Diversifying Your Business: running workshops
This week’s blog will talk you through how to earn money through diversifying your business; in particular, teaching children’s face painting workshops.
Kids love to be painted but they love painting themselves even more. From the 4 year old who instantly becomes Hulk with a muddy-green, watery face to the quiet pre-teen, carefully creating her festival design, face painting is magical to children, especially for those who aren’t encouraged or able to get painty or glittery at home.
If you choose to run a learn to face paint workshop I guarantee places will fill. Here is my guide to making your sessions a success, based on my own experience and my training as a Primary teacher. Choose the best time for your workshop. After school and weekends are too busy for most families and the Christmas holidays are already an expensive time of year. Half terms and Summer holidays are perfect.Keep the sessions short, children finish activities at different speeds and you don’t want kids sitting bored for half an hour. Have extra activities for early finishers.Make a list of rules and email them to the parent or carer so they all know the expectations regarding health and safety, allergies, behaviour etc.
Make sure you have enough resources – kids like to gouge their way through your paints. I use snazaroo rounds cut in half and joined together with another colour to make cheap, effective rainbow cakes. Don’t throw away any of your old face painting brushes, give them a new lease of life – make sure kids have access to a flat and a round and maybe a petal brush too. Sponges, water pots, towels for spillages and that’s your lot. If you want to ramp it up a bit grab some glitter guns, stencils and bio chunky glitter.
If you’re teaching older children, teens and adults, the Training Tried and Tested boards by Sally-Ann Lynch are perfect. Younger children like to take their work home with them so cut up large squares of baking parchment and draw felt tip faces on.
Keep your teaching pacey and simple but have stretching tasks for the more able.
Invest in sturdy stand up bathroom mirrors so they can paint their own faces if they want to.
Consider making up some mini kits that the children can take home.
You can make up little samples of the products used in the workshop so they can practise their new skills. For Halloween my mini kits contain samples of wax, blood, zombie skin and siliglass. Charge for these, they’re not freebies! Wrapping a bow around the box them makes them attractive too. If you use business cards, pop one in each kit.
If the workshops are profitable why not offer ‘family’ facepaint workshops, gore and sfx or teen only sessions? Above all else have fun, enjoy helping others and don’t forget to take lots of photos to use for Marketing, you’ll want to do it all again next holiday…
Is this something you already do? Leave a comment and share your top tips and experiences, I’d love to hear from you.
JONI NETTLESHIP
FACE PAINTING BY JONI
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