Saturday, February 19, 2011

My Creative BLOCK


Here is a great Photoshop tutorial on how to create this image above. HERE
There are days when I feel like I am on top of the world. Then there are other days that I just want to crawl in a hole and not come out. We are faced with different challenges every single day. We learn how to cope and continue with our life. So I struggle, just like everyone else. I just keep trying.

I am very blessed with the family I have. Robert and my parents are by biggest fans. My brother and future sister-in-la trust my judgment and creativity to help out with their wedding. My sister-in-law appreciates the talent it takes to make all the creations I have created for her. The love and support from my family are amazing.


My creative juices are drained right now, and I need to re energize myself. A jump start in inspiration. What do you do to re-focus and re-group to get the juices flowing? I would love to hear your ideas and inspiration to get your mojo going. Please post a comment to let me know how you get out of your creative BLOCK. I will send a special package to a random comment below. HELP ME GET the creativity BACK! Thanks

Signature

My Creative BLOCK


Here is a great Photoshop tutorial on how to create this image above. HERE
There are days when I feel like I am on top of the world. Then there are other days that I just want to crawl in a hole and not come out. We are faced with different challenges every single day. We learn how to cope and continue with our life. So I struggle, just like everyone else. I just keep trying.

I am very blessed with the family I have. Robert and my parents are by biggest fans. My brother and future sister-in-la trust my judgment and creativity to help out with their wedding. My sister-in-law appreciates the talent it takes to make all the creations I have created for her. The love and support from my family are amazing.


My creative juices are drained right now, and I need to re energize myself. A jump start in inspiration. What do you do to re-focus and re-group to get the juices flowing? I would love to hear your ideas and inspiration to get your mojo going. Please post a comment to let me know how you get out of your creative BLOCK. I will send a special package to a random comment below. HELP ME GET the creativity BACK! Thanks

Signature

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Let's talk about LOVE...

It is here! February Newsletter for Teresa Collins Designs is available!

February Newsletter

And Teresa Collins Design Team has their own blog for more inspiration check out the blog :

Teresa Collins Design Team Blog

I am so lucky to be able to work with such talented group of women.  I truly love what I do.

Talking about LOVE..
Hope you all had a great Valentine's Day! Our weekend was filled with preparation for the big day. Sunday the girls and I stayed home while the boys went up to the mountain to snowboard and ski.  I just needed time to clean my house.  While I was cleaning the girls painted their valentine boxes.  

Sammie and Caroline decorating their Valentine Boxes.
I love watching what they create.

Yesterday, the kids kept saying it was "Caroline's Day".  I thought it was the cutest thing. Caroline's middle name is Valentine. Therefore, the kids thought it was Caroline's special day.  We do call her Sweet C. She loves everyone and her favorite color is pink.  I could totally see why they thought it was her day.  So all day we would say. "Happy Caroline Valentine's Day!" Caroline had a great day!


The kids came home from school with sacks of candy. Needless to say they were bouncing off the walls.  Sammie was needing some mommy time, so I made nail appointments for the two of us, so we can spend quality time together.  She was so cute talking to the nice lady painting her nails. Afterward, we grabbed Arby's for dinner. Sammie wanted Arby's sandwiches so that is what we had for dinner.  Robert and I had our Valentine's dinner the night before.


I am truly blessed to have my family. Robert even got me roses. They are beautiful!

I hope your valentine's day was filled with love and appreciation.
Signature

Let's talk about LOVE...

It is here! February Newsletter for Teresa Collins Designs is available!

February Newsletter

And Teresa Collins Design Team has their own blog for more inspiration check out the blog :

Teresa Collins Design Team Blog

I am so lucky to be able to work with such talented group of women.  I truly love what I do.

Talking about LOVE..
Hope you all had a great Valentine's Day! Our weekend was filled with preparation for the big day. Sunday the girls and I stayed home while the boys went up to the mountain to snowboard and ski.  I just needed time to clean my house.  While I was cleaning the girls painted their valentine boxes.  

Sammie and Caroline decorating their Valentine Boxes.
I love watching what they create.

Yesterday, the kids kept saying it was "Caroline's Day".  I thought it was the cutest thing. Caroline's middle name is Valentine. Therefore, the kids thought it was Caroline's special day.  We do call her Sweet C. She loves everyone and her favorite color is pink.  I could totally see why they thought it was her day.  So all day we would say. "Happy Caroline Valentine's Day!" Caroline had a great day!


The kids came home from school with sacks of candy. Needless to say they were bouncing off the walls.  Sammie was needing some mommy time, so I made nail appointments for the two of us, so we can spend quality time together.  She was so cute talking to the nice lady painting her nails. Afterward, we grabbed Arby's for dinner. Sammie wanted Arby's sandwiches so that is what we had for dinner.  Robert and I had our Valentine's dinner the night before.


I am truly blessed to have my family. Robert even got me roses. They are beautiful!

I hope your valentine's day was filled with love and appreciation.
Signature

Saturday, February 12, 2011

On a personal note...

We are finally open for business! Robert and I opened up our own business here in Salt Lake City. It is an indoor family activity center. You can check out the website here at: www.jumparoundutah.com. Long story short it has been a long and bumpy road to get to this point. My only hope is that, we are successful as a business, and we hope to make some friends along the way.

While I was at CHA, I get a call from Robert asking me to help get a letter together to host a party for Drew's pre-school classes.  I knew this would all happen while I was out of town.  I was tired and my brain could not switch in mid-thought and think about Jump Around Utah.  Wow.  Okay...we got the letter out and the party was a great success.

A couple of pictures of Jump Around Utah.




This is what you see when you first walk through the doors.

Caroline would not let go of her PINK BALLOON.

I have been working on some marketing and other stuff with Jump Around Utah. So that is why I have been so tired and not being able to concentrate for long periods of time.  But things are getting underway and I can make the switch back to scrapbooking. 


If you were wondering where I was the last couple of weeks I was working on our family business. Wish us luck! We are on facebook and we are running great promotions on birthday parties. So if you are in Salt Lake City come stop by and say Hi! I might be there or I might be at my studio. Now my time is split between working at Jump Around Utah, working on projects and creating with Teresa Collins Designs, and being a mom. This is a little gimps of my life,  welcome to my crazy life!

Signature

On a personal note...

We are finally open for business! Robert and I opened up our own business here in Salt Lake City. It is an indoor family activity center. You can check out the website here at: www.jumparoundutah.com. Long story short it has been a long and bumpy road to get to this point. My only hope is that, we are successful as a business, and we hope to make some friends along the way.

While I was at CHA, I get a call from Robert asking me to help get a letter together to host a party for Drew's pre-school classes.  I knew this would all happen while I was out of town.  I was tired and my brain could not switch in mid-thought and think about Jump Around Utah.  Wow.  Okay...we got the letter out and the party was a great success.

A couple of pictures of Jump Around Utah.




This is what you see when you first walk through the doors.

Caroline would not let go of her PINK BALLOON.

I have been working on some marketing and other stuff with Jump Around Utah. So that is why I have been so tired and not being able to concentrate for long periods of time.  But things are getting underway and I can make the switch back to scrapbooking. 


If you were wondering where I was the last couple of weeks I was working on our family business. Wish us luck! We are on facebook and we are running great promotions on birthday parties. So if you are in Salt Lake City come stop by and say Hi! I might be there or I might be at my studio. Now my time is split between working at Jump Around Utah, working on projects and creating with Teresa Collins Designs, and being a mom. This is a little gimps of my life,  welcome to my crazy life!

Signature

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

CHA week

Wow.
Some of the words that described the week of CHA... Amazing, hard work, exciting,new friendships, old and dear friends, rib splitting, happy, fun, dance, honored, appreciative, thankful, celebration, nerve wrenching, upset, confused, uncertain, happy, sad, tired, numb and such a great experience.
 I was honored to be able to attend CHA (craft and hobby association) Trade Show with Teresa Collins. Working with Teresa has been such a learning experience even in the little time I have been with her. I simply admire the hard work she puts into her designs and work. She is truly one of the hardest working people I have met in a long time. I just am simply amazed how she has been able to juggle the role of a mom, wife, a friend and business woman and keep it all together. It is not an easy task but man she makes it look easy. Just the chance to see the gimps of the life behind the scene is astonishing.

Our adventure started on Wed. we got on a flight to Orange County so that Teresa could teach a class. We get off the plane. We are picked up by the store owner and whisked away to the store. Luckily, we did have a little time before the students came into the store to set up and have a quick bite to eat. So Teresa taught a great class, it made me miss my local scrapbook store that I used to work in before moving to Utah. I missed the social aspect of taking a class and the interaction with customers and die-hard fans of scrapbooking. And to be able to see the interaction with Teresa and customers....priceless. Shannon a good friend of Teresa was there to take us to our hotel. We were little under an hour drive away from LA. It was nice to sit and talk to Shannon on the way to the hotel.

Thursday was the first day of set-up. Here is a picture of Teresa with the crate.

Teresa Collins ready for day 1 set-up

So we set up the booth on Thursday and Friday.  There is more than you think that goes in putting up the booth for a trade show. Thank goodness Jesse was there to do all the heavy lifting.  However, it looked good, by the time we were done.  Taylor and Gentry came on Thursday night to help work at the booth. I was also able to meet Laura, Yvonne and Maradette from the design team during setup and during the show. It was good to meet the team while we were there. I also got to meet Amy and Debbie, and now I am a fan. We had a chance to relax afterward by having a great dinner in Beverly Hills. After dinner, we walked around Rodeo Drive.  I loved just walking around and seeing the window displays.

Saturday was a crazy day in the booth.  Thank you to Jen and Echo for helping out with Make and take for the booth.  We were crazy helping people, taking orders and just trying to get the information out to the buyers and showing them the new product line.  I am always interested what people in other countries think about scrapbooking.  It is amazing the similarities  that we all posses when it comes to scrapbooking.

Saturday night we attended the Provo Craft Gala.  So much fun to be up close and front stage with the dancers from "So you think you can Dance"  I was glad to be surrounded by a great group on Saturday night.
 Sunday, was another busy day the booth. Later that night I had dinner with my Therm O Web crew. We had a wonderful time talking, laughing and just hanging out with some remarkable friends. Thank you for such a great time! I needed that time to hang out with my friends and relax.

Monday I almost lost my voice from talking to so many people and the endless nights of laughing and talking.  We were getting in a ton of orders, and people were getting ready to head back home that day.  Taylor and Gentry were able to go home on Monday.  That night Teresa taught a class at a store 45 minutes away.  I was so tired but Teresa had to teach a class.  AMAZING...I was running on empty but Teresa had to still be on her game and teach a class.  If you ever get a chance to take a class from Teresa you will hear the most amazing stories of her life experiences.  I had to stop listening at one point because I was starting to cry, and I was getting to the "ugly" cry stage.  So I had to concentrate on something else before I got too emotional.  How embarrassing for me.  Again...another great reason to take a class from Teresa. We got back to the hotel room just after midnight.  And we had to start packing so we would be able to check out in the morning.  We did not get to bed until almost 2 in the morning. (I think.. I was so tired I don't remember what time we finally went to bed.)
So the LAST DAY.  It was a short day but still a crazy day!  At this point, I was hanging on by a thread.  I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.  We talked to the remaining vendors that were there and last minute orders were turned in. Then at 2 o'clock...time to break down the booth.  Amy and Debbie came by to help.  Between Jesse, Teresa, Amy, Debbie and I, broke down the booth in less than two hours.  AMAZING fast in comparison to setup. Later that day Teresa and I were able to sit and talk.  We laughed and just talked like little school girls who haven't seen each other in weeks. It was nice to relax before we had to get on our flight back to Salt Lake City.  We were lucky to make it our flight home that night because my friends from Chicago, were stuck in LA until Thursday due to the snow in Chicago.  BOY was I happy that I moved!

We landed in Salt Lake around midnight. IT WAS FREEZING..IT WAS SO COLD!!  But I was glad to be home. 

My week was crazy when I got home...but that is another post all together.

Oh the things I learned while at CHA will stay for me forever.  I love the fact that I could  strengthen the relationships that I have made through CHA and still be able to meet and start new friendships all in the same week.  I am so blessed to be able to work in an industry that is so caring and supportive of one another.  I cannot  wait for Summer CHA in CHIAGO!!!

Oh while we were working at the booth Teresa was designing her next collection for Summer CHA. HOW CRAZY IS THAT??!?  I am telling you...it is an amazing process to watch her design her collections. Thank you Teresa for letting me be a part of CHA with you and your girls.  AMAZING!!
Signature

CHA week

Wow.
Some of the words that described the week of CHA... Amazing, hard work, exciting,new friendships, old and dear friends, rib splitting, happy, fun, dance, honored, appreciative, thankful, celebration, nerve wrenching, upset, confused, uncertain, happy, sad, tired, numb and such a great experience.
 I was honored to be able to attend CHA (craft and hobby association) Trade Show with Teresa Collins. Working with Teresa has been such a learning experience even in the little time I have been with her. I simply admire the hard work she puts into her designs and work. She is truly one of the hardest working people I have met in a long time. I just am simply amazed how she has been able to juggle the role of a mom, wife, a friend and business woman and keep it all together. It is not an easy task but man she makes it look easy. Just the chance to see the gimps of the life behind the scene is astonishing.

Our adventure started on Wed. we got on a flight to Orange County so that Teresa could teach a class. We get off the plane. We are picked up by the store owner and whisked away to the store. Luckily, we did have a little time before the students came into the store to set up and have a quick bite to eat. So Teresa taught a great class, it made me miss my local scrapbook store that I used to work in before moving to Utah. I missed the social aspect of taking a class and the interaction with customers and die-hard fans of scrapbooking. And to be able to see the interaction with Teresa and customers....priceless. Shannon a good friend of Teresa was there to take us to our hotel. We were little under an hour drive away from LA. It was nice to sit and talk to Shannon on the way to the hotel.

Thursday was the first day of set-up. Here is a picture of Teresa with the crate.

Teresa Collins ready for day 1 set-up

So we set up the booth on Thursday and Friday.  There is more than you think that goes in putting up the booth for a trade show. Thank goodness Jesse was there to do all the heavy lifting.  However, it looked good, by the time we were done.  Taylor and Gentry came on Thursday night to help work at the booth. I was also able to meet Laura, Yvonne and Maradette from the design team during setup and during the show. It was good to meet the team while we were there. I also got to meet Amy and Debbie, and now I am a fan. We had a chance to relax afterward by having a great dinner in Beverly Hills. After dinner, we walked around Rodeo Drive.  I loved just walking around and seeing the window displays.

Saturday was a crazy day in the booth.  Thank you to Jen and Echo for helping out with Make and take for the booth.  We were crazy helping people, taking orders and just trying to get the information out to the buyers and showing them the new product line.  I am always interested what people in other countries think about scrapbooking.  It is amazing the similarities  that we all posses when it comes to scrapbooking.

Saturday night we attended the Provo Craft Gala.  So much fun to be up close and front stage with the dancers from "So you think you can Dance"  I was glad to be surrounded by a great group on Saturday night.
 Sunday, was another busy day the booth. Later that night I had dinner with my Therm O Web crew. We had a wonderful time talking, laughing and just hanging out with some remarkable friends. Thank you for such a great time! I needed that time to hang out with my friends and relax.

Monday I almost lost my voice from talking to so many people and the endless nights of laughing and talking.  We were getting in a ton of orders, and people were getting ready to head back home that day.  Taylor and Gentry were able to go home on Monday.  That night Teresa taught a class at a store 45 minutes away.  I was so tired but Teresa had to teach a class.  AMAZING...I was running on empty but Teresa had to still be on her game and teach a class.  If you ever get a chance to take a class from Teresa you will hear the most amazing stories of her life experiences.  I had to stop listening at one point because I was starting to cry, and I was getting to the "ugly" cry stage.  So I had to concentrate on something else before I got too emotional.  How embarrassing for me.  Again...another great reason to take a class from Teresa. We got back to the hotel room just after midnight.  And we had to start packing so we would be able to check out in the morning.  We did not get to bed until almost 2 in the morning. (I think.. I was so tired I don't remember what time we finally went to bed.)
So the LAST DAY.  It was a short day but still a crazy day!  At this point, I was hanging on by a thread.  I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.  We talked to the remaining vendors that were there and last minute orders were turned in. Then at 2 o'clock...time to break down the booth.  Amy and Debbie came by to help.  Between Jesse, Teresa, Amy, Debbie and I, broke down the booth in less than two hours.  AMAZING fast in comparison to setup. Later that day Teresa and I were able to sit and talk.  We laughed and just talked like little school girls who haven't seen each other in weeks. It was nice to relax before we had to get on our flight back to Salt Lake City.  We were lucky to make it our flight home that night because my friends from Chicago, were stuck in LA until Thursday due to the snow in Chicago.  BOY was I happy that I moved!

We landed in Salt Lake around midnight. IT WAS FREEZING..IT WAS SO COLD!!  But I was glad to be home. 

My week was crazy when I got home...but that is another post all together.

Oh the things I learned while at CHA will stay for me forever.  I love the fact that I could  strengthen the relationships that I have made through CHA and still be able to meet and start new friendships all in the same week.  I am so blessed to be able to work in an industry that is so caring and supportive of one another.  I cannot  wait for Summer CHA in CHIAGO!!!

Oh while we were working at the booth Teresa was designing her next collection for Summer CHA. HOW CRAZY IS THAT??!?  I am telling you...it is an amazing process to watch her design her collections. Thank you Teresa for letting me be a part of CHA with you and your girls.  AMAZING!!
Signature

Life goes on....

I am just back from CHA and going full force with my life. This is the first day I have started to feel a little normal. Sorry Crazy crazy life. We all are so busy. I am working on the CHA post...oh it will be a long one sorry. I just wanted to come up and let you know I am doing okay I am here.

Signature

Life goes on....

I am just back from CHA and going full force with my life. This is the first day I have started to feel a little normal. Sorry Crazy crazy life. We all are so busy. I am working on the CHA post...oh it will be a long one sorry. I just wanted to come up and let you know I am doing okay I am here.

Signature

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Home from CHA...

I just wanted to let you know that I am back from CHA. I AM TIRED!! was a great week. still downloading pictures, so I can post about the week. promise to get something up soon about the week. For now, I must get some sleep all the hard work and long nights are starting to get to me, and I don't want to get sick. GOOD NIGHT Blog friends!!
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Home from CHA...

I just wanted to let you know that I am back from CHA. I AM TIRED!! was a great week. still downloading pictures, so I can post about the week. promise to get something up soon about the week. For now, I must get some sleep all the hard work and long nights are starting to get to me, and I don't want to get sick. GOOD NIGHT Blog friends!!
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