Dead Birds

My dogs love to bring me gifts. They truly leave these gifts for me to find the second I walk through the door from work. Mind you they have a spot and window they sit at every day to wait for me to come home. They have internal clocks and know when I should be home. When I'm on time they are filled with abnormal joy at my arrival, when I'm late I find wicked behavior like chewing on my table legs. Regardless, they are cognizant of where I come from and when. The gift they are most proud of was perhaps my worst...a dead squirrel that they left on my living room carpet right at the entrance for me, fully intact I might add. All my pups lack are opposable thumbs, wrapping paper and ribbon.

So last week I arrived home from work to get a new gift. I screamed out in complete bloody agony to find a dead little limp bird laying on my living room carpet.

Then just as I got acclimated to the reality of it, and as I was trying to figure out how to pick it up, I walked outside my back door to let the chickens out into the yard and in horror there was another dead bird at my feet. My stomach turned like if this was all a bad omen...a rain of dead birds. However as I faced being home alone and having to address these birds, I gathered courage and began my usual twisting, turning, bloating and wringing of a problem. I couldn't help but to see them as dauntingly beautiful, fragile and spiritless. So on a week where I would have paid to have an extra hour in the day, I proceeded to spend the next four hours photographing dead birds. Here is just one of the results:

my two little dead birds photo by m.diaz

Some Personal Style from Etsy, Vera Wang and H&M

Some folks have mentioned liking my style...but to be honest when it comes to fashion my taste are so eclectic that I really don't see myself as having a sense of style. I mean some days I'm all about a western look and other days its lacey, somedays its a racoon hat and other days it's a cheetah beret and I tend to like one piece pajamas and that cannot be stylish! However, in the last few years in the blogosphere personal style has also become another aspect of female expression...with quite a few style blogs popping up and even online classes on developing and exhibiting your sense of style. Certainly online toys like Polyvore have helped that!

So inspired by my cousin TAI and her style Genius (one of the most knowledgeable fashionistas that I know)and awesome artist blogger Elsita's Style Blog, I will now (every once in a while) post about some of my fashion style love. For links scroll down to the bottom of the post.

remember as Lainie's Ladies say,

"Be Yourself Everyone Else is Taken!"

Here I am wearing some new threads- I call this ensemble Black November: A style post Background Art is a Collaborative Glass Piece by Me and my classmates in Catherine Newells class

Shirt- H&M

Silk-Screened Leggings- Etsy- Pretty Penny Designs

Shoes - Vera Wang Lavender Covered Wedge Clog from Nordstroms

MY Vera Wang Wedge Clogs from Nordstroms Click to see

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!