Wow...you don't know until you've done one...my first fair

This is craziness! The fair was exhausting, crazy, discouraging, exhilarating...everything.

I'll give you the short version. The first day was miserable. We sold our services all wrong. I used my "inspiration" folder (that I brought for my own personal use) because people couldn't use their imagination. We started at noon and went to 10:00 pm and only got about $280.00. I felt like a slave. That night I told my husband, "I'm not doing another of those great spiderman designs for $3.00 again....I won't go back!" (My version of the little spiderman mask.) I told him that we can't say "we can adapt any design to your budget" because suddenly everyone's budget was $3.00 dollars! Next day...

I printed out a second book with my designs so everyone could see my style and my designs. We included pictures of designs that had sold the day before but made sure that "portfolio" type designs were out. We got there at 10:00 am and it was pretty slow until lunch...so I'd say it was about the same number of hours as the day before and we made $550.00 dollars! Almost double the revenue (and a lunch break!)

Husband really stepped up to the line manager plate...I don't think we had a $3.00 design until about noon and because we started selling the better designs all of a sudden we got crushed with customers. He was doing a fabulous job of starting at the $8.00 dollar and going down so now the majority were the mid-ranged designs and a lot of $8.00 compared to the day before. He was warning people about the wait and we had to turn a few away but the two of us (my daughter and I) were working as quickly as possible.

The first day, my daughter was too afraid to do anything but assist me by handing me prepped paints and a few sponge ins. She does beautiful blossom masks and so she did a few of those but was afraid of tigers or spider man designs. There were too many other glitter tattoo places so we only did a few of those. She could see that she needed to paint and so the second day (I'm tearing up a bit) she really stepped up and had a hand in almost every design you'll see and did about 30% of her own start to finish designs.

I'm a little worried now (ironically) because we had nearly half the adults saying they'd were thinking about a party and one lady from another city told Jeff that they wanted our booth at her city fair. Jeff said "the good news is you wanted to be a face painter...the bad news is...now you are!" What am I doing? What is this madness! I mean it was thrilling to have that many canvases but is it always this crazy!!!!

Anyway...here is my slideshow from Flickr with a few of the designs. My camera was missing the card the first (horrible) day and the battery died the second until I finally got it charged. I was actually surprised when I looked at how many I took. Some of them are really skewampus...but were getting better as the day went on.

The saying is "if your line is too long, you ain't charging enough" so next year...or next fair...I think my sign will be changing.

Oh no! Now I'm even more scared lol my first fairs are coming up soon.

I'm glad that the second day went so much better. Love that peacock and humming bird btw! And that is so great that your daughter found her confidence and stepped up to help out her mum. My daughter wants to but I keep explaining, "honey you just turned 7" lol

looks like you did a great job!... as far as the madness next time youll know what needs to be different and it will go smoother...congrats on a sucessful weekend

Miz....she'll be doing glitter tattoos in no time! I love that my daughter is willing to be my model and helper. One of the reasons I thought about this is she had a hard time, as great as she is, getting a summer job last year. She was very happy with her cut.

D.

I would think it would be way better than any other summer job out there

hummingbird, shark, fairy and dolphins = my favourites!

But I love the swirl designs (especially with the black and white flowers and butterfly incorporated!) too

COngratulations! It sounds (and looks) like you did a great job!

What paints do you use? The colours look really creamy and rich.

Way to go!!! (now on to the next one?! )

Congrats on your first fair! Loved your designs; fairy, shark, eye swirlies....all worth the higher price!!

What a story, you have experienced a lot (is that english? Hmm, hope you get the meaning).
Great pictures and glad your daughter started to paint with you.

Love the slideshow! It's so good to see your value really appreciated! Great job!

I used TAG paints that I got from the shop here....LOVED them. The only one that had any show-through was yellow but it was a really nice warm yellow and was great for blending the tigers. Metina said she's getting a new shipment in soon. They do dry quickly though so I had a problem with glitter sometimes...I had to stroke then glitter or mist the smoothie I applied it with sometimes. But that was good because the cakes didn't get mushy.

I couldn't have done it without the one stroke cakes...they really saved my bacon. (Buy those first IMHO) I got really shaky towards the end of the day and my line work slowed down so the one strokes save the day. When I used the one stroke designs it looked better made the clients happier and so much quicker.

I'll have to put a little slide show together with just one strokes quick designs. The eye design with the gold and jewel is a Pashur inspiration. The tribal dragon is my own design and QUICK and lovely with the one stroke. The hummingbird is one that I designed for Clayton's eye design contest. I was really grateful for the Spiderman design from here...I adapted (I think it was a Daizy design) it to my style, it was really popular.

I guess now that we've sort of paid for the goodies I'll have to do another one to actually make money. I'm hoping that some of those party promises come through.

D.

I've bought some one strokes by tag from here and have enjoyed them - am still learning how to use them as they are a new concept to me. I also got a white and black but the other colour larger tag paints I'm gonna have to wait on buying until I use up some of my snazaroo - can't wait!

That tribal dragon is really effective! (the tribal thing is something else I need to work on )

I hope the other parties will come through - I'm sure they will, after seeing your work it'll stay in their minds when birthdays come around!

great job,,the 1st big festival is always over whelming and exhausting...but you will figure out whats needed to be done//sounds like your husband and daughter stepped up to the plate...I could not do the bigs one's without my husband..great line mgr and promoter....he loves working the line and the crowd...great job

Congrats on surviving your first festival! Now you know how it works and the next one will be much easier for you, at least in terms of things running smoothly. (They are still exhausting and a lot of work, lol.) Your work looks great, and I loved the shark especially. Photos really sell it so I'm glad you went with design choices. It's hard for people to imagine what we can do when they've never seen it before. Great job!

My husband was so cute. He's been an entreprenuer for his whole life, selling seeds, newspapers, avacados...whatever he could. I think he was actually surprised when he started having to beat customers off with a stick (figuratively, of course.) He's a true salesman and so when I told him to trust me and we could get more for our designs he went with it and we had a great day AND he speaks spanish...BONUS!

Now he's even talking about learning to do some sponging and designs so he can keep the line moving! LOL!

D.

I loved the design with the 2 girls in it - what ar they? We're having a competition at home. Gave me a great idea for a deer or reindeer.

The are actually my $3.00 version of a beautiful bird mask I found at Snazaroo (might have been someone here.) I wanted to make several layers on the mask and more peacock like...but then I heard the dad say he was spending $3.00 on everyone...so I had to improvise but the girls loved it. There was one more little sister that got it. I let them choose which split cake they wanted and put on lots of glitter.

Are you going to make a reindeer head with antlers?

D.

Congrats!
It gets smoother but not less exhausting or less crazy. That's part of the fun of it for me.
My hub learned to do glitter tats to keep the line moving. Since then we've hired a glitter girl because he can keep both of us busy! lol He even takes some of the glitter tat parties on his own.

Nice job and I wish you smooth sailing at your next one!