Winner

The winner of the $50 giveaway was comment number 25, Lorrie Weidenmaier! Congrats!

Big steps

I recently took a big step in my life.

I have loved photography since I was a little girl. Ask my mom, there are millions of pictures of our pets, random things in the yard, flowers, etc. I had a cheapie camera for a long time, I got an advantix (remember those?) for my birthday one year and for my 14th birthday I received a polaroid mini pic camera. I wasted a ton of film, most of which I'm sure is still at my mom's house waiting to be developed.

I went without a camera for many years and when I was in college Chance bought my first digital camera. I loved it. It renewed my love. Since that time I've upgraded twice (with a plan to upgrade in the next year or two) and now have a Nikon d5100. It takes great photos, which led to people asking me to do some portraits for them.

I've done my sister's family several times and with the rise of social media I've been asked by non family to do theirs as well. I decided that if so many people are asking me to take their photos, maybe I should consider doing it.

Last week, I took a leap of faith, designed my own logo and made a facebook page advertising myself. I'm not a professional, I have no actual training. I'm still learning, but to learn I need more people and sessions to gain practice. I offered a free session on my facebook page and got a really good response. I've had a few people ask for paid sessions.

I'm not really sure I'm ready for that, but I think a lower price point reflects that? I'm just not sure.

I know I'm ready to put myself out there and learn more. To get more experience and possibly make a business out of this.

Holidays and a Giveaway

Do you remember this post from last year? I'm usually really against skipping holidays or rather, getting ahead. I like Christmas, but I prefer that it start in December and not June.

However, here I am in October dreaming about dancing around the house with the kiddos listening to Christmas music, watching Harry Potter (which I now consider a Christmas movie since ABC family plays it non stop in December) and the Grinch and reading Christmas books. I'm ready to decorate the tree and wrap presents.

I'm ready to make Christmas Cards (click here to see Shutterfly's awesome holiday collection) and lovingly mail them out to friends and family. I'm really excited because for the third year in a row I will be ordering my cards from Shutterfly. They released them a few weeks ago and they are so pretty! They have traditional colors, modern colors, religious and holiday cards as well as cards for pets. I don't have any pets, but I really love the pet cards.

I usually choose a more modern color scheme. Last year I chose aqua and red and I found a similar one this year that I liked, but this one matches my blog so well I might choose it!

Blessed

Here's your chance to order cards from Shutterfly as well. Shutterfly has given me $50 to give to one reader to use on their website. You have to cover shipping and the offer cannot be combined with any other offers. (You can find sales and other promotions on their special offers page, I got a free photobook by checking there. I check often.)

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post saying whether or not you send holiday cards and if so, where do you get them from? 

You can get bonus entries for sharing this post on a social media platform (blog, facebook, twitter, etc) just leave one comment per entry. (One comment telling about the holiday cards, one comment for each social media share) The giveaway ends on October 24th, 2012. Winners will be chosen at random using random.org and will be notified by email, so please include your email address in your comments if you don't have it linked.

This post was sponsored by Shutterfly, but honestly, I would blog about their awesome services even without compensation! I just recently ordered some really awesome notepads and I always get my photo books from them.