Wednesday, July 15, 2009

painting at Rohnert Park Gymnastics






Took some time at the end of last week and painted at Rohnert Park Gymnastics. The kids were allowed to pick from pages of things I HADN’T done before…so these are all new ideas for me. I painted two sisters who looked like twins bu weren’t. Actually when the second one came and sat down I had to ask her if she had a sister out on the gymnastics floor since I knew I wasn’t seeing double. She said they werent twins but people always assume they are. What do you think…twins? Also tried a new unicorn since Im looking to do a different one from my standard and have been meaning to do this warrior helmet forever….Of the 3 siblings who wanted it was the girl who wanted it in ‘girly’ colors of blue and pink vrsus grey and green. It was pretty good for the first go-round. Also painted that day were rainbow spidermen….

Wednesday, July 8, 2009






July 5
Ive just crash landed back at HQ after another all day event. Today Miles and I were at Penngrove park for their 34th annual hometown parade. It was a long day that started with the perfect storm of horribleness for Roger. I took the van with all the set-up in it and he took the kids in the station wagon. As he got out the driveway he realized he didn’t have enough gas to make it to the park, so stops at the gas station…where he realizes his tire is FLAT. So he goes back home to air up the tire only to find the air chuck (or whatever) has gone missing so he has to go to another gas station to air up. Ok; gas, air….then the daughter says ‘daddy…’ and he turns around and promptly barfs all over herself and begins to cry. Ack! Back home and into the shower…about that point I call and ask where he is as Ive had to lug all my stuff and try to set up the tent and the humongous weights all by myself.
I soldier on and he washed the daughter and appears down at the park a half hour later. Miles stays with me and we finish the set up. He is continuing his education as line manager (still working on customer service skills) but he got to see the parade up close and catch candy as they went by (kind of like a mobile piƱata!) we were pretty hoppin after the parade ended all the way up until about 15 minutes before the closing time – even though there was another ‘free’ face painter volunteering for her church.
I talked to bunches of old-timer penngovians, some of whom have only ever moved 5 miles away from where they were born!
I finally smartened up and let Miles wield the camera as I always have the best of intentions but hardly ever break long enough to snap anything.
We stopped at some fast food on the way home and he talked me into giving him 10 minutes at the toy store with half his pay for the weekend. He came out with some nerf dart gun (yeah…not) and then on to home – where approximately 2 hours later he now has the barfs…oh joy




July 4
Big event at the Santa Rosa Fairgrounds tonight. We loaded in at 2 and the event began at 4. Clementine did the airbrushing and I face painted. Miles had his debut as line manager. He was assisted by Wentir and while I still need to work on his customer service skills I was really freaked out to find long after the fact that Wentir (possibly with his help) made change for a $100 bill. Eeckk! But the numbers seemed to have worked out so I guess its ok.

The big seller of the night was my swirls and curls with added stars and stardust which is an adaptation of the usual swirl and curl but in patriotic color. I couldn’t believe it we only did 2 spidermen, 1 butterfly and 1 skull face the entire night! I’ll attach the other big sellers.

The only other bauble of the evening was that 'The Friendly Competition' showed up just before the doors opened and they were not happy to find us there. She walked right up and said ‘we have a problem.’ However it appeared that they were not given an exclusive as she didn’t claim it – although they said they spoke to the organizer no fewer than 4 times and he didn’t volunteer that there would be other body artists in attendance. She and her companion elected to move their set up next to the line for the jumpy house and I believe they did fine.

I know we had to turn people away as we could no longer see as it was just past 8:30 and the light was going. Roger did a great job in closing the line (relieved the kids) and sending the ‘overflow’ to the clowns. He was very proper and asked the clowns if they would still be working before he sent them down. We did pretty well, we had fun, saw fireworks, got the van run into by another vendor and got to bed very late.

Oh.. the van? We were loading out and the neighbor dude had a suburban and a uHaul….scritch…uHauls fender was dragged down the drivers door. We still don’t know how bad/what kind of damage there is.

First Friday on 4th

July 3
Tonight was the First Friday on 4th in Downtown Santa Rosa. I had some problems getting and keeping staff (both models and painters) so we opted to just offer face painting and henna. Rogers contribution to the evening was to advise me if it was something he could do (like a glitter tattoo) it wasn’t art  and to only bring out things that required skill…we camped next to Mike again. This guy just really doesn’t like kids and well, mine are pretty high maintenance so I kept encouraging them to go play elsewhere…The 4 hours went by pretty darn slowly but I did meet the new ‘administration’ young gal Tara and funny sidekick Ty. They seem like they will be more open to doing something a little more...'interesting'…although the first words out of his mouth were “so, youre not going to cause any trouble this month are you?” I assured him that especially tonight I wouldn’t cause trouble.
I did a few face paintings and a henna for a young mom and her two little boys. They would be separated for a week so they wanted matching henna froggies. Unfortunately no pictures!!

July 2
Farmers market tonight! Today’s special was a $1 discount for red, white and blue designs…and doncha know it I only sold one (and then dad tipped the ‘saved’ dollar) I really wanted to push the patriotic designs – I wore one myself – as I will be doing these all rest of the weekend. We start with a downtown Santa Rosa booth tomorrow day/evening then the Fairgrounds on Saturday for the big fireworks show and then Sunday for an old fashioned hometown parade!

Friday, July 3, 2009

PICTURES?






















didja ever wonder why there were no pictues on this blog so far? I sure did...my other blog here: http://fairydustfaces.posterous.com/ has oodles of them. But somehow I never got them here. UNTIL NOW.... lets give it a whirl shall we?

Thursday, July 2, 2009

FREE Henna Class through the Sonoma County Library System

June 29
Free Henna class in Petaluma today. The class was a BIG one with 23 kids. And it wasn’t that the number was really that big but the tables were in long rows. I really need to re-think my set up.

The librarian was really into it (which is always nice) and she brought a pile of books with mehndi and henna and travel books, and kids story books with pictures and everything. It was a good group but I didn’t get to spend the attention on them that I can when theres only 12 or so. The bummer of the day was that 2 bottles of henna went missing….

We have 5 more classes to go, the next being in Santa Rosa on July 8 – I expect the remaining classes to also be big as both the library and I are really pushing the classes!

Private Parties all over town!

June 27
2 words..HEAT WAVE. I was about a million degrees today. Clementine was booked out to do the Sonoma County Museum’s Family Fun Day and then a party in Windsor…and she was hot.

I had a private party (kindergarten graduation) in Petaluma and then my girl scout troop was graduating so we had our own pool party (so I wasn’t quite as hot) The day was capped off my doodling henna on co-leader Jen…Apparently she had never had henna before!
June 26
Free face painting for Howarth park movie night. I have a soft spot for this event as it was one of the first ones I ever did. Last year I refined my offerings that I offer several movie theme designs for ‘tips’ and the rest are regular farmers market prices.

The movie was Ghostbusters so the designs were slimmer, the ghostbuster logo as well as Marshmallow man…geez, its been years and years since Ive seen the movie so I had to research these! Slimer was pretty easy, a green blob! Add details and hes done. The logo was only a little more complicated – and no one wanted Marshmallow man :( but it seemed pretty easy to do. And when all was said and done – even though the turn out was small, the jumpy people weren’t there and the ponies weren’t discounted I did pretty well.

As a bonus Zane ran into a few little friends and he and Bentley got to run around with them including going on the train and paddle boats while I worked, a perfect summers evening, fun was had by all!