The Witching Hour is Near...

sketchbook scan by marisol diaz

My Most Fave Time of YEAR - ALL HALLOWS EVE Approaches...hint hint

not my picture!! REBLOGGED from ANIMALSTALKINGINALLCAPS

Happy Halloween!!! Marie Antoinette Costume Victory!

So maybe I was perceived as a table to one particular contingency whose grade level I won't reveal (the lower school)...but overall I have to say Halloween did not defeat me. :))

Me in the Upperschool Gym for the Costume Parade Yes I am willing to make a fool of myself on Halloween!! Our 7th Annual Murder Mystery French Revolution Style My Hub Gregg Emery & I at our 7th Annual Murder Mystery

My Kate Cusack Inspired Plastic Wrap Marie Antoinette Wig!!

Every year I take on a very large and taxing wearable art/sculpture costume for a 15 min. walk of fame (thanks for pointing that out Mr. Warhol) in the Halloween parade at the school where I work. I mean how can I be a VISA teacher and not?

So last year I was a pretty gigantic butterfly and you can check that out here, but this year I decided to take it easy on myself and use some parts and pieces of old costumes. Since this year the murder mystery party that my hub & I are throwing is on a French Revolution theme - I decided to be Marie Antoinette. Honestly, I wanted to be the decapitated Marie but I just couldn't find anyone to sell me more hours in the day, so I had to settle for the regular intact Marie.

I was SUPER inspired by the phenomenal and beautiful plastic-wrap wigs made by designer Kate Cusack for Tiffany (which you should totally check out)and wanted to try my hand at it using only a 10 hour time frame. Here is the result:

My Marie Antoinette Wig made with plastic wrap and bags inspired by Kate Cusack

Note- If you want to blog about any of these images please be sure to give credit and link back to this site, Thank You :)

I'm planning on making a tutorial for this wig in November so that you can have your own masquerade ball any time of the year or set up for next Halloween early!

Tomorrow I will walk the parade in a pretty big get up- The skirt is an old wood frame skirt that I made to be the Queen of Hearts some years ago and it is MEGA big- so stay tuned for some pics of the WHOLE get up and my leeched white face!!

-Ciao Amarettogirl

Use Altered Wedding Favors to Make Halloween Invites!

The Marie Antoinette Murder Mystery Invites

Wedding favors have a 'je ne sais quoi' Marie Antoinette feel to them and since this year my murder mystery dinner party is a French Revolution inspired one, I chose to alter wedding favors to make the invites...You can do this so easily and rather quickly.

Supplies needed:

• Wedding favors from a craft shop like Michaels, A.C. Moore or a Dollar store

• red hot glue

• little daggers, shot guns or crucifix stakes with which to defile your wedding favor with

• little scrolls of secret info to place inside your favors

• black ribbon and red ink to address the envelopes

and VOILA! Fini! The Totems and Invites for this Years Murder Mystery Game detail of altered wedding favors to make Halloween Invites

Halloween Decor

Check out just a little bit of my crazy Halloween decor and stay tuned for more...I'm currently working on a wild Marie Antoinette Costume with a skirt so big it won't fit in the car to get to my job where I need to wear it for a Halloween parade! Yikes...

The hair/head piece I'm making is pretty big too out of quite a few plastic bags and plastic wrap, inspired by the audacious, fantastic and super-inspiring wearable art sculptural work of designer Kate Cusack but ala amarettogirl...so be sure to return this week to check it out!

There's a Murder Mystery Afoot...

As the founder and president of The Black Hat Society I organize and host an annual murder mystery dinner party - this year is the 7th annual dinner.

I often purchase the game from a site called Host Party.com which is pretty neat with an interactive online game page for participants, but this year I went for something slightly different. I went with a London-based company called Ace Murder Mysteries and got a box set. I purchased a Marie Antoinette Inspired French Revolution mystery entitled Le Mystere des Masques...and drumroll please...today it arrived!! Perfect timing - just in time to give out everyone's secret motive!

Since I didn't have the online page I simply used Pingg to send online invites and even make a webpage for the game- you can see it HERE!!I'm so excited!

This Years Murder Mystery By Ace Murder Mysteries

Stay Tuned this Week for Halloween Costume Fun, Halloween Decor and More Murder Mystery Mayhem!!

-Ciao Amarettogirl

Some New Halloween Cards by me Available through Pingg!

my new card available through Pingg Check out My Gallery for Pingg Halloween Cards NOW and Email someone a Halloween Invite to SMILE!

October Winds

There are some new brightly colored leaves blowing on the horizon for this site during this awesome month of OCTOBER, my 'favoristist' month ever!

So let me start laying it out for you...WAIT FOR IT...

• HALLOWEEN DELIGHTS...I am the founder of the Black Hat Society and every year for the past 7 years my hub and I host a costume required annual Murder Mystery Dinner for All Hallows Eve...check out my hand-sculpted marzipan candied witch fingers! So get ready to see a NEW HALLOWEEN card and a line up of past favorites getting reprinted. Yikes!

• Author Interview and Podcasts!!! This month marks the release of Author, Rosie Molinary's new book Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self- Acceptance and I have received a review copy (without payment) and been fortunate enough to land a phone interview! So as part of her blog tour I will featuring a review, the audio podcast interview, Q&A post and most likely an AWESOME giveaway all on OCTOBER 12th so be HERE!

• NEW ART! I've become a bit obsessed with working with inks lately and playing with computer manipulation so stay tuned for some of those!

• New BLOG face! I'm designing a new banner and refreshing the look of this site....woo hoo

• Introducing a new feature on BODY LOVE and being a BODY CHAMPION inspired by two my favorite blogging Latinas, Elsita from the Hidden Seed and Rosie as in the author of Hijas Americanas & Beautiful You! In fact, You can scroll down to the next post to check it out NOW.

• New sister links to this site!

I'm super excited to start posting the new entries routinely! Its going to be a busy month so check back often - and remember it might look different!

- Ciao

No Sew Butterfly Costume

So this year I was really worried I would fail halloween. You see, I make an annual BIG wearable art sculptural costume for a fifteen minute halloween parade at the school where I work, and well this year my stressful schedule started to get the better of me. I was completely flummoxed had no ideas, down with a cold and extremely exhausted.

So I went to Home depot and walked the isles - I ended up with two blue 9X12 tarps, industrial strength duct tape and thin tubes of 5ft PVC pipe - in my mind I was thinking that somehow wings could be made with this collection.

the finished wings

I got home and through sniffing and coughing, I cut out the shapes and began attaching the pvc pipe to keep the shape. Another challenge with this particular costume every year is that it has to be transportable in the car and must collapse in shape and reopen. Lastly, I knew I didn't have the wherewithal to decorate the wings and gluing stuff on them could make them too heavy. So I called up a friend, a former student, graffiti artist ACET to see if at the last minute she could help me out of this pinch. Sure enough she did and well needless to say I didn't fail Halloween!! I used a backpack to wear the wings and well - that's it!

Veronique Broussard a.k.a Acet painting my wings Me working on the wings, when Acet made me put down the light and help!the finished costume the day of the parade in the gymnasium me and other costumed teachers!