I Love It When I Get to Have Some Fun

And I love it when people translate the fact that I can paint into other creative endeavors.  Most recently, a woman in my town whose daughter is being bat mitzvahed this month contacted me about doing a project for her.

At my bat mitzvah in 1983, my "sign in board" was a sheet of oaktag with a photo of me in the middle and rainbow stickers all around, since my theme was rainbows.  Hey, it was 1983.  Give me a break.  When my sister's bat mitzvah rolled around in 1990, her sign in board was Lucite with her name in Lucite letters and hearts.

Well, this mom has the nifty idea of using a mailbox!  The concept is that she'll have postcards printed with the bat mitzvah girl's logo, which she had designed for the event, and the guests can each write a message on a postcard.  Then the postcards go in the mailbox, and the whole shebang can go on the girl's dresser or shelf as a keepsake.  I love it!

This is the logo:

Cute, right?  Of course, pencil first, just in case.

And then I painted it all in.  I promise the name is in a nice purple, not blue.  With my dining room light lit, I just couldn't get the color true.

What'cha think?  I kind of love it.  And I'm open to more work like this, for sure.  Much more.

Franklin Lakes Cleanup/Beautification Day with the Environmental Commission

A while back, I became a commissioner on my town's Environmental Commission.  It's a great group, with a great mission and a bunch of great people.  They've been doing the cleanup day for a few years now, but this time we added "beautification" to the itinerary.  Our home base was the nature preserve in town.

As a brand new beekeeper, I want to encourage the planting of flowers whenever and wherever possible, so the participants also planted tulips and wildflower seeds.  Hence "beautification."  We handed out gloves, bags, and trash pickup equipment for people to use around the preserve and out on various streets around town.  Plus, we had a display teaching about xeriscape landscaping, which is the planting of flowers and plants that require very little water to flourish.

Of course, I offered my services as a face painter to draw families to the event, and had a great time painting the attendees, young and younger.

 

 

 

I was especially impressed with these three teens who showed up of their own volition without parents.  They run on the trails in the preserve and are just dedicated to keeping it nice.  Says some good things about the teen population!

Wizard of Oz

I had the opportunity this weekend to face paint at a birthday party with one of the most fun concepts ever!  And the four-year-old birthday girl's parents definitely pulled it off.

They rented the upstairs of a local movie theater on Saturday morning for a special showing of the Wizard of Oz!  There was a "yellow brick road" purchased from a party store leading into the theater where the movie was showing, and a full-sized Glinda.

I was there to do themed face painting, and even got to see some of the movie!  You may be wondering about that orange face on the left and how it relates... the very decisive young lady really wanted an orange tiger, so we compromised on a modified orange lion.  It worked, and she was happy, always my goal.

The birthday girl got Toto, which of course made that the popular face of the morning.

Cowardly lions were pretty popular too, and these cute siblings made their own pride!

I did have a couple of Wicked Witch of the Wests, which of course you know was fun for me.

And another compromise when my butterfly requester agreed to an "Over the Rainbow" butterfly.

And last, but not least, one of my Glindas realized that her bangs were covering her painting more than she liked, so she came on back for a rainbow.

But I never finished talking about the rest of the party carrying the theme!  There were Wicked Witch cupcakes all in a tower from a phenomenal local baker, Kara Kakes.  If you take a look at her Facebook page, you'll see some incredible other work she's done, but check out these in the meantime!

Are those not amazing?  And then for favors, there were Wizard of Oz themed bags of popcorn in blue with gingham bows and ruby red glitter marshmallow pops by another local food artist, Sally of Dipped Delicious.

How awesome are these?

Too cute!  Too delicious!  In fact, one girl who'd started in on her popcorn handed the bag to her dad so she could get painted, and admonished him, "Don't eat it!"  Apparently it was irresistible, though, because he did eat some while I was painting her.  Ha!  Take a look at the Dipped Delicious FB page to see other insanely delicious looking confections.

And if you wanted all three of us for your party?  I can contact them and help you out!

Another Halloween

So another Halloween has come and gone.  We decorated our little hearts out, hosted our annual party, and went to a party besides. 

The only disappointment was out utter lack of trick-or-treaters.  Where I live, houses are pretty far apart, plus we're on a main road with no sidewalks or street lights, so I knew it was unlikely anyone would bother, but I still hoped.  From 6:15 when I got home from the day job until the 10 p.m. town curfew, we had the lanterns lit & fog/lightening machines going.  Hopefully, at least people driving by enjoyed it.

I did get to have fun painting, though.  On Saturday the 26th, before our own Halloween party, I was back at the Woof Gang Bakery for their Howl-O-Ween party & dog costume contest.  Don't worry, I wasn't painting pets this time, just the people who brought them.  Yet again, I love this place and the people who comprise their customers.  What a great group!  Even though I never, even take gigs on the day of my own party, I couldn't say no to this one and am glad I went.  It was so much fun!

I loved these sisters who thought they'd challenge me with a pig, dinosaur, and cow.

 

I promise this boy was happy with his dog.  I think the flash got him.

 

This young lady asked for a "groovy skeleton," which turned out to be the Halloween costume she'd be sporting on Thursday.  Not having a visual made me nervous, but her sister was kind enough to let me know it had pink & purple, so this is what I came up with.  She loved it!  She loved it to the point of sitting back in her chair from excitement.  Score!

 

I did this rose on an employee, who loved it.  Glitter tats weren't a huge thing at this event, probably because everyone had Halloween on the brain.

 

 

My witch was really happy too, and I'd love to see what her mom did for her on Thursday, since her Halloween costume was witch too.

 

And as usual, the zombies were a hit.  You know I love it when they get into character.

And this past Saturday, we went to a party at friends' too.  I'd already done myself as a vampire on the 26th, so for the 1st, I was a zombie.

I scared everyone!  Woohoo!

Communion Season

Did you notice that May seems to be communion season?  I painted and did tattoos at a lot of communions this year, it was pretty fun!  Kids that age are great.  At one particular one held at the Indian Trails Club in Franklin Lakes, I was hired for solely temporary tattoos.  I did a ton!

This one young girl who was so shy she refused to talk to me came back for SIX tattoos.  We were able to communicate without her saying a word.  Thankfully, it wasn't a rushed event, and we had the time.  My favorite of the designs she got was this coexist.  How cool is that?

She wanted neon rainbow, which I think turned out great.

Some of the boys decided to challenge me, and I got to pull out my inks and brushes too.  I was out of NY Yankee stencils, but was able to do 'em anyway. 

I'm only annoyed I didn't get photos of the New Orleans Saints freehand tats I did.

Independence Interlude

I still have more looking back to do with you, but in the meantime, I'll post photos from my paintings at a country club party - Indian Trails club in Franklin Lakes, NJ.

 

These two were funny.  I had a run on camo faces, and then a trendsetter who wanted "rainbow camo."  If he hides in a Crayola factory, no one will see him for sure!

The one fun adult who showed her family how to really party!

And this was just too hilarious.  This young man got a Viking balloon hat & cutlass, then asked for a beard!

He loved it!

So Busy that the Sky is Falling!

I painted with a friend on Friday evening at a country club's father/daughter dance.  It was princess themed, and really fun.  The girls were in amazing dresses, some with their hair professionally done, and the club provided princess tiaras and us to do princess faces.

With just 2 painters, 3 hours, and 120 girls, there was no time for photo-taking, unfortunately.

But since I have to give you some sort of photos, I'll tell you about my play!

I'm appearing in December in the children's show Poultry in Motion, at the Studio Playhouse in Montclair.

It's a take on the classic Chicken Little, and I get to be Henny Penny!  The director has potentially chosen to do traditional stage makeup for the characters, except for Foxy Loxy, who I may get to paint.  So I worked up a sample face, based on a fox photo I found online.

Because she was the only one getting painted, the director asked me to tone it down.  So I tried this.

We'll see if he goes for it.  I hope he does!

Almost July 4, and the Parties Have Started!

Yesterday, some friends and I did glitter tattoos at a country club's July 4 weekend party.  We've been there several times before for this event, and it's always a good one.  We were moving pretty quickly, but I took some time for a few photos.