Face Painting Supplies

I am not a professional face painter. I have been painting on my children for a while now and even paint on other people's children periodically. I have an upcoming birthday party I am "working." I am really looking forward to this job.

I did a post in the past about just jumping in and painting you children's faces without any fear. In that post, I talked about the paints I picked up at WalMart that got me started. I have moved on a little more into the world of face painting but still do not consider myself a professional. I did want to share with you some of the things I have learned about face paints so that those of you who are on their journeys like myself can share in what I have learned.

The cheap kits sold at Halloween are fun because, if you get them on clearance, they are very inexpensive. I do not like the grease paints. They are sticky, get soft the longer you hold them and are a real pain to get off. Use a little cold cream to help remove the color stain. Halloween kits can also come with the dry paint that requires a little water to activate. Water based colors go on easy. These cheap paints can also stain some: cold cream.

As I have progressed to painting more faces and wanting to do more styles, I found myself expanding my paint supplies. The next face paint brand I purchased was Snazaroo. Snazaroo paints are easy to work with, they come off with a baby wipe and the color pallet was nice. The kit I purchased really let me try out the paints without committing to large quantities.When I received my kit in the mail, one of the colors was broken. Then while putting it away and taking it out, another color popped out of it's place and eventually broke was well.

I began to research buying professional paints. Boy, is that overwhelming. Because I had a prime membership, I stayed with Amazon to buy my paints. I picked up a Fazmataz rainbow split-cake similar to this. (Primary colors not neon.) I found that the color was not very bold on this brand. I used this at the field day for my son and found the colors faded bad. I now use this as my background to some designs.

I read that many professionals use Wolfe brand paints so I purchased a large (45g) orange, brown and red. I LOVE them. Wolfe is bright, easy to paint with and requires only a little to get good coverage. I bought Tag in black and white because they where a little less expensive. Tag is great as well. I know that eventually I will purchase all my primary colors as well as pink and purple in Wolfe or Diamond FX (which gets great reviews), but this will require a major investment.

I hope I didn't babble to much. This post has not been sponsored by any brand or is this post anybody's opinion except my own.

I would love to hear what your favorite paints are or maybe what your favorite split-cake is. I am still learning. I will be the first to always say I am not a professional, but always a student.

I used my rainbow split-cake and my new Wolfe orange.

 

The split-cake makes a quick background.

Go Fish...Mommy The Toy Doctor

My kids love fishing poles. We have never been fishing, but they love to just cast their poles in the backyard.

I had my little guy (2 1/2 years old) with me at Tuesday Morning a couple weeks ago and we came across a fishing pole just for him. The pole came with these disks that have a screw on the top edge. The end of the fishing pole has a magnet on it that is not very strong. Why they don't test these toys before they put them for on the store shelves, I have no idea!

Of course as soon as we get home and the package is ripped off we find that the toy does not work. The magnet does not pick up the disk because it is to weak to lift a big disk with a tiny screw as the metal contact point.

Mommy to the rescue. I took out my glue gun and raided the tool box. I found some small washers I could glue on the disks (fish). I then glued a strong magnet to the pole's "hook" end. Wouldn't you know it, the whole thing worked. I then cut out some fish out of foam I got at the dollar store. I glued a little washer on the back of these as well.

I love being able to take something that we would just throw away and making it work.

Thanks for stopping by,

Birthday Parties and Pintrest

I love birthday parties. I am the kind of person who will stay up all night to decorate. I start planning the birthday theme months in advance so I can keep an eye out for things to pick up when they are on sale. I make as much of the decorations as I can. For the goodie bags, I try to include as much as I can but spend as little as possible.

I have friends who do not like parties as much as me.  Being the great friend I am, I have told them "look on Pintrest." Yeah, that's not really helpful when you are not a crafty person and don't like parties.

Here are some simple things that you can do to make your party great, without having to be crafty.

1. Use streamers. Streamers are inexpensive and make for a quick party place dress up. If you don't want to hang streamers from the ceiling, just drape them on the wall, or put them up the wall.

I like to bring the streamers down the wall a little.

I removed a picture to cover the wall in streamers.

Streamer flowers

2. Make a birthday sign. You do not have to buy the "Happy Birthday" sign in the store. Use colored paper or book pages to make a unique sign.

The name banner is pages from a winnie the pooh book.

I took pages from a winnie the pooh book that had pictures on them and made a banner for the food table.

3. Cover the tables and surfaces with table clothes. Use solid colors, use the ones from the dollar store, use them on lots of surfaces. If you buy one from the store that has characters, use it on the table that will be the center of attention. Use accent colors for the area where the presents will go or if you have a table on the side with the goody bags. If your character table cloth is not big enough for the table you have, place solid color ones under it and then use it in the center of the table. Don't be afraid to layer them.

The table cloth made this table with the goody bags a part of the decor.

4. Balloons. Balloons. Balloons. We all know that nothing says party like balloons. I use them on the mailbox by the curb to make the party guest feel festive as soon as they pull up. The balloons don't have to be helium filled. I like to blow them up and tape them to the walls. (See picture above.)

5. Have fun. If you do nothing more than the above, the party will look great. The most important thing is that you set the tone for the kids. If the kids think you are unhappy with the party, they will be as well. Remember parties are a celebration. Don't stress if everything is not perfect or PINTREST worthy.

Which brings me back to Pintrest. I think as moms we tend to compare ourselves to other moms. We look at what they do and feel like we are inadequate. Don't fall into that trap. Use Pintrest to gather ideas not to get down on yourself. Use Pintrest as a tool to help you, not as a tool to make you spend more money.

I hope I have helped a little to make that next party less stressful.

Thanks for stopping by,

Bows From Tights

I spent the morning going through my daughter's closet and her dresser. We tried on all the shorts, skirts and jeans she had. Then we went through her shirts, dresses, sweaters and jackets.

I do not really need to go school clothes shopping this year. She has received some new shirts over the summer and had some new ones in her closet. She also had some shorts that I picked up on sale a while back.

While going through everything, I came across some tights that no longer fit. While I could just as easily put them in the donation pile, they looked fit to be made bows!
These bows can easily be made without sewing, but I like the added strength that sewing adds to the bows. (I have been knows to make bows right before school. In those cases I have used a small elastic to gather the ribbon and then just hot glue.)

Here is how it went:

The tights I found.

I love the color of the spots.

Cut off the top of the tights.

Cut the side seam of the "panty" part.

Cut along the waistband and the center seam.

Overlap the toe of the leg with the cut end.

Pinch and stitch.

Take the part cut from the panty and fold it over itself.

Use the panty to cover the center of the bow.

Now, I just hot glued the hair clip onto the bow at this point. I didn't get a picture of this yet, but promise to update it.

Hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by.

Yadi