I haven’t talked much here about The LifeCraft because we still have not got our premises sorted out but we have been ploughing ahead full steam this month, with our staff Jenny and Lisa-Marie starting with us at the beginning of April. There’s so much that I want to – and will – share with you as soon as our website is ready to launch but I’m holding my cards close to my chest for now

Yesterday, the three of us trotted along to Busy Bees craft studio for Face Painting training in preparation for the shop opening. So. Much. FUN!

These were our models for the day:

I have to admit I hadn’t expected that – I thought we’d have been practicing on each other but this was so much easier since mistakes were easier to tidy up and objectively critique. The rapport with our trainer Elaine was absolutely brilliant and since the class was a nice small size (just 6 of us) there was a decent amount of chat too.

Here’s a snap of Jenny and Lisa-Marie practicing on their freaky models:

After we’d gone through the different brush techniques it was time to practice sponging (which has been my particular bugbear) and our arms were pressed into service. Using Grimas water-based face paints we were encouraged to sponge a base onto our arms and blend it with other shades and once we were a little more confident in that, it was time to practice on a real-life human! Here’s an action shot of Jenny painting Diane’s face and you can see her sponge blending on her arm too.

Diane’s finished facepaint

Lisa-Marie got to practice on Elaine and decided to go for a butterfly:

It was so much fun, seriously. If someone had told me a year ago that I’d be studying facepainting for work I’d never, ever have believed it and this is the start of so many exciting experiences. I can’t wait

Busy Bees can provide experienced face painters or face painting training based in the South Side of Glasgow. For more information call them on 0141 433 9506 or send an email

Posted under general crafty updates

Every Wednesday I take the kids to a nursery rhymes class in a Glasgow library with my sister Stephanie and niece Bailey. We’ve been going since before Greer was born and we’ve made quite a group of friends now, including Jean and her wee daughter Molly. Molly’s first birthday party was on Saturday and I did some face painting there only to have one of Jean’s Aunties ask me to do her face. “No problem!” said I, and this was the last face I painted of the day.

Now, before I show the picture I need to be honest. I estimated that this lovely lady was in her mid-fifties. She’s actually 71 (and says she doesn’t mind me mentioning that on my website)! I honestly hope when I’m 71 that I have the cojones to do stuff like this. Awesome.

Overall I was pretty happy with how it went, being that I haven’t painted for other people for a looooong time. I didn’t have time to get new brushes, hence the very thick black lines but on the whole it went not bad!

Posted under for the kids, with the kids