cane :-)

Last Friday TC had a Belly Dance Gathering at Inside the Bungalow. It was an outside event and really cold outside but the dancers were there heating up the night. Great show TC and Demi Faraday your second calling is being an MC you were fantastic!!!

Saturday night was Morgiana's birthday bash at Plaza de Anaya. What a party that was!!! Egyptian Cartouche performed as a group and several members did solos and a mini group number. Children of Isis performed a number along with some members doing solo pieces, Karen, Anaya Tribal, Morgaina's Bookman's class and myself ending the evening. I don't know the name of the drumming group that showed up; they provided some cool beats and rhythms during the open dancing throughout the evening.

Saturday morning I taught a card class and what a blast that was. We made peek-a-boo boxes filled with candy (for Valentines Day), a vintage Valentine card and a CD book. Below are photos of what we made in class.

I've had so much fun creating cards and other paper crafts I'm going to be teaching classes every month; just love crafting!!!! I have another class on the 24th of this month; can't wait!

I made a CD card for my husband for his birthday and one for Morgiana on her birthday. Of course my husband's card is car themed with photos of our VW's and a photo of our 2CV and Morgiana's card is belly dance related :-)

My husband's birthday card book...
I took leather scraps to make the cover and the back. The VW letters and the little Citroen car are in flatten bottle caps. The Citroen page I took some of my husband's car patches and scanned them to make the paper whick I attached to the front of the leather scrap to make the back of the card. Some fiber attached to a ring holds it all together.

Morgiana's Card front and back...
I love recycling my old CDs and I've been going crazy making cards and books with them. I stamped the dancer image and took clear micro beads and covered the image with them. I attached some do-dads from bits and pieces I have in my belly dance costume stock and added fiber and beads along the side to spice it up. Morgiana performs the most spectacular double sword routine and I had a sword eyelet in all my crafting goodies and what a perfect embellishment for your card.

This starting the 17th is my 14th annual belly dance swap meet. There will be 4 workshops this year and they are all full; I've started a wait list this is tremendous! I have 24 vendors signed up right now this is going to be one fantastic day. The weather is supposed to be 71 degrees a perfect day for shopping, learning and networking. Check out my website for more info on this event, http://www.joyofbellydancing.com/swapmeet14.htm. Hope to see you there.

My dance classes start up on January 20th and 21st at the Mesa Art Center. Registration is going well and I have finished the choreographies for all the beginning classes. I'm working on the sword class and the tribal drum solo classes right now. I have the music all picked out and that's half the battle!

The beginning Tuesday class one of my students requested I do something to Shakira's song "Ojos Asi" or Eyes Like Yours so I did; great song. The beginning Wednesday class is a routine to a Warda song and the beginning tribal class is a tribal fusion dance choreographed by Sahira from her first DVD Arabian Spices. I taught her 2nd DVD to my intermediate tribal class last year called Ali; that was one awesome dance routine.

Sorry no pictures of any of the events this month I keep forgetting to take my camera. I even got a new camera and it's wonderful it takes really good photos indoors and outside; not like my other camera :0)

Until my next post enjoy your week...

Another busy week

2008-12-17T13:55:00.000-08:00

Saturday was a fun day of performing with my students at MACfest. My friend Tary and I vended again selling our crafts, for me it was my cards and Tary her crotched Christmas ornaments. Sales were not great all the vendors were saying this but it was a great day. The sun was shining and anytime there is an opportunity to dance it’s an awesome day!

My camera decided not to work that day and my husband took photos using Tary’s camera. When I get the photos from Tary I’ll post them. I put together a video of some of the performances from the day. This is my first attempt of making a video using my Flip Video camera. The video wouldn't load here in my blog so I posted it to YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3y1CHR7XMc.

Our class recital was to be last night but it got cancelled due to weather. Arizona has been hit with rain and snow for the last several days which is very unusual for us but so greatly needed and appreciated; I love it!! I must say it feels like winter :0) Our high was 59 yesterday which is freezing for us!

I held class last night for all 5 of my classes inside the warm and dry dance studio at the Mesa Art Center where I teach. All my classes performed for each other and we performed dances I taught a long time ago in previous sessions to see if we remembered them. It was a fun evening and thanks to Mitra I got Thriller on film. This routine is performed by the beginning tribal class and they did and fantastic job. The video wouldn't load in my blog so I posted it on YouTube, take a look when you have a chance, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2nqzmQXARE.

My camera kind of worked last night and below is one photo that sort of turned out; I think it’s time for a new camera! Thank goodness Dena sent some photos she took and Wow!!! Thanks Dena you rock!

Next event coming up is a free belly dance lesson I’ll be teaching at Dooby’s on Tuesday Dec. 30th. There will also be an hour of open dancing and performances by those that attend the evening. If you have ever wanted to learn how to belly dance or just love to watch this beautiful art form stop on by. Dooby’s is located at 2909 S. Dobson Rd., Suite 21, Mesa, AZ 85202, 480-756-0469. The fun begins at 6 p.m. with the free lesson at 6:30 p.m.

Have a great week…..

Awesome Dance Weekend!!!!!

2008-12-08T17:08:00.000-08:00

Wow! what a great weekend for dancing. Friday night started with the Holiday show at Dooby's Grill in Mesa produced by Samia. The restaurant was full but not overly packed enough room to move around and what a great audience it was. It was so nice to see friends I haven’t seen in so long.

There were to be 11 dancers that night but unfortunately Zoraya couldn't make it due to being in a car accident. I was to go on third in the line-up with my snake Kaa, my Royal Python; instead I went on second. Azita went on in the first half since Diosa & Zemurah were late. They missed the turn off and ended up at the first rest stop before Casa Grande. They made it and did an awesome show. From what I could see of the first half everyone was fantastic.

I had to leave during the first half since Kaa decided to entertain the audience with a treat of her own. I feed her 2 weeks before the show so there would be no surprises but no she held all of it in just waiting for the right time to relieve herself. Luckily I felt moisture and got her in the basket just in time before she sprayed the entire front row of kids in the audience.

I missed the entire second half of the show but heard it was magnificent!

Saturday I taught one of my mini workshops to a full house. I reviewed six combination moves I taught in 2007 and they were a hit. They were some of my favorite combos some pleasantly simple and elegant with some being challenging; the combo with the undulations up and down with a shoulder shimmy layered on top being a favorite :0) I didn’t plan it but they were basically all thigh killer moves; oops!

Saturday night was the Chandler Parade of lights were 10 of us performed. I must say I have some very talented students who came up with some terrific costumes!!! I think next year I’m going to have a contest on the best lit costume and another prize for the best use of glow sticks!!!

We had a blast from the start, with getting ready in the parking lot, practicing in the staging area, dancing the entire parade route and eating afterward at Denny's. I know everyone was worried about being cold but it never was an issue we were all to busy having so much fun! The parade viewers were cheering and yelling; I even heard a few zaghareets and wow the cameras flashes were going off like crazy!

Below are some of the photos from the parade. A gigantic Thank You to Linda's husband for taking all the photos, carrying all our stuff and fixing our banner!!!

Next week is super busy also with vending and performing at MACfest. I’ll have photos of us to post if I remember to bring my camera :-)

Enjoy your week…

Time is flying way too fast!

2008-12-01T12:00:00.000-08:00

Whoa where did November go????

Here it is December 1st and after updating my website last night I can't believe how super busy December and January are with life, dancing and crafting!

If you are out and about shopping stop by and say hi at any of the events I will be at. I will be performing at Dooby's in Mesa Friday Dec. 5th with several other dancers at Samia's Holiday Show. On Saturday Dec. 6th myself and several of my intermediate students will be performing in the Chandler Light Parade in Historic Downtown Chandler at 7 p.m.

Saturday Dec. 13th I will be vending with my friend Tary in space G14 at MACfest in downtown Mesa (Main Street between Center and Macdonald) and some of my intermediate students will also be performing that morning from 11:30 - 12:30 in front of the Bank of America building on Main St. and Macdonald. Tuesday December 15th is my Mesa Art Center (MAC) class recital starting at 7 p.m. on the patio of the Art Studio building. Dress warmly we are performing outside!

I will be teaching a free belly dance class at Dooby's in Mesa at 6:30 p.m. with open dancing to follow until 8 p.m.

Check out my events page for more information, times, addresses etc on all the above events and more events in January.

January I'm already booked every weekend with some dates doubled booked. Some of the highlights are teaching several workshops with one being a cane workshop at Plaza de Anaya, a show at Inside the Bungalow on Friday Jan. 9th, my annual swap meet is a huge event with lots of vendors and 4 workshops this year and several of my students and I will be having a show at Dooby's on Jan. 31st.

I have been making greeting cards and other goodies like crazy for vending at MACfest with my friend Tary. I'm also making Christmas gifts and having so much fun trying new projects and techniques. Below are some of the 3X3 card sets with matching envelopes and boxes I've been making. The set that is tied up in a bow has no matching box.

I've started teaching private lessons again and having a great time with my new students. I'm working on new routines for my January session classes and enjoying the new dances; hope my students like them :-)

My online belly dance costuming business, Shimmy Bliss, has been keeping me busy. I have over 270 items listed in my eBay store and have been running sales in November and plan on running more sales in December. I currently have a sale ending today on a variety of belts I have in stock like the ultimate belts, the ever popular shell belts and many more. Future sales in my eBay store will be fringe belts, skirts, tops and costuming supplies.

My hubby and I have been remodeling our kitchen and we are getting closer to being done! I painted the wall behind the stove and we finally got the new stove hood installed and its working! We haven't had a stove hood that has worked for 13 years; it's so nice.

The cabinet doors are installed and I'm almost finished painting all of them. I love the glass inserts, you can see through them but not really; cool effect. The new pendant light is awesome! I have never had a light over the sink and what a difference this makes when you are washing dishes. The little things in life can make you so happy :-) As you can see in the photos we are waiting for one stainless steel counter top to be installed and the back splash. Once this is done I'll finish painting and laying the new bamboo floors. The old wall paper can be seen around the window this was driving force to remodel I couldn't take this wall paper any more! I hated it when we purchased our 1930's bungalow 13 years ago and it's finally disappearing; yeah! Our goal is the end of the year to be finished. Wish us luck :0)

I'm going to try and blog more this month with all the events and parties that are happening. I kept forgetting to take my camera to November events and when I did remember to take it with me I forgot to pull it out and take pictures!

Everyone have a safe and fun a holiday season and hope to see you at some of the events happening around town.

State Fair 2008

2008-10-26T16:25:00.000-07:00

What a great day to dance at the State Fair! We opened the fair at 10 a.m. this morning and it was perfect weather; sun was shining and it wasn't that warm yet.

The only complaint about today was the stage!!!! It was the worse stage I have ever performed on and I have danced on some pretty horrible stages. Usually the stage is painted or carpeted but this thing was in really bad shape. There were more dips in this stage than Barry Mann's song Who Put the Bomp (in the bomp, bomp, bomp) and that's a lot of dips :0) There was ply wood showing through, duct tape that wasn't sticking to anything and filthy dirty!

Everyone who performed today were troopers, they did a great job! Yes we had our bobbles here and there and I was the worst offender but it was a lot of fun.

The soloists were great to watch and we had a huge audience! Normally when you open the fair there maybe 5 people in the audience we had well over 30 folks watching us.

Melissa was so kind to come and video us but only one video turned out descent. The bass on the sound system was up way too much so all my video camera recorded was mainly the bass so even though the video was good the sound is so bad I couldn't watch he routines with the music playing!

Below are some photos and the one and only video that was descent to post; the group fan veil routine. Our next performance will be Tuesday December 16th at the Mesa Art Center hope you all can come and watch us perform.

Sampler Workshops

2008-10-26T15:11:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all who came out for a day of learning, shopping and having fun. It was a perfect day, the weather couldn't have been any better not to hot and it was so good to see everyone especially those I haven't seen in such a long time.

Rukshana had been sewing all night and brought some gorgeous flirtie skirts, tie tops and sets!!!! Be watching my eBay store this week to check out the new inventory!

Helena started out the morning teaching Greek style belly dancing to a full house. Listing to the Greek music brought back memories for me from when I danced at some of the Greek restaurants in town. I love listing to Helena talk about Greece, the dance and the history especially about the last dance she showed.

Sherry V. was next teaching modern & vivacious belly dance fusion with her helper Heather to a packed room of dancers. What a great choreography the students were picking it up so fast; wonderful job ladies especially with all the spins!

Gina taught a really fun Bollywood choreography with all the workshop students looking fantastic following her. The duck walk and the fall to the floor didn't even faze them in the least! :-) Gina performed the dance at the end of the workshop; it's so great to see her perform the room lights up when she dances.

I ended the day with tribal fusion combinations and was so proud of every one that took my workshop! Everyone was still moving and functioning after learning all the other styles before me. Ladies you rock!!!

Big thanks to Azita for vending that day along with huge kudos to Gail and my hubby for helping out. I remembered I brought my camera when Gina started her workshop so I only have a few photos from the day; sorry.

My next big event is my Annual Swap Meet on Saturday January 17th. Mark your calendars it's going to be a great day of belly dancing. Here's more info on the event, http://www.joyofbellydancing.com/swapmeet14.htm. I already have 5 vendors signed up!

Way too busy :-)

2008-10-22T13:18:00.000-07:00

It has been such a long time since my last post life is so busy!

I've been making Christmas cards and belly dance theme cards like crazy. My friend Tary and I will be vending at MACfest on November 8th in downtown Mesa. Stop by and say hi and check out our crafts we are in space G7.

This weekend is super busy with dance. The Sampler of Belly Dance Styles is Saturday the 25th from 8 - 3 with some really super dance instructors. If you have ever wanted to try a different style of belly dance than your style here is your chance. Helena Vlahos is teaching Greek style, Sherry will be teaching Modern belly dance style, Gina will wow us with Bollywood and I will be teaching tribal fusion combinations. Azita Imports and Shimmy Bliss will be vending all day also so if you can't make the workshops come and shop. For more info on the workshops check out my website, http://www.joyofbellydancing.com/Samplerwksp.htm; it’s going to be a very fun day!

Sunday at 10:00 a.m. some of my students will be performing at the State Fair. It's going to be a great show with solos and group numbers. Stop by the Arizona Lottery Stage and check it out and enjoy a day at the fair.

Next big event is my annual swap meet which will be on Saturday January 17th. Vendors are already reserving their spots to sell their wares. This year there will be 4 workshops taught by Carrie Konyha, Holly, Morgiana and myself. For more info on my swap meet check out my website, http://www.joyofbellydancing.com/swapmeet14.htm; hard to believe this is number 14!

Back to making cards....