HennaThings

Palace Door Mirror

2007-11-21T07:42:00.000-08:00

With the big fat eat-yourself-into-a-nap holiday coming up far too quickly, I didn't have oodles of time to look around online this week. I stumbled over this really cool Moroccan goods site searching google for henna dyed things. It's called Living Morocco. They have a number of really beautiful things that are way out of my budget, but still nice to windowshop. The link above takes you to a henna dyed mirror with incredible color and details. Wow!

They also carry henna lamps and other decor items, pottery starting around $20, a set of 6 original Moroccan tea glasses for $29, and mirrors, doors and tables in the zowies price range.

You can check out their site Living Morocco for all sorts of nifty home furnishing options.

buying design books

2007-11-20T04:19:00.000-08:00

When I first started discovered the wondrous green stuff, the only book you could find in the bookstore was Sumita Batra's "The Art of Mehndi". I love it because I'm a really visually-oriented person and it had lots of really beautiful photos. The design patterns featured in the book were easy enough to figure out and the photos gave me something to inspire me to want to become accomplished as quickly as possible!

Nearly eight years later I still have that book. I still take it to every event because her photos are much better than mine! I'd say the majority of the people who come to look grab that book first. I usually set up with my ugly binder books open to some beautiful pattern and just leave the SB book closed so all they see is the cover. I don't know what it is, but it's the one that nearly everyone is drawn to. One of these days I'm going to buy one of the other books with pretty mehndi on the cover just to see what people go for.

Most of the events I do are Rennaisance Faires. I've often thought about creating a more 'period' looking book to display at faire. The modern plastic binder with the plastic snapout treasured HennaPage book design pages draws the strangest looks from the rennies. Every year I try to get a little more 'period' so maybe I'll work on that over the winter this year.

The books I've purchased from HennaPage.com are one of the best things I've ever spent money on for a few reasons. First, I always get my stuff quickly, I like quickly very much! I hate to order things online mostly because I have no patience when it comes to spending money. If I buy something I want to be able to touch it right away! I want to be able to try out patterns immediately, so waiting just makes me nuts. The longest it's ever taken me to get a pattern book from the HennaPage people is about six hours, much better than several days for it to come from some warehouse on the other side of the country! Another reason is that I can store the files on my pc and my laptop as well as having them in books. I take my laptop everywhere I can justify taking it with, and sometime even if I can't justify it like that random trip to McDonalds to bug my daughter at work now that they have free WiFi. All of the books I've bought are there anytime I want to show someone patterns. If I could store them on my Zen and figure out how to access them I would have them there, too! I'm just a little overly technologically needy. Yes, there are henna photos on my phone, but I have the Buddha as my background for balance. So my point is, the digital design books are really great for geeks like me. And there's the fact that if you wreck a page or lose one you can always just reprint that one. My copy of SB's book has countless little brown dots and blobs.

If you're not lucky enough to have oodles of cash to throw into brandy new books or are looking for a cheaper way to get your hands on patterns now that you've found all the free ones, there are a couple of different options available for the frugal artist. By far the cheapest route to acquiring design books is getting them used at Amazon. Some of them are cheaper than the shipping to get them to you! So if you have little cash and lots of patience, you can get a great selection of design books this way.

Another site I discovered this morning that I thought would be great for those of us working on the financially challenged end of the scale is BookRenter.com. Great concept right? I thought, hey, this way I can see inside the book and decide if it's worth actually buying instead of being like 'back in the day' when you wanted a song and spent $20 or more gambling that you'd like at least one more song on the CD. Nothing sucks like a $20 song. Thankfully we now have all these music services that allow people like me to just get exactly what they want now. But when you're buy books online you can't look inside and see if you like more than the one pattern on the front. So hey, rent it, good idea I thought, right? Apparently wrong! So far all of mehndi books that I've found are for purchase only. There are a couple of good deals here, but overall the prices are comparable to the new book prices at all the major online booksellers. A couple of them are more expensive than you can find them elsewhere. For example, CCJ's The Joyous Body Art, Pattern Book 1 is $24.74 at BookRenter.com, $24.99 at Amazon.com, $67.02 at LangtonInfo.com (what are these people thinking???), $22.49 for members at BarnesandNobel.com, and just $10 if you order the electronic version at TDL(CCJ's TapDancingLizard.com). So take a second to google the book title and author to see if you can save yourself a few dollars. And hey, maybe I'll need to rent some other kind a book eventually...

Personally, I like the idea of going directly to the artist. If I can get a book at HennaPage.com, I get it there first. If you like a certain artist and they sell their own book on their site, buy it there. Usually an artist gets the most profit and the least hassle that way, which most of the time means you're getting the best deal, too. And if can't get it from the artist, I want it cheap, so I go through Amazon because I have an account there. Might as well make a couple of cents off my own purchases while I'm at it, right?

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Spellstone

2007-11-14T12:54:00.000-08:00

Wow!! Alex Morgan has created some really amazing henna'd stuff. When I looked at the site for henna things to link to, I was in a hurry and didn't look completely through what was there. OMG the guitars are just incredible! I thought the drums were cool, yah, wow! I am a guitar nut though, so....

There's really alot of inspiring stuff here. There are links to books with Turkish Tulips to Tribal and African designs. There are also drums, guitars, and artwork to make you wow!

I love to find people who've taken henna and put it on something besides skin! It inspires me to expand my horizons and remember to think outside the cone!

Henna-esque dinnerware

2007-11-13T04:35:00.000-08:00

I found this when I was redoing pages for my site the other day. This should be on every henna addicts must-have list. Dinnerware with henna patterns. They're just beautiful! The artist is in Australia, so I have no idea what it would take to ship them here, but for a true junkie I'm sure that's not important!

She also mentions picture frames, candles and lanterns on her site.
Check it out here
http://www.hennacraft.com.au/

Jagua

2007-06-06T18:57:00.000-07:00

My daughter found this new thing on the net yesterday. We stumbled on it while looking at one of the flickr galleries of another henna artist - www.hennalounge.com - she had a couple of photos of some jagua she'd done. It's similar to henna in that it's an all natural dye that leaves a stain for a couple of weeks. There are a few differences though. and I found a place to order it in the US so I could try it. Check out http://www.naturesbodyart.com/. I can't wait to get my order and check it out for myself.

Burr! Henna in Canada

2007-02-05T07:49:00.000-08:00

As we start our February here in Southern Wisconsin, our children are all out of school for freezing cold weather. Since I have all of this stationary available canvas, a brandy new batch of henna I've been waiting for an excuse to use, and a couple of new patterns to try, I have my day all planned out! I'll pin down the littlest first, since she's the easiest to bribe with candy and the promise of pretty hands. Then I can work my way up to the teenagers who might be waking up by the time I finish with the rest of them.

So I googled henna designs this morning and found a site for an artist in CANADA! And I was complaining about the weather here! Check out http://www.dragon-fly-designs.ca/frames.html . Dragonfly Designs - wish I'd thought of that! Very nice site, large selection of henna images, and cool dragonflies!

A starter dose of henna things

2007-01-28T07:47:00.000-08:00

Winter isn't very kind to a starving henna artist. People just aren't running about with bare chunks of skin that they're interested in adorning! Since things are slow for henna events, I'm hoping to find some nice henna-related info to share with any henna addicts who are suffering from with drawls over the winter with me.

My first and foremost recommended site to check for henna info is www.hennapage.com . I haven't been there myself in a while but they are THE place for amazing design books for every taste and hints for techniques to take your henna to the next level! My personal favorite book is Ganesha's Garden by Kim Brennan. There are lots of Hindu-inspired designs with a more contemporary look for those of you looking for something a little different from traditional mehendi designs.

Henna Page also has great how-to's and lots of free designs, along with a forum board where you can post your henna-related questions.

The best place I've found so far for both beginners and experienced artists to find inspiration and community online!