Month: December 2015

Paintertainment has had an amazing year in 2015!!

Paintertainment 2015…a busy year!

In February I released my 5th book, “Realism for Face & Body Artists!” It was a full year in the making, and has been very popular worldwide.  This year I am working on new options to make it more available in Europe, as everyone is selling out, so stay tuned!

In March our local newspaper, the Laker, did a wonderful story on my business and the release of my new book.

In April I was quoted in Woman’s World magazine, though didn’t fully agree with how the article was handled!

May brought the release of my 6th book, “Painting Boys,” a book that focus on a subject that I thought the current market was really lacking.

The end of May and beginning of June brought my first season doing henna at several senior overnight lock-in parties!  Thanks to A Touch of Magic for giving me those opportunities this year to really get more henna experience under my belt…I had SO much fun!

In June I also released my new photo prop boards which have been really popular!

Fun with friends & colleagues in 2015!

August is always a busy month, and this year was no exception as I enjoyed my 3rd year at the Carver County Fair, which turned out to be the best year in my 17 years of county fairs! 

My role as an agent also grew a lot in August as I had my first really large event that I was not able to attend myself due to the fair.  Thanks to my reliable and talented artists, and my wonderful husband who was willing to stand in for me and connect with my client, it turned out great!  I sent out more of my artist friends to events in 2015 than I ever have before, most of them being events I was not personally at, which is a big step for me into the world of acting as an agent.

In September I was invited to speak to my local Rotary Club, topping off my presentation with a balloon dog 101 class!

Just a couple weeks later, I had the opportunity to give two presentations at the first ever Minnesota Professional Family Artists and Entertainer’s Business Conference in St. Paul. The experience I had speaking, and the information & inspiration I took away from other presenters were invaluable!

2015 Balloon Art!

In October we released another new Paintertainment exclusive product: PainterTemplates! Finally, some wipe-off face templates that don’t look like creepy, stoic mannequin faces!

I also had the fun assignment to paint an entire family for Halloween, which was great! I don’t typically take many Halloween sessions as I’d like to spend it with my boys while they’re still young, but this year it worked out great on a weekend during nap time!

In November I had the opportunity to work with Charlie & Violet Photography to help launch their new prenatal henna photo packages, and see some of my work photographed beautifully by a professional

I also created a new assortment of new Christmas word menu designs for our custom word menu design service, just in time for everyone’s Christmas gigs!

November also brought a new transformation of my company, from a sole proprietorship to an LLC. 

My December was full as always, and usually ranks right up there with August among my busiest months.  I had an array of events, including public and private parties, malls and corporate events. I also had more opportunities to do Christmas balloons this year, not just face painting!

2015 contest entries, paintings, and henna!

In 2015 I also published many new and useful blog articles, which can also be found amongst my ever growing “learn” page:

• “Do This, Not That: How to Achieve Speed & Detail in Cheek Art Designs”
• “Henna is Never Black!“
• “Face Painting & Hygiene: The Nitty Gritty of Keeping it Clean!” 
• “Face Painting Contracts: What do I Write?“
• “My Gutted Guitar Case“
• “White Paint Comparison“
• “Tip Jar Security“
• “Never Settle for Being the Best: My Journey from Cheek Art to Full Faces“
• “Crowd Control Tips“
• “When Can I Call Myself A Professional Face Painter?“
• “Face Painters’ Glossary of Terms“
• “I’m an Introvert: What’s Your Superpower?“

In addition to blogging, this year I’ve published 11 free e-newsletters! Yes, I know, there are 12 months, but August gets SO busy, it often gets left out! 😉

I’ve also hosted countless paint and balloon jams, and hope to continue doing this regularly in 2016. 

I refreshed my branding, which of course meant refreshing all of my other collateral!

Every year I invest as much back into my business as possible.  A few of the new things I invested in this year included my first full year’s subscription to FABATV.  I’ve also invested in an amazing assortment of crowd control gear which came in very handy almost immediately.  I’ve invested in software, hardware, and tools to increase my product quality and efficiency. I’ve also invested in new equipment to streamline my work process at events.

My store continues to grow every year, in customers and product assortments! 2015 brought with it a big increase in henna products, paint brands and colors, gemstones, glitters, balloons, stencils, custom kit tools, and Paintertainment exclusive package deals.  We’ve shipped products, inspiration and 1 on 1 advice all over the globe!

So what’s left to come in the new year?  A LOT! I have many new things coming up in 2016…in May I will be flying to New York, to speak to the New Jersey Face And Body Art Guild, and will be holding an all day workshop the next day!  I am also already working on my 7th book, and those who attend my workshop will be getting a sneak peek at the content.  I have a few other big things in the works for the new year, and am excited to see the early stages of everything already coming into place!

THANK YOU so much to all of my loyal customers, all of my Facebook, blog, Instagram and Pinterest followers, my talented team of face painters, balloon twisters and caricature artists, and my supportive family and friends.  Without you this wouldn’t have been such an awesome year. I can’t wait to see what 2016 brings, and what more I can bring to help better YOUR business in the new year! 

Happy new year!!!

Christmas gigs are my favorite!!  I love having a time of year when I can remove ALL of my regular designs from my board and do nothing but Christmas…something I don’t get to do for the other 11 months of the year!  Not that I don’t love painting a good Spidey or butterfly, but it’s always nice to get a break from the “usual” stuff.

Here are a few photos from my Christmas events this year!

I brought along my Christmas photo prop boards to the tree lighting event we do each year, and they were a hit! It was really fun watching even the dads pick them up and pretend to be an elf for a photo!

I especially love using my star rhinestones at Christmas time, to top the Christmas trees! (below, center of the top row).  Liquid Bling makes really amazing and quick ornaments, too.

One stroke cakes really helped us create some amazing yet super fast poinsettia and holly designs. 

I wasn’t able to get any photos of the balloons I did at one of the events I had with Santa, being that I was SO busy! But, I did manage to get a photo of myself with Santa Carlucci and Cheryl Claus at the end of the evening…

One of my favorite events of the year is one that I do at no charge…twisting balloons for my Grandpa’s memory care home at their Christmas party! Whenever I have a volunteer event, I bring along my little man Sam who is learning to twist! It’s a great opportunity for him to learn at actual events, without the pressure of being hired.  This one in particular is fun though because we get to see a bunch of family as well!  I always get plenty of photos at this event because my Mom is GREAT at that! 😉

This year I also had the honor of painting some of the little actors and dancers in our church‘s Christmas program!  I arrived early this morning and painted Snoopy, Charlie Brown and Linus, who were all really simple faces.  But, they still read pretty well from back in the audience!

 There wasn’t a ton of time and I was asked to “give the dancers a little sparkle,” so I went with a base of pearl white, swirls of paint and liquid bling, and stars with a TAP star stencil. This worked out pretty well I think…they were all quick and cohesive, yet they each got their own color combinations to match their outfits!

All in all it was really an amazing December for Paintertainment! Somehow I managed to squeak in a couple last minute bookings, which is rarely possible on this busy month.  I got to paint with several of my very talented artist friends, I had opportunities to do both balloons and face painting, and try out some new products and techniques, and I already have clients wanting to book dates for next December.  We got a great paint jam on the calendar which was a lot of fun, too!  In the midst of a busy month, I was able to spend plenty of time with my family as well…painting with my mom, twisting with my boys at my Grandpa’s party, and seeing my own boys shine their lights in the Christmas program at church.  Who could ask for anything more?!  Well, okay, I might be tempted to ask for snow for Christmas…this is REALLY weird having open water and green grass in Minnesota this close to Christmas…but I’m not going to push it!!

I wish all of you a wonderful Christmas and blessed new year!

We had a great time at this month’s Face Paint Jam!!  Almost every time I host a jam (I try to do them about once a month or so), we have one or two people who come for the first time.  I LOVE having these regular opportunities to bring new painters into the fold, and introduce long time painters to our close community who didn’t realize we had such a great, supportive group right in our area.  I say it every time we get together…every time we do this, I learn some new, great tidbits of information from someone!  I do NOT know everything there is to know about face and body painting, and nobody does.  But most of us have little things we’ve picked up here and there that we don’t realize most other people don’t know, and when we combine all of that knowledge and experience, we ALL grow in our art!

We don’t have any tight structure to our jams…we bring food, paint, and let it go from there.  Sometimes we all work on a particular theme, sometimes we just pull up our inspiration boards and paint what we’ve been wanting to try.  Sometimes we have kids to paint, sometimes we paint each other.  This month we had another great used/new paint and supply swap/sale…big thanks especially to Tina Carroll and her awesome stash of goodies!

The used/new paint and supply sale/swap was FULL this month!

We had moms painting babies, kids painting each other, practice templates and plastic heads adorned with some great stuff!

 We practiced Pinterest inspired designs, made up stuff on the fly, and put together new paint kits.

 And don’t forget the good food!!  There is never a shortage of sugar in my house around Christmas time. We even got to see my Christmas tree fall over for the second time…ha ha!! Thanks much to Anita Beal for holding it up while I figured out where to start with the mess! (It’s really nice and stable now, by the way! Knock on wood!)

Big thanks to everyone who came out to “play” this month…looking forward to brightening up our upcoming cold, gray, MN winter months with some more colorful jams!!  To keep up to date on our jams, be sure to follow Paintertainment on Facebook, as that is where I post events!

Happy painting!

It’s time for another installment of “Do This, Not That!”

Here are a few small things you can do to give your candycanes and ornaments a real clean, crisp look this season, without compromising your speed!!

Our December e-newsletter will be going out soon, and in this month’s issue I’ll go a little more in depth into Candycanes….how you can do them fast, detailed, and really make them pop!

Click here to download past e-newsletter issues, or to subscribe! Thanks for stopping by, and happy painting!