Becoming an Entrepreneur

I have always wanted to have my own business. Just cuz. But I have never known what to do.

My friend Jandy has been trying to get me to start a Children's Entertainment business for oh, about 8 years now. She had been very successful at it for a really long time. But I have never been the artistic type so I thought I couldn't do it. I even got pretty close a couple of times. So when she started (along with face painting), doing these really cool (temporary) Glitter Tattoos, I thought, hey I could use a stencil right? No artistic ability needed!

So I took a trip to see her and "train" for my new endeavour. I was such a fun girls weekend!

Jandy taught me everything she knows for which I will be forever grateful (I mean how cool it is to have someone who has already paved the way right?) and somewhere in the crazyness, she also convinced me to do the face painting! I am sure that someday I will be able to do crazy cool faces like this:



Yeah right, anyway, for now the extent of my talent is about to here:

I was able to go with her to several gigs, including this festival where I actually got to do glitter tattoos all day on the kids! It was so awesome to see her in action.

The kids sure missed me while I was gone...

And Shayden even learned how to ride a two wheeler that weekend...

I took like a bazillion notes while I was with Jandy and squeezed out as much information from her while I could. And then I geared up to come home and put it all to good use.

And I did. I have sure made a bunch of hideous faces, but good thing my kids are good sports (or victims) right? Shayden was so excited and tells me all the time that he is so glad that I am an "artist". Actually it was a good chance for me to explain to him that I wasn't very good now, but that I knew that if I practiced a lot and worked hard, that I would get better. Gotta fit those life lessons in anywhere you can.

It's kind of funny because I have had no business ideas for like 10 years and then suddenly I have a bunch! Everyone says no matter what only start with one thing first, but nope, I didn't listen and started doing 3 things at once! After I got home, I totally revamped My Kids' Eye View, started My Kids' Entertainment, plus created an Etsy store for the glimmer kits that I decided to sell. Crazy, I know. It took me on a whirlwind this fall, that resulted in my blog getting months and months behind, among other things; but it has been really rewarding too.

I started promoting my business and did a couple of lame festivals that luckily where not a huge money investment. But they did teach me quite a bit, so it was good that I did them. Then I kind of hit the jackpot in a small way because I was able to get into the Twilight event for New Moon put on by the Twilight moms and Events by Alice. It was this huge 2 day event for all of the die hard fans out there, and there are many!

The event was already closed for sellers and I didn't even have someone who could make me the stencils that I needed, but somehow it all worked out. One day Jonas' and I were talking and decided to look online and found a video clip of a girl on Studio 5, advertising for the event. Well I said to Jonas' "I know her! Here kids go to the same school as ours!" It popped up with her name on the screen, we "yahooed" it, and called the first number that came up. This was pretty gutsy of me, I mean, I normally wouldn't just call some random person, but it was her number and she answered! Even better, she told me that there actually were a few spaces and that I should email the girl again (I already emailed her weeks before with no answer) and tell her I had talked to her. Even better than that, she told me that there might even be someone who I could share the booth with in order to lower the cost (the cost was A LOT even split in half!).

I emailed the girl again, and voila! Funny how she emailed me right back this time. She told me that YES there was someone who would share with me! It was a tough decision, because it was a big investment, but it definately was worth it in the end! So I started running around and luckily I was able to find someone who would do these great Twilight themed stencils for me. Keep in mind, there was no where online that you could find these stencils, I mean I was literally treading new water here. The Twilight stencils turned out so cute, here are a couple of examples:

The fans went crazy for them! My way awesome friend Chandelle came and helped me for several hours and we were running, literally on the first night. Not only that, but they spotlighted my company on 3 local tv networks! Which although have not helped a great deal with business, still was a HUGE opportunity for such a new company.

The cool thing is that these Glimmer Tattoos, although they are popular back east, haven't been here in Utah at all. So when people see them, they are usually pretty pleasantly surprised. It is so fun to play around with different designs, and you can guess that my kids (oh and the neighborhood kids) all love it too.

Then I started selling these little glimmer kits that have all of the stuff in them to do-it-yourself.

I sold one to my co-workers sister and she gave my card to a beauty school in the area who called me to come in and do a class. For them I had a custom "shears" stencil made. It was awesome and they LOVED it too! Which means I will be calling all of the other schools in the area...and beauty salons, and tanning salons...ah! I have so much to do!

It's funny how my "children's entertainment" business has really only made money with adults. I guess adults are just big kids :)

So I've got lot's of fun things planned for the future, and it is super exciting. I'll be doing some really big festivals this summer and of course the Eclipse Event in June! Can't wait for that! I'm hoping to start doing some children's birthday parties in the new year too. Thanks to all of my friends who have been sooooo supportive of me! This is definately a learning curve, but I am loving it. And if you know anyone who might be interested, please send them my way~