The other day I posted a question on “answer bank” and had a good response. It seems that there are loads of people out there with fond memories of the various toys that they owned back in their childhoods. 

My question was what do you think was the best or most entertaining toy you ever owned?” 

The first response I got back was “etch a sketch” I too remember having one of those and got hours of fun out of it. 

Next up was “Hungry Hippos” probably a game that many people have either owned or heard of. It’s quite an addictive game and one that you never seem to grow tired of. 

Someone else said it was a yo yo and another “juggling balls” which kept them amused for hours. 

Football was mentioned often using Mums washing line to make your own makeshift goalposts in the back garden. Also there were boomerangs. 

Another real old favourite was lego which I suppose really took over from mecano. 

For the girls out there it was of course “Sindy”, “My Little Ponies” and the “Barbie Doll”. 

It seems that a lot of the girls were lucky enough to have their own dolls houses. Very often they are kept in the family and passed down to further generations. 

One thing I do notice is that out of all the replies there is only one game which requires more than one to play. 

I wonder what that says about our childhoods or do we just prefer our own company? Maybe we were simply just used to amusing ourselves better, that’s what I think anyway! 

When I look at all the different toys I think what strikes me most is the lack of computer games. It looks like the good old fashioned traditional toys are the ones that seem to stand the test of time and its those that we remember best! 

What do you think?

So now that you have made the decision to learn how to face paint, and possibly start your own business. You want to see your painting bringing joy and delight to young children, maybe at your child’s birthday party. Or maybe you want to be a professional face painter.

Face painting really can be a very fun and fulfilling job, but it can also be a lot of hard work.

But if you’re a beginner, how do you get started? Do you need to get your own face painting designs? This is what I’m going to answer for you in this article.

One of the best ways of learning how to face paint is to take a face painting class. It’s hard to say where to find a face painting class near you. Sometimes you can take face and body painting classes at college. Sometimes you can get free face painting classes at certain events. If you were to search Google for “face painting class + your area” you may be able to find someone who can give you some tuition.

If you are interested in learning advanced, professional techniques, the best way (by far) to do this, is by taking classes with a professional instructor, especially if you want to get better, fast.

If you can’t find face painting classes in your area (they aren’t always many around, so it’s certainly no crime if you can’t fine one) then you may like to learn from face painting instructional books.

If you visit your local book store, or even look online, you will find a wide range of books focused on face and body painting. Make sure you take the time to read a few reviews to find the one which suits what you’re looking for.

Another effective and fun way to start learning how to face paint, is with instructional videos. The main benefit over books, is that you will be able to see the actual face painting technique in action.

But sometimes, if you’ve already got some face painting skills, all you need is a little experience to help you build your confidence.
Here’s the fastest way to get lots of practice and get your face painting business off the ground?

It’s simply this: Contact your local children’s school and offer to do free face painting for an afternoon. Now you may get turned down… but most likely, they will be very keen to let you do this if you aren’t charging anything. This is a very effective way to get exerienced, quickly.

You’ll also need to build a portfolio of face painting ideas which you can refer to when you’re working with your customers. It’s always handy to have a variety of children’s designs, and halloween face painting is also very popular – so it’s a good idea to keep those in stock, too.

There are are (at the time of writing) 173 books about home brewing listed by Amazon. A lot of these are repeats but clearly you are spoiled for choice when it comes to home brewing.

You can narrow the list by rejecting any title that mixes wine and beer making. Wine making and beer making have nothing in common except yeast and the need for cleanliness, so books that mix them are nearly always unsuccessful.

You can go still further and reject the ones that concentrate on making beer from kits or novelty beers. Some of these are deeply unsatisfactory and you get the impression that many of the recipes have never actually been tried by their author. I’m sorry to say that some of the books by CJJ Berry seem to fall into that category.

For people outside the UK there are also clear dangers in British beer making books. British beer IS different from beers elsewhere and non-Britishers may not want to engage in the British beer tradition. Some of the best English beer is drunk tepid and stagnant (=not bubbly) which is not to everybody’s taste.

So when I looked down Amazon’s list I was greatly drawn to a book about beer brewing for Americans, and also to one exclusively about brewing lager. I already have and use “Brewing Beers Like those you Buy” which is British oriented, and I can vouch for the truth of the title but that would be a personal home brewing choice. You might also care to look at other, more recent, books that make roughly the same claim, such as “Homebrew recipes for 150 commercial beers”. I would also like to buy some of the titles which cover Microbreweries, but as I don’t have a micro brewery set up that would be pure indulgence.

There’s more about home brewing and brews, just here.