Current mood:

grateful

Bat Mitzvah
Mazel tov!

Wheeeee - last night was insane. It was like.. a wedding with teenagers. o.O The party was held at a country club and catered and even had valet service. When I walked in, I had to ask an employee if there were multiple events going on and she assured me that I was at the right place. Wow. Everyone was decked out in their nicest - it was like a cotillion or a prom. Party favors, kids' bar, adults' bar, dance floor, DJ, catered food, balloons, decorations, photographers... I really never knew it was such a huge event.

I started out doing gilding paste, but I don't know if it was just too humid or if I don't have the knack of it yet. I didn't think it'd be all that different from henna, but I had a hard time making designs because it all wanted to glump together. I'll have to practice. Eva gave me the go ahead to do henna and life got much better. I was hired for two hours with a possible third hour and ended up staying four hours - until I ran out of henna. Otherwise, I probably could have done henna for another couple hours. At 11 pm when I headed out, people were still asking for it.

The only difficulty I had was that after dinner was served, they dimmed the lights for dancing and I was working in the dark. Well.. in the dim. But it was hard to see what I was doing. I do wish more adults had gotten henna done, though. I would have loved to have done some really beautiful work or had people come back for gilding accents. Oh, and I was really sad when this cute little redheaded boy came up to get some guilding and said that he couldn't get henna because he was "allergic", then went on to tell me about the awful reaction he had to a design he got in Mexico. Classic PPD. :(

I did meet a wonderful woman named Anita who is of an Indian ethnicity. I showed her my nicer binder so she could pick out something a little more ornate. We chatted, of course and she asked the inevitable "How'd you learn about this?" which always leads to telling about nyx_hemsut because that's easier to explain than the SCA. ;) Anita was disappointed to learn that my sister lives in Utah, but she was thrilled to know someone in the area who did henna and we also talked about doing a logo for her company. I think some people took brochures and Eva indicated that she has a couple more parties to do, so last night could definitely have some good long term effects.

There were the inevitable smears and smudges, but there was this one little adorable girl who wanted to be decorated, but she was 5 so I did gilding paste. She kept coming back for more! I did a design on each hand and then one on her shoulder and she was so careful and neat about it. Little girls are always the sweetest about their designs - following the directions To The Letter.

My binders really need to be redone. I feel like I'm ready to graduate beyond McMehndi. I'd love to offer more traditional looking $5 designs. Henna Tribe is supposedly offering an eBook of traditional festival designs and I'm looking forward to it. Someday I'll have the courage to draw my own designs.

Oh and happy announcement, my store is entirely PayPal now! I wish I could convince CW to sell my henna kits. I never heard another thing from the Ypsi Food Co-op after I gave them 5 kits to sell. I should drop by and collect them so I can at least salvage the non-perishables and then test the henna to see if it still has any life left in it. I think I'll put up a banner ad on HT. I tried to put one up on HP, but there's a new rule that you have to have been in business for two years. :/ I was geeked to be celebrating my first anniversary so now I'll have to wait another year.