So now we have covered thanksgiving and Christmas.  The rest of the year we costume and accessorize pep rallys, school projects, store and business promos, 60′s parties, anime and sci fi cosplay events,  70′s parties, 50′s parties, 80′s parties and a plethora of fun events in between.  We help with parades, birthday novelties, pranks, theatrical productions, bridal parties, fun award items, Luau items and so much more…. Then there are other holidays for fun costumes….Mardi Gras, Easter, Valentines, St. Patricks day, 4th of July and everything in between…so there it is…that is what we do….make your life a little more fun….because your fun in our business….

Happy Make Believe!

So if you are not satisfied with anyone or any business at any time and you have any class at all….just leave….that is enough of a statement. Really no one wants to see your bad side and “You don’t know me” or my family or friends but I know you are someone I do not wish to know or visit my Shoppe again. So do me a favor, pretend I am out of business, because “You don’t know me”….and gratefully I don’t know you.

Happy Make Believe,

Nacheska

For little girls – All things Alice and Disney…Alice, Mad Hatter, Red Queen, Minnie, smurfette…

For Tweens….it seems to be Monster High and all things Alice, cute dresses of disney

For little boys – Ninja, Commando, Ghoul, Bey Blade….and let’s not forget the ever popular super hero section…and of course the classic Star Wars and Clone Wars series of great costumes.

For littler ones – Yo Gabba Gabba, Dinosaurs, animals, all family fun things…wiz of oz, and anything that might match big sis or brother…

I have noticed that Adults more and more are getting involved in rock star or famous couples parties…Michael Jackson, Elvis, Travolta, Slash, Beatles, Lady Gaga, Marilyn and Katy Perry are just a few of the popular ones that keep heading out our door…of course nothing can beat a fun Disco event and I must say that the 60′s and 70′s aisle stay busy and the gogo boots and platform shoes keep dancing out our door too.

Happy Make Believe ….and have great fun!

 

Belly Dance beginner class 101 Monday a.m.
9:00-10:00…..The ancient art of Belly Dance make a wonderful start to the week…new class…sign up
today! Come on in and see how fun a workout can be:0)

NEW- Zumba on Tuesday  and Thursday evening at 6:00 cost is $5, pay
by the class…no monthly commitment required…instructed by Zumba certified
instructor Candy Miller

Beautiful Belly Dance 102 Monday
evening 7:00-8:00 pm  (adv beginning intermediate) Our studio off of
114 is convenient to Grapevine, Keller, Bedford, Colleyville, Euless, Trophy
Club, Flower Mound, the Mid Cities and Southlake. … placement required…

Beautiful Belly Dance 102 Tuesday 9:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m. (adv beginning/ intermediate) This is more advanced bellydance and great fun to expand on the inner Goddess…we are on the Southlake/Grapevine border…for this class placement required…

Beautiful Belly Dance 101 7:00 PM- For the beginner, belly dance is too much fun…start anytime learning this ancient art.

Beautiful Belly Dance 103/104 Wednesday 7:00-8:00 – Expand your knowlege of the beautiful art of Middle Eastern Belly Dance while working out and meeting other dancers with the same spirit! !..to register email nacheska@nacheska.com This is intermediate/advanced level. (advanced placement required)

Hula/Polynesian Class for Performance - Thursday 7:30-8:30 p.m. - This class is open to all ages of hula dancers and we do two types of Hula; Auana (modern) and Kahiko (ancient) This class explores the rich history of Hawaii through their specific dance style…this class on Tuesday is for those who will learn a basic knowledge of the moves and style of Hula and want to proceed with their training and perform.  The class is performance based…ongoing and…currently working on Tahitian studies (multi-level) come share aloha with us in our new studio and become a Texas Hula Honeys

Beautiful  Belly Dance multi level Saturday a.m. 9:30-10:30 -Start your weekend with a fun workout and dance the joy of
another day… join your sisters shimmying into the weekend! This is a multi-level class challenging the beginner and helping the intermediate/advanced
dancer keep her technique tuned…we have two spaces left…

Cost of dance
classes are $35/4 classes mo. $5 for each additional class
$10 per class is
the pay by the class rate; (this is good if you have a changing schedule or would like to try
a class…)  
Ask about our family discounts for dance…no other
fees apply…we are a not for profit studio.

Lessons at
our Private Studio or at your event:  Each private dance lesson is
one hour – and includes warm-up with gentle dance stretches, isolations, steps,
combinations as well as working on dance, choreography or specialty work;
Nacheska can also spice up your event with a program that will shimmy and shake
you up and give you a great overview of this amazing dance form.

Belly birthday- Spice up your birthday with you own private Belly Dance class for your friends at our studio…bring refreshments, a sense of humor and workout and giggle and wiggle….

Studio Locations:
The studio is at 280 Commerce street in our new location…the
studio has it’s own entrance at the front left (entrance says Spanish school and
Renaissance Massage…we are upstairs in suite 245) 

Private Lesson Prices and
Information: There are lots of fun reasons for a Belly Dance Private
class…batchelorette party, friend/sister outing, club outing, or bring
Nacheska to your next meeting to speak about or teach Belly Dance or Hula…this
ancient art form is fascinating and she would love to tell or show you why.

$85 at our location for your group or
private…$100-125 at your location…these are approximate prices due to vary
based on drive times, events, amenities, amount of students etc….call us. We would love to share our love for the dance with
you …these private classes are 1 hour and you are
welcome to bring refreshments with you to enhance your celebration

Phone: 817.798.7185

Happy Shimmies,

Nacheska

Aloha and Howdy is the greeting most often heard with our dance troupe the “Texas Hula Honeys”.  I can see the curious expression on your face now…How did you come up with that?  Well, it was easy really.  We are all Texas women that love and study Hula.  Our troupe name used to be Hawaiian at heart, but it did not capture our Texas spirit. We have had too much fun with the name of our group and merging the Texas and Hawaii spirits.  The soft beautiful Hawaiian essence married to the spicy Texas charm…well it is just a great fit for us.  We make our audiences laugh, and they travel with us to other places all while staying in our own great state.  We get silly, serious and pull our knowledge of Hawaii and Polynesia contrasting and comparing it to the lone star state.  Texas is number 28 and Hawaii is 50 in our United States…but even though they might have come to the table late…we love them just the same.  Yee Haw!

To hire our troupe for your next event…visit:

http://www.odysseytheatrical.com/dancers/hula/hula.htm

Mahalo Nui Loa

Nacheska teaching

As a former teacher of ballet, modern, jazz, and tap and a current teacher of Belly Dance, Hula, and Childrens theater, I get a lot of “interested in signing up” calls.  Often you will find that a studio cannot take you straight away.  This is for several reasons.  Dance is like building something…the teacher will give you the foundation (which is called technique) and then build on it piece by piece (making single moves or techniques into combinations) and finally you have a completed structure…(a dance or series of dances)  When there is an established class over two months old, they are a bit ahead of you so the teacher/instructor may feel that you would be behind (left out) of the growing process….

Some of my classes can be attended by someone new at any time if they are very beginning…but at the end of a season, the dancers in the beginning class are ahead of any basic beginner and to keep them back at the expense of a new beginner is just not fair.  They also may be working on a dance which takes up a large chunk of class time so a new student would just have to watch or “fake it”…

Usually I only have one month a season where I do not take new students…just before the show and promotion of the dancers to the next level…so if you call a dance school and they cannot welcome you right away, then mark your calendar for the next season or call another school that may be on a different schedule…you will love dancing and the performance arts…dance is life at it’s best.

Another article is :

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2009-11-24-dot-minnesota-stranding-fine_N.htm

Of course I could go on and on and on and on…but I still would not equal the length of time that airlines are holding passengers hostage with their lack of common courtesy and inhumane treatment…I have personally found the only airline I currently trust is Southwest…but even so, they do not fly everywhere  and if I can drive to my destination …I do.

Why must we stay on a tarmac with no food or water for 1, 2, 3, 4, up to 8 hours…???  Maybe we should put a few of the airline’s owners or the head of the FAA in such horrific circumstances and then watch how quickly laws are enacted to give us rights…http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17173370/

But really why do we have to enact laws for us to treat each other like human beings who matter???  Why would anyone think it is ok to keep perfectly nice human beings…neighbors, friends, you and me hostage in a plane for hours?…ouch!  This is a sad day and I am not a little girl anymore and I don’t want to go on a plane adventure anymore…because staying on a plane sitting still heading nowhere being treated badly…that is not my idea of fun or even decent transportation.  What has air travel come to???  It is going into the gutter…oh wait, I mean the tarmac…

Picture of the Shop from the doorway

Alrighty then, I was being interviewed by the author Marilyn Sweet who wrote the book “Profitable 5K Business” on her internet radio show.  Marilyn asked me how I started in the Costume Shop business…well I didn’t actually know I was going in the Costume Shop business, it just evolved…like my life. (and this question made me realize it)

 Now anyone who owns a small business knows that what we first thought our business was going to do and be is not precisely what it turned out like.  Actually, that is a lot like us…the way our life starting out, our hopes and dreams and direction may not have evolved exactly how we thought.  I opened my little Shoppe to be a dancewear store…as a dance teacher for 22 years, it was a natural evolution from wearing dancewear all day and night to selling it, since I knew a lot about it.  Several times a year, my students and I would do shows and utilize costumes but I did not give them much thought.  However, much to my surprise, when I opened my little Shoppe, folks were more interested in the few costumes I carried than the leotards, tights, skirts and shoes.  That business was being focused inside the new dance schools themselves as they internalized the dancewear business and did sales right inside the studio.  I did not know a lot about costumes outside the dance performance arena but I soon did some research and learned what my customers wanted and where I could get it…but there were some expensive mistakes along the way since this was not initially my area of expertise.

When I was a little girl I knew I wanted to be a dance teacher…as a young woman I wanted to be a college professor of the dance.  But as a child of the 50′s I wanted the wife mother to be in the equasion too.  Whew, boy was I wanting it all.  I married a stranger, divorced with a young child, worked 4 jobs, went to college 3-7 hours a semester and finally graduated 10 years later….hmmm, not what I envisioned in the beginning…and I was no closer to that college job as I was still working on the degree to get me there…then I remarried, opened a studio, had another baby and tried to make it all work.  This was not my original plan but as anyone would, I went with it.

In business, my first little shop just about broke even in 3 years…but something came up…a career in acting.  Since I was still performing a little in the dance arena, I stumbled on an opportunity to impersonate Marilyn Monroe and it bloomed into a better business than the Shop…so I closed the shop and went on tour for a year or so. (what happened to selling dancewear?)  But the glamour of being Ms. Monroe soon waned and I settle back in Texas looking for another opportunity while temping in an office.  It was handed to me in the form of teaching/training folks in the Web computer arena in a specialize medical field. (not the professor job but maybe I was getting closer?)  The corporate environment was hard on this artistic spirit so I looked into an opportunity to have a small sideline business in the costume dancewear business I still was intrigued with so I took some of my corporate earnings and sublet part of a storefront and paid someone else to run it…renting and selling costumes all year…and after a year, I was pushed to make a decision due to my fathers waning health and a layoff by the corporation…they wanted to keep me full time and I was only working part time…so I went full speed ahead and worked in my little store and tried to build up the business.  

In business, we have to make policies…about the employees, the customers, the hours, the marketing etc….and when we open our small business we have a vision but we need to be able to yield to what life brings and our customers needs.  One of the wisest tidbits I gleaned from another business person was in the Book “Pour your heart into it” by Howard Schultz and that is “never say never.”  Policies need to yield, we need to yield and bend and weave through life…just call me Gumby! 

…there is so much more to write but my Shop calls me…

Happy Make Believe,

Nacheska

Need an idea for your own Mardi Gras party?  We have an amazing murder mystery if you want to host a party called “ Murder at the Mardi Gras”….includes invitations and the little scripts for your friends.  I have done this Murder Mystery party and it was a riot.  It is amazing what donning a costume will do for some people…they really get into it!  We were so busy having fun that no one really noticed the clues so only one person guessed the murderer.

Below is a recipe for Beignets for a sweet treat: (feel free to share with lots of friends for even more fun!)

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 7 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 1 quart vegetable oil for frying
• 1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar

Directions

1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add sugar, salt, eggs, evaporated milk, and blend well. Mix in 4 cups of the flour and beat until smooth. Add the shortening, and then the remaining 3 cups of flour. Cover and chill for up to 24 hours.
2. Roll out dough 1/8 inch thick. Cut into 2 1/2 inch squares. Fry in 360 degree F (180 degrees C) hot oil. If beignets do not pop up, oil is not hot enough. Drain onto paper towels.
3. Shake confectioners’ sugar on hot beignets. Serve warm.

Merry Mardi Gras…

Happy Make Believe!!

Nacheska