My First EGG!!

Portrait of My First Chicken Egg hatched myteriously by one of my ladies on Hallloween Portrait 2 of my first egg Portrait of My first Egg born on Halloween 2010

So YES! My first egg came on HALLOWEEN :)) My only sadness is that I don't know which of my 12 ladies gave me the gift of this beautiful egg. I wish I did, just so I could thank her, maybe with a strawberry (they are WILD about strawberries). Fertilized or not, I think giving away your eggs can't be completely easy. I love my girls so and I'm learning so much from them. But, I'm scared to eat the egg- I read somewhere that the first few eggs wouldn't be worth much-that they would be small, shaped awkward and possibly even wonky looking...but this looks like perfection. If there are any chicken raisers out there that can give me more tips I would LOVE THEM!!!

which of these lovely ladies laid the first egg, If I only knew??

November Goals & Nanowrimo

Glass illustration by marisol diaz

So we are now into the month of November (my Birthday month) and every year around this time I do some life/goal assessment...and I try again and again until I succeed to fulfill them.

So this year being no different, I am trying one more time to do the following:

• start, continue and finish NANOWRIMO (national write a novel in a month) in which you must complete 50,000 words in one month towards your novel.Check out what I got so far! HERE.
• Get better Podcast equipment
• Interview more folks and start a full on audio Podcast Series beginning with another interview with NYC based Spoken Word Artist La Bruja! 
• Craft my tush off for the Annual Craft Fair
• Buy my long-awaited glass kiln and do some glass work
• Update my Etsy
• Update my techy equipment
• Post more tutorials
• Start some Style posts for both CLOTHES & FOOD!!! FOOD LOVE YAY!
• Make my Ladies of the Chicken Coop as comfy as possible as they start to lay some eggs!
• Update my Blog/Site diversification to include NEW and seperate blogs! 

So wish me luck as I start on this month long venture! -Ciao Amarettogirl

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!

Announcing the Winner of the BEAUTIFUL YOU Giveaway

This was an incredibly difficult giveaway to select from! I wish I had seven books to give away ~.~

The good news is that I scored a visit to my school by Rosie Molinary on Oct. 26th from 12:30-1:30pm during which she will be doing a lunch time series presentation in our library -for girls, women, teachers, staff, parents and male allies at the Imperatore Library and she will have books available there!

So if you are affiliated with the Dwight-Englewood School in anyway try to be there!

**************************************************************************

Ok so the top contenders addressed the audio interview with such conviction it made my heart smile everytime! Take a look at some of these comments:

1. Colin- "...the best part's when y'all are talking about process, and how it's destination vs. journey when really it's always just been about journey."

2. Luisa- "i loved the part where you talked about the toxins to your body that no one really mentions like gossip, and criticism. it reminded me of a scene from mean girls where they al look in the mirror and take turns saying something they don't like about their bodies. rituals like these seem to happen often and have become almost routine. the become addictive, you tend to keep going and going and you keep finding little things here and there, and when your friends join in its just a hate bash on our bodies..."

3. Carla- "I sooooooooo related to the struggle with people commenting on your weight loss and the discomfort around that. I actually wrote and performed a piece about that very thing years ago and it prompted me to find it. It's called 'Serenity'..."

   ...I mean someone will say, "You have such a beautiful face" and in the back of my head that little voice is translating it as "It's a shame your a little overweight, otherwise you'd be a knockout", "a knock out", yeah, a knockout"...

   -excerpt from Serenity by Carla
4. Jane- "I loved both your questions and Rosie's responses. The aspect that spoke most loudly to me was about her thoughts on straightening her hair - "to make her life easier." For nearly a decade, many years ago, I permed my hair "to make my life easier." How interesting that we saw doing opposite things to our hair was perceived necessary and a means to being more presentable than what is our own natural state..."

5. Laura- "...One topic that I can definitely apply to my own life is the section about not joining in when your friends decide to criticize themselves. This is something that I would never have thought about before because it seems like such a natural reaction. Now that I am more aware of it, I hope to not do it again."

6. Tania- "...I've a ton of opinions and thoughts on this subject especially as a woman of size who is ok with being of size who accepts herself fully. I'm the girl who does straighten her hair but I do it not for society or praise but because I like the way it looks on me, but I also embrace my curls..."

   And last but not least...

7. Gera- "Omg, this interview was so great and it really touched my heart. I definitely understand each and every one of Rosie's points and they were all eye-opening and just plain genius. I am a young woman (HS) who is totally aware this notion of image; however, I try my best to not let it get the best of me. I am a woman of size and am completely comfortable with my body. If I ever decide to change something, it'll be because I want it for myself and not because of other people's opinions. I can honestly say that I am so excited to read this book and I know I will love it just like I loved this interview!"

   So what is a blogger to do??

   Well I took a suggestion by my co-worker Caitlyn, and I placed the numbers 1-7 in the bingo machine and let the wheel of fortune take the decision right out of my hands!                               The winner is...drumroll please...wait for it...

   CONGRATS TO GERA!!!!!!

   The Poster For Rosie Molinary's Visit to the Dwight- Englewood School!

A Threadless Tee to Inspire Some More Body Love

Remember- The Giveaway for Rosie Molinary's new book Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance ends at midnight tonight! All you have to do to be considered is listen to the audio podcast interview with Rosie that I did available at the bottom of this post (and again on the last post) and leave a comment on the Rosie book tour post about which part of the interview spoke to your soul the loudest!

Score this design: "LOVIN IT?," to help it get printed on Threadless!

"

Thought this would a great addition, to my new body love feature - a Threadless design I hope gets voted through! Isn't Threadless fantastic! BTW the podcast for the giveaway is linked below this statement!

Rosie Molinary Interview Podcast