Sanguinity: Henna

Last weekend was my first festival of the year! I have been doing henna body art at festivals for about 6 years now. It is very profitable and was a nice break from my day job. I missed Shea, who was at the AOS MiniCon, but I didn't really have a whole lot of time to think about that.

I started doing henna when I was 14 after getting some at a girl scouting event. My dad bought me a kit, and I played around with it and decided I really liked it. I bought more and did henna for my family at a reunion. Then my parents sugguested I set up a booth at a small local festival. I ended up making a ton of money, so I got a DBA and a tax ID at the age of 15, and have been doing henna ever since at several festivals a summer.

My first booth was outfitted with a small paper sign and some designs glued to a wooden board. I had camp chairs and a table. I have redecorated considerably since that first summer:

The chairs are actually storage crates with wooden reinforcements and cushions attached (made by my grandmother).

Here is my booth at the Batavia Picnic in the Park from last weekend:

I have a new tent this year. My other one was five years old and pretty mangled.

This festival listed their hours as noon to five. I was working straight from 11:30-5:30! I wish I'd had time to take more pictures, because I'm really proud of the work I did. Here is a small sample mostly taken to show the customers what their henna looked like if it was in a hard-to-see place, with a few practice designs I did on myself.