Glitter Tattoos

and daily graces

This modern life rubs like a blister in my shoe. So I decided to start looking for glimpses of gold. My eyes are wide, searching for a splash of pink or purple hidden in the grass.

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It was time for the Schulfest, an end of the year school-wide party for the elementary school my middle child attends. As usual, sign up lists were distributed to the parent chat group. The good stay-at-home mom that I am, I signed up to bring something for the buffet, then closed the browser.

I have three different kids at three different schools and none of them are local, so although this was my favorite school, I had not yet become an ‘involved parent.’

Now this school happens to be a particularly awesome elementary school, so when my son told me a story of something wonderful that the teachers did one day, and later that night word came around the parent group chats that there was a shortage of people on the sign-up lists—I knew I had to take up the call. I clicked the link and found one more slot needed to be filled: glitter tattoos.

Photo by Luke Besley on Unsplash

Regular temporary tattoos I can do, I’ve even volunteered to do face painting at another festival before, but glitter tattoos seemed complicated. I had never applied one before, but signed my name in hopes that it would be easy enough to catch on, or that they might need help with something in the background.

Glitter tattoos are like the cream of the tattoo crop. Every kid wanted one. As soon as the doors opened, a queue formed out the door.

Those parent counsel moms just threw me in there with no training. Learn by doing I guess. I sat on a wooden chair constructed for 8 year olds and watched all these elementary kids, so sweet and hopeful, searching through the stencil pile and extending their bare little arm onto the table.

This was high stakes, in case you don’t know. Their hopes were high, and they expected that their tattoo shape would be recognizable. Awesome even. Not only that, it was one tattoo per child. We had an entire elementary school to get through, so we had to keep the rule strict. They had one chance, which meant I only had one chance. I was so anxious that I would screw up the glitter tattoo on these knobby arms.

These were the steps: divide sticker back from the stencil, place stencil on the skin, paint skin glue with a small brush, then paint the glitter over. No need to wait long, just peel off the stencil, and voilá.

I would ask in my clumsy German: which color would they like? Should I mix colors? Do they ride horses? Do they have a favorite soccer team? Do they do ballet?

So there I was, painting glue on the fresh skin of these sweet little creatures. Was it too much? Too little? If I did not work quickly enough would it dry before I could get the glitter on? In a hurry, I smudged glitter over everything. It was hard because the glitter kept sticking to the glue on the brush. I produced what looked like giant preschool blobs at the craft table.

I gave the parent-counsel-mom-expert working on the right of me a worried look. “Now, lift the stencil,” she explained.

Do you ever hold your breath and hope for the best? I held mine in an act of faith that the combination of glue, glitter, and a stencil would produce magic. Every time I whispered a prayer in my mind, oh please let this work. For this child. I want this to work for them.

Each glitter tattoo was like lighting a match, pulling it down the side of the box, and hoping for the best. Strike, strike, fire. A miracle. Mini resurrections.

I would lift the stencil, and the glitter would sit there forming a brillant picture of ballet shoes, a horse, or a soccer ball.

Perhaps you think this is silly, but I’ll keep my eyes wide. The way ahead is unsure. Here’s to daily graces, glimpses of gold on this worn and weary road.