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!

Puppies & Painting

If you're from the area, you may have seen Woof Gang Bakery & Grooming in Allendale, NJ.  In September, they celebrated their one year anniversary at that location, and I celebrated with them!  It's a great place with really nice owners Ed & Linda, pleasant and welcoming staff, homemade dog treats (which Meg adores), non-homemade cat treats, pet toys, and grooming.  And if the photos on their Facebook page are any indication, they're really good groomers too.

For the occasion, I adorned myself with one of my freehand glitter tattoos.

It was so well liked, I did one on one of the customers too!

Mostly, though, I was face painting the bakery's patrons.

It really was just such an easygoing, relaxing event, and the bakery's patrons are phenomenal.  Honestly?  I love it there!  And I got Meg 3 bags of treats, which I'll be returning to replenish once she's eaten 'em up.

Whole Lotta Paintin' Goin' On

I only had two gigs this weekend, but I think I may have painted enough faces in 4 and a half hours to rival the Tribeca Film Festival painting days!

On Saturday afternoon, I made my second annual appearance at the Glen Rock Newcomer's Association's kickoff party.  I was there for two hours, flying like the wind, but man, did I have fun.  I worked from a limited list of my fastest faces to keep things moving quickly and was assigned a couple of teens as line managers who did a phenomenal job making sure the kiddos had their choices made before hitting my chair.

I obviously didn't have time for photos, but did ask one of the girls to take two photos of faces I especially liked.  This was a slightly different take on my typical dragon and I thought it was cute.

Even more fun was my new "Zombie bite" face, inspired by Pashur, a master body artist out of Las Vegas.  It may just be my new favorite face.

How creepy is she?!  Those eyes!  Gotta say, I wouldn't want to meet up with that face in the middle of the forest.  Or city, for that matter.

That face was such a hit on Saturday, that I brought it out again on Sunday, when I painted for the very first time for the Heat & Sole Walk to benefit heart failure and transplant patients.  What an amazing group!

The funniest thing to me, and I regret not getting a photo of him, was an older boy who saw my zombie bite and just had to have one.  While I was painting him, he told me, "You painted my sister at a party at Bounce U a few weeks ago!" and showed me a photo on his phone of a pink kitty that was easily recognizable as one of mine.  Turns out this young man was at that birthday party, which was for a five-year-old girl and her friends, and was too old for face painting.... until he saw the cooler options he had this time around!  Ha!  I call that vindication, my friends.

This face also inspired an adult woman to have me "do something creepy" on her arm, and was happy with what I came up with.

To be honest, so was I.  Fun, right?  In case you can't tell, Halloween is my favorite holiday.

I had a lot of my regular fare too, including one boy who was really excited when I told him, in listing several options and ideas, "When I say I can do a bear, I mean panda, polar, or brown bear," and exclaimed happily, "Brown bear!"  So a brown bear he was.

Now I just hope they have me back next year!

Just for Fun

Over the holiday weekend, I had too many fun plans of my own to take any paid events.

On Saturday, Eric and I went up to our friend's 40th birthday in Connecticut, which she was celebrating as a 4th birthday.  Well, what does a face painter do when her 40-year-old friend holds her own 4th birthday?  Brings the face paints, obviously.

The theme of the party was rainbows & unicorns, so...

Only one other paintee at this party, and not to theme, but pretty clear if I do say so myself.

Then on Sunday when it was raining, we headed with some friends to Monster Golf.  If you haven't got one near you, it's indoor mini golf in blacklight.  So of course, I had to break out the UV glitters for some glitter tattoos!

Did those on our friends' daughter and son, and freehanded this one on myself.

I do so love blacklight!