Hi There! From Colorado

Laurie Shoultz wrote:Tia,

I just looked at your face book. Wow. Beautiful cakes. You must be very energetic, and creative. So many designs already. I can see you are having fun.

Laurie

Thanks! I have been doing cakes for a few years and love it. I am excited about face painiting because it is a much quicker finished product! I have heard of disguises, I live further North, but need to check it out! I would love to connect with other colorado face painters!

Welcome to the forum!!! and Welcome to the Colorado fprs. I am in co, but I am outside of Pueblo. Good Job on your first tigers, its all about practice!

As far as making money, personally I have only been fp as a biz for about a year, and haven't made back what I have invested yet, but that is pretty normal for a new business. I have done research and they say that its really rare to make a profit in the first 3 years of business, for small businesses. So be prepared if you do get into it! Not to say there aren't any that are very profitable the first year, I am just saying be ready for it to take a while. I do wish you a very profitable business if you do get into it!

Take care!!

Thanks Skidzz! My brother in law lives in Pueblo! I am getting some feedback from the very little marketing I have done, so I am excited and ready to be patient! Thanks for the warm welcome!

Do you ever come down to pueblo??? maybe we can jam!!! Pueblo is really hard to get going, everyone wants it to be like $20 for the entire time...lol... yeah right....

Anyway, I would really love to meet you!!! Good Luck!!

We do go visit- I will def keep that in mind next time we are headed that way! It would be great to meet you too!

welcome! I'm actually in CO at the moment visiting friends, I'll be here till the beginning of october if any of you want to meet up to jam some time, I'm in Aurora..

I am new too, still paying off the initial investment, but seem to be on my way! The more you work, the more work comes to you.

I donated a few parties to churches, schools, charity, etc for silent auctions...that has gotten me several more paying gigs, just one way to get your foot in the door. I have a sticker that I print up using large mailing lables and microsoft publisher. It says "I was painted by A Face Painting Mom" and has all my information on it, I put it on the kids at the party, and ask the parent to put my card in the goody bag (it has removal instructions on the back...good reason to hand out cards!)

I am starting to have some emails pay off too. I emailed places like our symphony orchestra and the local ballet company to let the know that I was around, and would love to paint at children's events. The Symphony wants me to do tattoos later in the year. Promoting yourself is time consuming, but pays off eventually.

If you find a creative way to promote yourself...pass it on!

I love the name of your business too!

ParTIA wrote:I do have a couple of questions for you all:

Can you actually make money being a face painter? I also make cakes, and feel like I usually end up spending money to make someone else cake! I want to do this, but I also want to know if it is actually feasible to make money?

Do you still love it, when you do it all the time? Do you still have a passion for what you do?

I wouldn't say I make a living at face painting, but it has been what's kept our household from going under while my husband was a full time college student & retired Navy. He's now graduated w/ an education degree & waiting for the hiring freeze to end so he'll hopefully, prayerfully be hired to teach.

I love to be creative & love working w/ kids, so I love my job. It does take it's toll as I don't get to spend much time w/ my family on weekends, but I homeschool my kids, so I get to hang out with them all week & 2 of my kids often work with me.

So, I am one month in and have had two true paid gigs plus, one next friday and I am at that farmers market most saturdays (that hasn't been wildly successful- but getting my name out there). This really happening!!! I have just done some cold calling to rec centers, but my biggest response have been from email's I sent out. I went to the chamber website and emailed everyone on there. Next I hope to get some birthday parties! I handed out at least 100+ fliers at Saturday's events that said $10 off your next booking.

I do work full time outside of the home, so I have really "put my foot down" that I won't work for free- as that is time away from my girls! I've had a couple people tell me, well I can't pay you and my response is, well, I can't work for free! Tips here are not very good at all, so I don't think that I will ever just agree to that! I really learned alot from this board in that respect, and helped me to have confiedence to not under value myself!

So, I just need to keep the momentum going! It's been fun and a LOT of work so far