Patrick and Brooke

 Well, I now have a former student that is getting married....Should that make me feel old?  I don't think so.  Anyway, Brooke was in my photography class when I taught at Christian Academy.  She is a very talented and beautiful girl that is now getting married!  Brooke and Patrick have been together since high school, I actually first got to know Patrick through photos Brooke would submit for class projects.  Finally I got to meet him in person, and I must say, he is equally charming.  Here are a few photos from the shoot!

Patrick works in a print shop, can you tell? 

Such a cute couple....

Here we go again!

Okay, so after my first art booth I thought, "This is only going to be something I do maybe once or twice a year...."  Well, I was wrong.  My good friend Laura convinced me that I should enter some work into a family festival called Christmas at CAL.  Some of you know I used to work for Christian Academy School System, and the teachers and kids have a soft spot in my heart.  So, it didn't take much convincing to get me involved.  So, here we go again!  November 13th from 10 - 2 you can go to my friend Laura's art room at the Rock Creek campus to view (and possibly buy) some of my artwork!  There will also be a lot of other fun activities going on during that time so just go and have fun.

Liam assisted me in getting everything organized for this next art show...

As you can see, he was a big help.

Downtown Family Photo Shoot

Today I had the pleasure of taking photos of John, Penny and Skyler.  They are such a fun and sweet family.  We had a terrific time!  Actually, this family is related to the Waters family, a family I am friends with and also took some photos of recently.  Anyway, John, Penny and Skyler decided they could make time for a quick family photo shoot while they were in town (from North Carolina!  Long drive...) to visit and snuggle with their new grandbaby/nephew.  It was hard to pull them away from cute little Judson, but,  I think they also had a good time having some family photos taken.  Here are a few from the shoot in downtown Louisville.  I LOVE old buildings and alleyways, so I was pretty excited about having a photo shoot here!

Fall Festival....not so bad!

So, this past weekend was the Sojourn Fall Festival, which included free food, games, live music (which was all GREAT by the way) and the affordable art show.  It was my first time to have a booth in an art show and I learned a lot!  So, I'll give ya some lessons that I learned from the day.

By the way, please forgive my photography!  I took the photos at around noon time so they are way too stark, overexposed, I was frantically trying to prepare for customers during this time = YUCK.

 Lesson number one:  Make sure you have your own tent!  As you can see in the photo above, we were out in the open.  Not too cozy.   If there are any veteran art booth sellers out there reading this, I'm sure they are laughing at me right now.  But, for some reason I thought the tent was supplied at this art fair.  However, thankfully I wasn't the only one without a tent, which made me feel much better!

 Lesson number two:  Be sure that what you are displaying can withstand the wind!  See the cute little sign in the flower pot in this photo to the right?  Yeah, that was gone after about half an hour.  Even the slightest breeze was blowing it over (even after I filled it with rocks).

 Lesson number three:  Chill out!  I was, ahem, a little frantic before the show started.  If I would have loosened up, I could have enjoyed myself much more the first part of the day.  However, thankfully Kyle and Liam were in a great mood and very helpful.  Okay, Kyle was helpful (set up my tables, got me food and water, etc).

Liam just wanted to eat rocks.




Some other things I learned:

 Don't be afraid to talk to customers.  I met a lot of great people this weekend.  Some of which I hope too see again!   Also, people are more likely to want to buy what you have to sell if you explain your artwork to them.  It makes the artwork and you as a seller more appealing.  Thankfully, I learned this before the end of the day!

Make friends with the people in the booths next to you!  I was next to some really sweet people that were selling baby clothes and hair bows.  They really made my day go by faster.  Plus, the people next to you can teach you a thing or two, ya know?

Take more photos!  I wish I could show you guys other photos from the festival!  I also had friends come to visit, which really made my day.  Wish I would have caught that on camera....

 Okay, one thing I think I did right was bringing things I "just for in case".  This included: scissors, string, extra table clothes, tape, and boxes.  All these supplies I used for displaying my artwork.

I had also read that it is good to display your artwork at different levels to make the display more interesting.  I'm so glad I did that!  It looked much better than lying everything flat on the table.  Oh yeah, you may have noticed the black display pole in the first photo....a friend of mine made that for me!  Isn't that sweet?  It really came in handy!

 I was also glad that I made small signs and business cards for Saturday.  There were a lot of people that took (and actually asked for) business cards on Saturday.  Also, the signs made the display look a tad more professional.

A couple more things I did that I was thankful for:
 
Tissue paper and bags for the artwork

Plenty of change for customers

Inventory of all items for sale (I was able to go back a view what sold the best after the show)






So, overall I think my first art booth was a success.  I was very thankful for the friends that came out to support me and thankful that I made a profit at my first art show.  So, I really can't complain!

Elslager Family

 Meet the beautiful Elslager family!  I got a taste of what a family of five is like for one hour this past week.  These boys are energetic, friendly and let's just face it....Katrina, you are one busy woman!  Anyway, I had a lot of fun photographing this family.

Those sweet boys...

Katrina is gorgeous! 

Josh and Katie + little bean

Josh and Katie are a couple that Kyle and I have known for years.  We were all in youth group together, at Lynwood Baptist Church in Missouri, and now all four of us live in Louisville.  We are so happy to have some fellow Southeast Missourians living in the same city as us!   Josh and Katie are expecting their first little girl on New's Years Eve this year.  So of course, I jumped at the opportunity to take photos of the these two before their lives change forever!

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Doesn't she look so beautiful?  Katie did a great job. 

Josh actually got to feel the baby kick for the first time during the photo shoot!

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Affordable Art Show

So, I recently submitted some art work to Sojourn Community Church (to find out more about Sojourn click here) for their Affordable Art Show that will be taking place during their Fall Festival (I will post more info on that later!).  Sounds fun, right?  Anyway, I found out today that my work was accepted!  Hooray!  Kyle and I are not members of Sojourn but we do LOVE the creative ministries they have at their church.  Plus, the entries were open to anyone, so why not?

Here is a peak at what I will be selling at the Art Show, which you MUST come to if you are in Louisville on Oct. 16th!!!!  Not only will there be art, there will also be LIVE music, FREE food, and kids GAMES.  As you can tell, I'm pretty pumped about this.





The large pieces are 12x16 and the small pieces are 6x8.  I got the idea to make these from looking through children's art in various places and finding it....cheesy?  I wanted to create something that could be fitting for a child's room but could also easily fit in another place of the home as well.  Each piece is designed and distressed by hand, so no two pieces are exactly alike.  The artwork is considered mixed media, consisting of: wood, acrylic paint, paper, matte medium and jute for hanging.  

So there you go!  I will try to get more artwork posted soon.

Here are the prices:

12x16 - $25  or 2 12x16 for $45

6x8 - $10 or 3 6x8 for $25

First Blog Post!

So, I was recently lucky enough to be able to get some newborn and momma pics of my friend Amanda and her son Judson.

He was so sweet.  So cuddly.  So quiet.  So TINY!  Was my son EVER this size?  I barely remember....

He was a champ through the whole shoot.  What a little man.

 Anyway, a week or so later I was then able to get some pics of the whole family!  Thanks guys!  They were so much fun.  I was laughing so hard at times it was hard to focus my camera.  However, I made it out of the photo shoot with some success.  Thanks Waters family for a fun afternoon! 

I couldn't resist getting a couple photos of just the happy couple.

And of course I had to get a couple of just Judson.  Who wouldn't!?  Plus, I finally got to see those peepers.