Face-painting Fiasco

This should have been posted way back in April, but I ran across the pictures and wanted to post the story anyway.  The girl's school had a TCAP Carnival around the end of April.  This took place about a week after the TCAP (Tennessee State Test). It was only for 3rd to 5th grade because they are the ones that took the test.  They were able to earn tickets during the TCAP for good behavior, etc.  Anyway, since I'm on the PTO board, one of the areas I was put in charge of was face-painting (or as some call it, cheekart).

I did my research on the best face-paints and came up with many options for purchasing face-paint and supplies.  I'm not good at having too many choices. :)  I admit I waited too long to finally order the face-paint, but I still had about 10 days for it to arrive and most reviews said it arrived much quicker so I went ahead and purchased "the good stuff" and patiently waited.  Finally, the day arrived and the package still hadn't arrived, but I checked on FedEx.com and the package had left Nashville at 5-6am and was to arrive THAT day.  Well, the carnival was supposed to start about 12:30, and I was guessing that it probably wouldn't arrive by then.  Thus, I got in the car headed out to go buy paint. I wasn't even out of the neighborhood when I saw the FedEx truck at the top of the hill in the neighborhood across from ours.  I immediately thought, "This was meant to be,  FedEx is delivering to our area first today".  So, I turned around and went back home to wait for the package.  Two hours went by, still no package.  It was getting too late, I would have to go buy the paint elsewhere. 

So, once again, I headed out and arrived at the party store.  I knew they would have what I needed in one stop.  Wrong...they had a very limited supply of colors in odd shades and no white or black.  I think it was all leftover from Halloween.  I was so surprised because it is not unusual for parties and carnivals to have face-painting all year round.  In addition, they were very unhelpful. I picked up some in case I couldn't find any elsewhere and decided to check another store...quickly!

I went to Wal-Mart.  Jackpot! I found all the colors I wanted in one package including white and black and they were much cheaper too.  I bought enough for the carnival and planned to take the ones back to the  party store later.

I got to the carnival and got everything set up just in the nick of time.  I wasn't planning to stay because I had Jarem with me, but just as I was about to leave, the carnival started and Jesikah's class came first.  She saw me and wanted me to paint her face really bad.  This was nearing her last month of school in elementary school, so I decided to go ahead and do it, but I wasn't ready and I still had Jarem. I told her to go do the other things because it would take me a few minutes to get a station set-up.  But she was really worried she would miss getting her face painted, so she just wanted to stay by me.  By the time I was finally able to do it, she had wasted most of her time waiting for me.  I felt so bad, but she did end up with a perfect peach on her cheek so she was happy. (The picture below was taken after school, so it wasn't as perfect as it once was). :)

I knew that I couldn't do Jesikah's and NOT do Tessa's. So I called Eric and he just happened to be heading home from work, so he stopped and picked up Jarem for me.  That made things much easier.  Here I am painting cherries on Tessa's face.  They both turned out way cute!  I became the popular face painter...not because I was better, but just because I took twice as long and was more perfectionistic I guess.  I had a good time though, and the girls were thrilled beyond measure that I was the one that got to paint their faces.  In the end, I was glad I stayed.

Of course, when I arrived home around 3:30pm, the package was sitting on the doorstep with the face-paint I ordered which was much better quality than what we used.  I thought about sending it back, but decided to keep it because it was so nice.  We did more face-painting and I painted a new design on each of the kids cheeks (below).  The girls spent the next week or two painting each other's faces, arms, etc.  They are becoming good artists.

And about the party store paint, I went to return it the next day only to be told that Halloween things are all final sales.  That would have been nice to know ahead of time, first that it was Halloween and second that there were no returns.  She said it was written on the receipt (which I wouldn't have read until AFTER I purchased it).

I had spent over $30 in just that store and I was not happy.  I decided to call and speak to the manager which is unusual for me, but I had already sunk a lot of money into the paint as a donation to the school and I didn't think I had been treated fairly.  Weirdly, it was the same lady who made the sale, that wouldn't take the return, answered the phone twice when I called for the manager and finally made the return when the manager said he didn't have a problem with it.  That was a bit awkward, but it was worth it to finally get it returned.