COPY & PASTE!

Yeah, this post is literally just the HTML copied and pasted from my other blog.
A company, Fabricadabra, sent me some goodies to review and I used the stuff at the faire last weekend so I'm going to use that review post to share a few faire pics with you all.
Get it? Okie dokie.
AND for being awesome, there is a giveaway entry form for a $150 gift card to Fabricadabra....
BUT...
You gotta live in the US to enter to win. Sorry!!!
On with the show.
More faire pics coming soon!!!

{This post is crawling with affiliate links}
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Last weekend, I had the pleasure of being a performer at the 6th Annual Texarkana Renaissance Faire again! Just making sure that you're caught up on all that: I created the Texarkana Renaissance Faire six years ago. Two years ago I realized that I couldn't keep up with the fair anymore. I had just created an online business, I had a blog, a home to manage and two small children. Something had to go! I gave the faire to a friend and faire supporter and who now co-owns it and directs it with another person. The two of them are doing a very good job of continuing the faire for me. Now that I am no longer the owner and director of the fair I am able to do what I've always wanted to do, and that's perform and entertain.



At the faire, I play a character named Daniella Noir the Gypsy Queen and I am the leader of the gypsy cast members of the faire. As the leader of the Gypsy Camp, my duties includes rounding up dancers and musicians to play gypsies at the faire, decorating the area, coordinating dances and much more. 

The camp consists of many different groups. First there's our musicians, most of whom also play pirates. They come over to visit us from the Pirate's Cove and provide us with live music. When they're not there, we dance and drum along to a hidden stereo or "fairy box" as they're called in the ren faire community.

A have some members of an American Tribal Style Belly Dance troupe from Dallas (Wild Sky Tribal) come down and they have their own dances already choreographed and they also do "follow the leader" style improvisational dances that are absolutely stunning. We have a small crew from Shreveport, LA come down as well; mother and daughter classic belly dancers and a very talented drummer from the the group Gems of Cairo.

The others are local dancers and friends who help me by setting up, drumming, dancing, interacting with patrons and more!

That's a big drum!

Sometimes I dance solo while musicians play and when I get to tired or hot, I trade places with a dancer that is waiting nearby. This year, I tried something new. We did a couple of group dances which are Jewish circle dances, or horas, that we learned on our own from online videos and came together to perform them with very little practice time beforehand! That's us doing the dance in the pic below.

When I'm not dancing I play various percussion instruments including, a darbuka, doumbek, aslatua (gourd shakers), zills and a tambourine. I like to challenge myself to see how many instruments I can play at once since sometimes we're a little shorthanded on musicians. While sitting,  I place a drum under my left arm and keep a simple rhythm with my left hand while playing my shakers with my right. I place a cheap tambourine on the ground and tap it with my foot or use a foot tambourine. It's a great workout!

 My favorite part of heading the gypsy camp is decorating. I get to transform a completely blank area into a vibrant space for the patrons to enjoy. It can be quite difficult to transform a modern fairground into a renaissance themed village, but to me it's quite a fun challenge. 

I like to decorate my area with bright colors and multiple patterns and textures, especially ethnic textiles. I request that my other gypsies dress in the boldest, brightest colors they can find and they do a darn good job of it don't they!

I decorate the camp with solid colored scarves, scrap fabric and ribbons but my favorite type of material to use is sari fabric from India. I can use the whole length of an old sari to cover modern items that need to be concealed from public view like ice chests and plastic storage bins. I can drape them over the square bales of hay we use as seating to make them more attractive, and also as table cloths and chair covers. The different materials, patterns and colors that saris come in make it so easy to add life to my gypsy camp.

Fabricadabra's amazing sari scrap garlands helped to transform this drab modern pop-up canopy into a luxurious rest area for me and my other dancers. Each garland is a generous 7-feet long, the tassels are 9-inches and they are skillfully handmade in India.



As you can see I use many different items from all over the world to decorate my camp. The character I play travels the world and has picked up a souvenir from everywhere she's been. Even though I order all of my clothing and decor online, it is true that it comes from all over the globe! 

{Photos above by Scott Johnson Photography}

The maang tika, (jewelry over headscarf), silver necklace and skirt were made in India. My pink vest is from Turkey, the large glass bead necklace and beaded belt are from Afghanistan. The green overskirt, brown leather tankard strap and black leather cincher belt were handmade by local artisans. The bracelets attached to my belt that I give to patrons for free were handmade in Peru and my parasol (which is also from Fabricadabra!) was made in Rajasthan, India!

Since sunglasses aren't very period appropriate and the sun can heat up all those layers of garb in a heartbeat, parasols are absolutely necessary for faire characters. Now, the cool thing about this particular parasol, is that it adds SO much more color to my costuming and it can also be used as home decor! When I finally get all the faire decor stuff tucked back where it belongs, I will totally display my parasol and upcycled sari garland in my living room until it's time to use them again for next year's faire!

I've got a special treat for you guys...

►► A GIVEAWAY ◄◄

Fabricadabra would like to give YOU a $150 gift card to spend in their shop!

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT??!

Yes!

Not only does Fabricadabra have amazing parasols and garlands, they have gorgeous ethnic textile throw pillows, bed covering, place mats, floor cushions and more! 

This shop is a bohemian DREAM! 

See the gizmo below to enter to win!

USA entries only!!

HAVE FUN!

Ends 10/20/2017

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Faire thee well and all that jazz

Last weekend, me and the fam traveled to Kilgore, TX to visit Avalon Faire.

Even though the forecast only predicted cloudy skies and cool temperatures, as we got closer to the faire, the forecast rapidly began to change. When we got to the faire, it began to thunder a lightning a little so we left to wait out the storm at a nearby barbecue joint. 

Service was outrageously slow, the menu and ordering process was horribly confusing and the three ladies in line in front of me talked about me as if I were deaf. Instead of  complimenting me or asking for a photo like most decent humans do, they preceded to carry on a convo about me as I just stood and smiled at them wondering if they were ever going to talk to me directly.

We left before even placing our order.

Bad vibes.

When we got back to the fairgrounds, it seemed as if the storm was moving away so we got out to put the rest of our garb on. 

DUMP! Here comes the rain.

We sat in the car and waited. 

The husband was talking of leaving but I was having no such thing.

When the rain let up I begged the ticket-taker to give us a rainy-day discount since we might have to turn around and leave at any minute and she did.

The canopy we put of over the kid's wagon broke and then the wagon broke shortly after that so we bought a couple nylon parasols. The parasols weren't waterproof but much better than rice paper! The kids did amazingly well considering this was their first festival sans containment of some sort.

And all of this to say:

It was raining off and on so I left my camera in the car and took bad photos with my phone.

The end!

The Downtown Shuffle

Allo! Allo! I started this post Sunday and got super sidetracked. Can't you tell? It's Friday now.

These photos are from a food festival we went to downtown Saturday. 

The first festival we went to many months ago only had like five food vendors that were spread out all over a large parking lot. It was poop. This time were were about 20 vendors, bounce houses and other goodies.

The festival gets better every time they put it on and that excites me.

There wasn't much diversity in the food choices, though - just your typical American fair food faves, Southern fried stuff and Mexican. Lots and lots of Mexican. I settled on a couple chorizo tacos and took home a crawfish po' boy (a cajun sandwich) and a meat pie to eat later.

Ok, so I'm sure you're wondering what's with the Daniella duds at a food festival.

Well, me and the rest of the fair crew like to visit local festivals to promote the faire and this time the directors thought it'd be cool to dress up in our garb and "invade" the upcoming food festival.

I was already planning to take my family to the fest so I figured, meh, might as well dress up while I'm at it.

Only four of us showed up, me, new faire owner Aly (to the left),  faire co-owner Brain (to the right) and new cast edition Natalie (center). We posed for photos, interacted with the festival-goers, handed out promo cards and all that jazz. 

Next to the festival, an ooooold building was open for tours. The building used to be a hardware store at some point and they are planning to turn it into apartments and office space which will be awesome. (I'm not sure who THEY are by the way).

Our downtown is just plumb awful. Full of empty buildings that have a lot of potential, not much to do there. A few retail shops, a couple of "museums" a couple bars and restaurants.... that's about it. BUT! One big 'but', though!

A LOT of effort has been going into reviving it recently. It's just going to take some time.

And here's a cool photo I took of the crew in the building. 

Soooo.... what's up with you guys lately?

Well, I guess I'll find out soon enough when I go check out your blawgs! 

LATERZ.

Oh, hello there!

It's October and I'm back as promised!!

Not only am I back but I'm back with a few photos from the faire!

The faire was last weekend, September 26 & 27and in case you're new to this shindig - I'm the owner/director lady and most recently - Daniella Noir the Gypsy Queen!

This year the faire went smoothly enough that I was able to finally contribute to the entertainment. But because of the heat and many many layers of clothing I only danced about four times - but that's still four times more than I ever have in the past!

After getting myself a concussion last month I was unable to continue practicing Russian style gypsy dance. When I recovered from that I pulled something in my back that landed me in the ER (they did nothing to help). So after healing up from that - I had about a week to loosen up enough to wing it (yoga helped!).

At the faire I just tapped into memories of past dance experience, all my belly dance knowledge and all the YouTube videos of authentic gypsy dance I've ever seen.

 Below is my "Gypsy Court" well some of them - featuring beautiful dancers from Little Goddess Trybal belly dance troupe from Dallas and a few local volunteers who also dance, drum or act.

Under my pavilion my "throne" was made of a dining chair, pvc pipe, two folding TV trays, bed sheets, old saris and table cloths. The wind blew everything out of place during this shot but I think it still looks ok yeah?

This year, I wore no hoops, no crinoline, no corset, no girdle... I was all natural under there and I felt great!  I could move! The edges of the velvet ghawazee coat kept rolling in on itself (right under the ties) - I predicted it would happen and intended on sewing the front closed but darn it, the night before the faire, I was just too plumb exhausted to care about preventing wardrobe malfunctions. 

It wasn't until I saw the photos that I realized I was a perfect rainbow from top to bottom! 

Outfit details:

Headdress - handmade by me last year with added 99 cent scarf and $2 necklace from eBay,

Purple Tunic - my own

Blue velvet ghawazee coat - Tribal Bazaar

Green over skirt - Etsy $5

25 yard skirt - eBay bought with Swagbucks

White hip scarf, yarn belt, beaded belt - old

Most jewelry - dirt cheap eBay finds.

Trying my hand at sword balancing! It's tricky! I'd like to get my own sword and practice a bit.

And back where I belong! I love drumming soooo much. The man who taught me how to drum boasts that I am one of the best drummers in Texarkana (high praise indeed but there's only like four drummers in town.) I haven't got to drum in ages but when I picked up the drum everything all came back to me. It  was like riding a bicycle... a bicycle that will make your fingers swell so bad you won't be able to remove your rings that night but... a bicycle indeed! 

Stay tuned for more photos!!

I've still got tons to do to wrap up all this faire stuff so I probably wont have time to visit your blogs until next week. 

Until then, see you all laters!!!

who the heck is Daniella Noir?

Do a quick Facebook search and you'll find that Daniella Noir is a stripper... perhaps a porn star... even a ghetto fabulous fashion model. But this Daniella Noir I speak of is the director of the Texarkana Renaissance Faire and now officially, the Queen of the Gypsies.
She's me. Er, well kind of.

Even though I am the director of a renaissance faire, I'm not what you would call a "rennie". A rennie is person who is obsessed with faires and all things renaissance. They visit every faire they possibly can, spend thousands of dollars on costuming, accessories and weaponry every year. They listen to renaissance music, play themed RPGs, themed video games, study the history, read thy novels, attempt to speak the lingo, they learn to play the instruments... they're soaked in it!
Good people though. Good folks, I say.

People say to me, "Um, Hollie. You direct a faire. You're like, the ultimate rennie."

And I say to them:

"Nay. I just like dressing up and throwing massive parties that attract hundreds of people and earn thousands of dollars (none of which I actually get to take home after bills and stuff)."

With all that being said, during the planning of last year's faire, I began to get a lot of friend requests from faire participants, merchants, entertainers and the likes. But I only like to be friends with  people I actually know (that includes bloggers I regularly follow).

So I did what all rennies do, (I'm not a rennie)... I created a character and a name.

Thus, Daniella Noir was born!
Daniella from my middle name Danielle and Noir from my maiden name, Black.

Daniella got her own Facebook profile and by doing this, I was able to befriend 886 folks in the industry without flooding my personal profile feed with the latest book about Anne Boleyn, Tudor tailoring and pics of hot guys in kilts (I don't mind that last one so much though).
My 886 "friends" includes about a dozen Jack Sparrow impersonators, even a female Johnny Depp impersonator. About twenty mermaids, well over two hundred pirates, dozens of professional belly dancers, some faire kings and queens and even a few Hollywood pros.

So what about the Gypsy Queen thing?

Yeah, I made the announcement a few weeks ago that I am joining my own cast as the Gypsy Queen.

That was actually supposed to happen last year and it was going to be a big fun surprise but I was unable to finish my costume due to financial issues.

The headdress wasn't finished, the bodice wasn't bejeweled and I couldn't afford the skirts. No biggie really, it felt good to be hoop and crinoline free.

So here's what's to be added to the costume:

This 25 yard silk skirt...

.

Over this 25 yard dyed skirt tucked in at the hips...

Over this massive 6-bone hoop...

With lovely Indian and Turkoman and other tribal doodads on the bodice and headdress (the one with the flowers and feathers at the top).

At the faire, I will have a pavilion, really just a decorated popup canopy like below and even a throne! 

Maybe one day I'll have my husband build me a pimped out vardo complete with wi-fi and an espresso maker. Well, I don't think gypsies had wagons like this in the 16th century (or espresso makers for that matter), but it's my faire and I'll do what I want.

Ok, well now that I've bored you all to death with talks of becoming a gypsy queen, I'm going to go have a drink. A wasp landed in my hair earlier and thinking it was a harmless grasshopper a grabbed him and threw him to the ground. He stung my hand and now I'm grumpy, with a headache and a achy hand.

If you'd like to befriend Daniella Noir on Facebook you can find her HERE.

To like the Gypsy Queen's page click HERE.

See ya!!