Was having a crumby morning today… meeting after meeting after meeting. Then I took a break to check my home email and holy crap! I got the best email I’ve received in a loooooooooong time! I nearly fell off my chair!

First let me say that I do NOT enter contests [Hall of Fame, Design Teams, Scrapbooker of the Year, etc…], but for some weirdo reason, the notion of entering the Making Memories Idol 2007 contest popped into my head about 2 weeks ago. I was lurking on Keisha Campbell’s blog [LOVE her work! you go girl!] and she posted a reminder about the MM Idol 2007 contest starting up again. I looked at it and thought, ah what the hell, who knows…

Skip ahead two weeks, and today they announced the TOP 50 participants from the literally thousands of entries they received. Holy crap, I made the TOP 50!!! I’m so excited, a little freaked out and more than a little nervous LOL! It is such a cool contest, loads of great prizes and a chance to really push myself creatively.

The first challenge for me will be a struggle. An "all about me" layout. ACK!! I hate having MY picture taken [I’m usually the photog], so this will be interesting. I’m up for it though and will try to come up with something interesting.

I never plan my layouts… they just kinda ‘happen’. I call my style of design ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ scrapping. Never know what I’m going to use; never know what I’m going to scrap; never know how it will turn out… Whew! At least I have until SUNDAY to complete and upload my layout.

So peeps… wish me luck! Stop by to vote for me and your favorites on Monday February 26… I appreciate the support =)

Well, I’m ‘almost’ well from this nasty flu. I mean come on… a week of sore throat, coughing, runny nose, then stuffed up nose, then runny again is enough for anyone! Where does all the yucky stuff come from anyway [I should buy stock in PUFFS tissues with the amount I’ve used this past week]?!? The gross, miraculous thing we call and immune system I suppose LOL.

A few good things to report…

• The new Organic and Cellular paperWERX papers by Gen Simmonds are in da house and will begin shipping this week.
• NEW CHA products will be available through our online store in the next few days - just need time to update the store
• New Poppets(R) products including papers and clear stamps are due in this week too; which means shipping next week for the Poppet(R) goodies.
• CHA Order fulfillment should be complete within the next 10 days…

Next on the radar is the set-up and opening of our retail space at Ruby Dogs Arthouse…
Both Leanne [Ruby Dog store owner] and I have been sick for the last couple of weeks with overlapping flu bugs, so we’re probably about 3 weeks out from the opening of the storefront. But people… it’s coming! An announcement about the opening will be coming soon, once the official date is nailed down, but right now I’m thinking the weekend after ARTistry, March 30 for the official opening party. Watch for news on this blog…

New product for the store(s) has been ordered and it’s beginning to trickle in as I write this. Once inventory is taken, the online store will be updated with all our own new product PLUS the goodies from other mfgs that was ordered for both the online and brick/mortar store. YAY!

Lastly… I’m going to try and get back on track with posting to the blog more regularly. I noticed that I’ve slid down Carmi’s list of blogs <GASP!> and that is a sure sign that my posting has dropped off. Gotta move back up that list… but post CHA business combined with a major flu bug, can curtail any and all desire to blog, much less even look at a computer. So yup… I’m back and will be posting ad-nauseium about any and everything happening at home and with the biz. You’ve been warned!=)

So… where was I… Oh yeah, show over and on to a little Disney and visiting southern Cali.

On Thursday, Terry and I, along with Toronto friend Elizabeth, headed to Disneyland. We arrived at 11am and it was cool, partly cloudy and pretty darn QUIET for the Magic Kingdom. I mean seriously, it was DEAD! The most we waited was 5 minutes for any given ride… rode some of the rides multiple times in succession [Big Thunder and Pirates of the Caribeean] and got to take pics with some of the best Disney characters in the park [Winnie, Eeyore, Goofy and Mickey]. I think the combination of mid-week, off-season and cool [by Cali standards] weather was all workin’ in our Canadian favor. Afterall, 60-65F is balmy winter temperatures for us Canucks LOL! We were in t-shirts and sweatshirts, the California natives were practically in parkas =)

We watched the evening parade and were at the park until about 8:30pm.
Here are some pics from the big day:

So Friday comes, Elizabeth heads home to Toronto and Terry and I decide we are going to try to find West Coast Choppers. Well, after some not so great directions from Terry’s uncle Ron, we ended up doing circles in Long Beach for a bit, then drove down Ocean Blvd to PCH [Pacific Coast Highway] and did a scenic tour of coastal southern CA.We never did find the home of Monster Garage and Jesse James on Friday, but the weather was gorgeous; clear and sunny with a perfect breeze. Here are a few pics from our driving adventure:

One of the oddest things you see along the west coast of California is active, pumping oil rigs and wells. So strange… in the midst of wild, ocean beauty… the stark reality of fossil fuel, commerce and black gold. Very weird.

We had dinner at a famous diner in LA on Friday night called Phillippe’s [or Flippy’s] as the family calls it LOL! I’m absolutely positive I saw George Carlin in the parking lot and Jack Osbourne in the diner. Cool… a celebrity sighting at last, since we didn’t find Jesse James or WC Choppers LOL =)

Saturday brought a plethora of Walmart and Target shopping - all about Star Wars action figures for Terry. He is amassing quite a collection and we had to hunt down all the ‘hot spots’ for the little plastic dudes. He ended up with 30 new, nicely bubbled figs and being pretty darn happy about the whole hunting process.

The family spent the day with us and since Ron [T’s uncle was driving] we FINALLY got to the West Coast Choppers shop and showroom. Very COOL! The bikes are crazy expensive [$100K for a custom chopper] and the shop is a regular, full-time biz. Jesse James has done well for himself - he owns half the BLOCK where the shop is located [all his properties have huge iron cross logos on them], he opened his own diner 1 block from the main shop and he’s married to Sandra Bullock. Not to shabby for a dude who’s down some serious time for the crime of ‘chopping’.  So after abit of poking around in the WC Chopper headquarters, meeting [or should I say being barked at] by Jesse’s pitbull Cisco, we headed over to his diner Cisco [yep, named after the dog LOL!] for lunch.

As we pulled into the parking lot, I saw the man himself, Jesse James, sitting and having lunch in his own diner. I told everyone in the car I saw him and at first no one believed me, until they all got out of the car and saw him too. See! I’m not crazy or delusional LOL! I did, I did see Jesse James - and he’s right there. We entered the diner and Terry suggested that I get the t-shirt tag we just bought at his shop, autographed. So I politely, in an oh-so-Canadian way, waited until he got up from the booth he was in, had finished his lunch and asked him to autograph the tag. He was very nice, said it was cool to meet someone from ‘Canadia’ [I think he was teasing me?!?] and obligingly signed the t-shirt tag. Dillion, uncle Ron’s 10 year old son, also got an autograph at the same time. It was cool… and I’m kinda glad we got lost on Friday, otherwise we would have missed this fun opportunity. BTW… Cisco’s Diner [Jesse’s place] has wicked Kobe beef burgers and were pretty darn tasty. We’ll be going back next year, that’s for sure!

Went out for dinner to a great seafood restaurant in Newport later that night called the Crab Bucket. Very tasty. Then home for the night to pack the many SW figures and sort out the luggage.

Sunday brought 80F temps with a clear, cloudless blue sky. Heaven to a Vancouverite mired in winter rain and fog for weeks on end <sigh>…   We headed off to LAX at 2:30 that afternoon and then were off on the flight home at 6:15pm, arriving home just after 9pm.

All in all a great trip. Business and holiday all mixed up. Reaquainting ourselves with family and friends, making new friends and hanging out with close friends. What more could you ask for? Not much I’d say… 

We’re happy to be home, and now are integrating Lulu and Kodiak into living together peacefully. Wish us luck LOL!    

Just a quick note to say ‘we’re home!’ and very very tired!
Will post a HUGE catch up tomorrow, complete with pics from CHA, Disney and our adventures driving in southern Cali. Fun trip, exhausting trip…

Glad to be home though, missed baby Lulu and our big boy Kodi. I’m off to spread the love =)

Dear artist/friend Claudine Hellmuth is also friends with a fellow artist, Bernie Berlin, who runs an animal shelter in the southern USA called A Place to Bark.

I frequently visit Bernie’s blog for A Place to Bark and marvel at the her courage and fortitude rescuing animals from the horrible conditions she finds them in, usually waiting to be euthanised… the darkness and dispair she sees in the animals she rescues saddens me deeply, as much as her courage and compassion renews my hope for the good in people.

Through her blog, I have seen and read about the many horrors she sees weekly, if not daily, in USA pounds and one story in particular touched me - the story of Noel, the earless dog…

Here is an exerpt from Bernie’s blog:

This past week has been one of non stop, every minute of my days, has been filled with animals and emotions.  have been to the pound many days this past week. They were filled to capacity, like I’ve never seen it before. As I passed the kennels, looking into each animal’s eyes, nothing could prepare my heart, for the little red dog I was about to see…
She meekishly looked at me, her tail thumping the ground and her eyes pleading for a home to love her. I could not move, I lowered myself to my knees and started to sob.. ((I’ve been crying for days)) She had no ears. Scars of new and old, all over her body and she is just a baby. In more pain than I could ever imagine, she still could wag her tail. Well, she has become my Christmas Gift. Her name is "Noel" and has become a lesson in love, a memory that will never be forgotten.

Our best guess, judging by the extent of her injuries is that she was used as a bait dog. If you are not familiar with the term, it’s a dog that is use to train other dogs to fight. Whatever the case this poor baby has had a hard life of pain. She has old injuries, months old all over her body that have healed and new ones, open and full of infection.

Bernie runs her shelter with little outside help, covering the many many expenses through donations, a few grants and her own income. She is currently scheduled to have up to 5 dogs in for expensive surgeries and has ongoing veterinary bills for medications, immunizations, food and supplies all the time. I don’t know how she does it, and the animal lover in me wants to help… 

So in an effort to help out with some of her exorbitant bills and raise some funds for her non-profit organization, I’ve launched a WIDGET on my blog called ChipIn. I hope you will consider donating to this worthy cause, every little bit helps. I, she and most of all the animals, thank you for your generosity.

All funds raised through the ChipIn widget will be held in trust until February 28, 2007 after which it will be transferred by Paypal to Bernie’s shelter A Place to Bark.

So most people know just how WHACK the Vancouver weather has been lately right? You’d have to be living under a rock, in South America, with no tv or internet NOT to have heard about the recent 8 weeks of Mother Nature giving us the proverbial finger.

First we get monster rain and wind storms all through the month of November and December. Apparently it’s going down as the worst November in the history of weather reporting in BC. Now for BC, that’s BAD! I mean come on… we’re like the rain capital of Canada aren’t we? It’s not unusual to go for weeks without the sun in the middle of winter, with nothing but a soggy umbrella to keep you warm. But the sheer velocity and strength of the winds we’ve been having has been nutso to say the least.

Here’s the nitty gritty:

• The province took the top two spots in his Top 10 weather stories for the year, and also nailed position No. 9
• Early November storms in B.C. brought so much rain, "every river in the Lower Mainland, the South Coast and the southern half of Vancouver Island rose close to or above flood stage."
• A Nov. 15 storm toppled power lines, leaving an estimated 200,000 people without electricity. The rain caused landslides into reservoirs that serve Vancouver, forcing two million residents to boil their water.
• Vancouver Island and Lower Mainland residents suffered three storms in five days in mid-December, with violent winds leaving a record 250,000 without power. Winds topped 157km just of the south west tip of Vancouver Island - that’s hurricane force people!
• Vancouver suffered 27 days of rain from December into January. "Residents of the Lower Mainland came to calling it the ‘Lower Rainland’ following never-ending downpours that were wearing out umbrellas and spirits."
• In Tofino, usually one of the wettest spots in Canada, there was no significant rain from July 14 to Sept. 16, and the town declared it was running out of water.
• Up to 30 centimetres of snow hit the Lower Mainland in late November over a two day period, freezing roads, downing trees, causing major power outtages and more…

Most tragic of all this recent Mother Nature bitchiness is the mayhem wrecked on a true jewel in Vancouver, Stanley Park. Over 1000 acres of the most amazing park… thousands of trees lost in a single windstorm has deforested old growth cedars and other tree species along the north west side of the park. Areas that were once densely wooded, are now wide-open viewing vistas to North and West Vancouver. At one point the Lions Gate Causeway [the main road to historic Lions Gate Bridge that is accessed through Stanley Park] had over 3 dozen trees laying across the road.  Here are some of the latest photos: Online Photo Gallery at CBC

This used to be the West side of Stanley Park prior to our recent storm losses:

So after all this craziness, today, the weird got just a little weirder…

Another storm settled in for the weekend here in Vancouver last night, bringing wind, wet snow, wind, rain, and oh yeah, did I mention wind? and today caused the virtually unthinkable to happen… BC Place Dome collapsed. Yep… the largest air supported dome in the world, the big bubble seen in Vancouver’s skyline since Expo 86, developed a small tear that became a BIG tear, under the extreme weather conditions we have been dealing with for the last two months. The Echo Dome [as concert goer’s have called BC Place for years] is temporarily outta commission.

Here are the BEFORE and AFTER pics to prove it.
BC Place BEFORE:

AFTER: BC Place at 1:00pm this afternoon, after a panel rips on the roof…
 

As the spanish penguins from Happy Feet say, "Oh dios mio" - what is next?
Stay warm and dry peeps… it’s a wacky wacky weather season we got going on here.

We just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kwanza and whatever other seasonal holidays you may be celebrating. May you eat much, give generously to others and take a bit of time to create art that celebrates the holiday.

We hope the spirit of the season blesses you and your families, during the holidays. Merry Christmas everyone…

Love,
Christina, Terry and Kodiak

This is a test of mobile blogging and is being sent from my Blackberry. Christina Lazar-Schuler Lazar Studiowerx Inc.

I had the opportunity to take dear friend Becky to a Vancouver Canucks game last Friday [we won’t mention that they lost] and she had a good time; However, it was the look on her face as we entered the arena bowl and walked down to our seats that makes me smile tonight… Impressed and shocked all at once =)

We [T & I] have Seasons Tickets we split with another pair [seeing about 20 games a season] and our seats are in the lower bowl Row 9. So, the first time anyone sits there they are immediately impressed by how close we are to the ice. Imagine that the owners of the Canucks and GM Place [the ‘Garage’] have spent over $5,000,000 on a new display system, millions on the new ‘ring of fire’ around the entire arena bowl and LCD panels all over the concourse level and how much MORE impressive the seats are now. The look on Beck’s face said it all - WOW!!!

The new display system has EIGHT 300,000 pixel [minimum] screens. The four main screens are 24′ x 13.5′ LCD panels and four corner screens are high-res 5′ x 13.5′ LED panels. There is a huge 950′ circumference logo and message ring around the top of the screen octagon and a lower 500′ circumference logo and message ring. It is pretty stellar!

Combine fantastic, feel-like-you’re-in-the-action seats with this new display system and ‘ring of fire’ and it’s a pretty impressive sight to see. The Garage is now probably one of THE BEST venues to watch professional hockey in North America!

Here is a shot of Becky in the Garage during the 1st Period Intermission:

Cool huh?

Do this…

Demo for a few hours while hanging out with friends, in your favorite city [Vancouver of course!] and help me with Circle Craft for 5 days and you too will get hockey tickets! We treat our peeps, sherpas and head minions well baby… I think both Becky and Sue can attest to that =)

Now many of my local peeps experienced my hubby’s ‘manly baking’ this past Spring when he made Chocolate Chai Cakes for our 1st Annual Warehouse Studio Sale in April 2006.

Well… for those of you who missed his ‘manly stamping’ and ‘manly demoing’ at Circle Craft, here is a quick shot of the man himself demoing for his [adoring] public. Terry basically got a ‘get out of jail free’ card last week while Becky was here for Circle Craft and with the exception of a couple of hours on Friday night, he made it through the entire show with little or no stamp demoing! So, when the opportunity presented itself on Friday night, as we got ready for the Canuck Game, I HAD to take a pic of him in all his stamping glory.

Yes ladies, I’m a lucky lucky girl and he is a cutie pahtootie!