vwcphotography.com

I’m so excited to finally be able to offer you some beautiful Christmas card designs for 2009.  Here I have 10 fun & elegant designs to pick from.  These cards will make yours stand out from the rest.  These state-of-the-art cards are printed on HP Indigo digital printing presses with real liquid ink.  They are printed on art linen (my personal fave!) but can be printed by request on standard or pearl.  Add UV coating to these for an even higher gloss look.  I’ve never offered such beautiful cards before.  You won’t be disappointed, they are beautiful.

Below are my card examples.  Please email me for pricing and details.  Orders need to be placed by December 4th.  Merry Christmas!!  Love ~ Val

Sample 1

Sample 2

Sample 3

Sample 4

Sample 5 - Front

Sample 5 - Back

Sample 6 - Front

Sample 6 - Back

Sample 7 - Front

Sample 7 - Back

Sample 8 - Front

Sample 8 - Back

Sample 9 - Front

Sample 9 - Back

Sample 10 - Front

Sample 10 - Back

All cards are 5×7 in size.  First 4 samples are one-sided (white on back) and last 6 samples are printed on both front and back (small price increase on these).

The Sokolowski Family invited me to their home for a few moments to photograph some “day in the life of..” photos.  I loved their boys because their personalities reminded me so much of my own children (I seem to find that a lot with the children I photograph reminding me of my own).  They were very sweet boys and I thank them for being themselves when they had never met me   Below are some of my favorites.  Thank you again, Chris and Katherine!  (And thank you, Katherine, for your online friendship which I now look forward to blooming more… )

One of my favorite things is to photograph someone for the second, third, fourth time.  You learn about them, they learn about you and that molds into a client-photographer relationship to carry you on through time.  I love that.  Emily is one of those who I’ve grown to know and love.  She has the most beautiful smile and the prettiest eyes that sparkle.  At this session I also got to shoot her mommy and daddy.  Thank you, Emily, for sharing your mom and dad with me and allowing me to come into your life once again.  Can’t wait for the next time

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be welcoming you to my new blog!  This is something I have direly needed to do for some time.  I diligently spent two days working on it.  If you’ve done one before, you realize the time it does takes to set one up. (Which is probably the reason why I kept putting it off!)  Phew!  Big weight off me and just in time, too!

I’ve not officially made it known yet, but today I am…I have some great big news!   Drum roll….I am the new tenant of a building which is going to house MY NEW STUDIO!!  Oh my goodness is this ever exciting for me!!  I’ve wanted this for 8 years now but didn’t want to just jump into it.  I wanted it to be the “right” time and that time has come.  You know when things are meant to be when they almost literally fall into your lap.  Ahhhh…I’ve been so blessed in my walk of life.  I’m truly very thankful.

So where is this studio?  It’s at 113 E. Elm in Argenta, Illinois in the “downtown” area.  This makes me giggle because if you know Argenta, you know that it’s about 1,000 people in size and the downtown is really hardly a downtown.  It comprises of a bank, a community building and a builder, and…now US!  I say “us” because my friend and colleague, Kellie Penn from Across the Miles Photography, is joining me on this venture.  We will be sharing this space.  How will that work you say?  Well, exactly how a beauty salon works!  We’ll have our own clientele but will share everything from the backdrops, lighting, furniture, props, etc. but still have our own separate businesses.  It’s going to work and work well we think!

We got the keys and signed the papers and after Thanksgiving we hope to begin painting!  Anyone want to join in on a painting party?!  The space is HUGE and back when it was built, was a mercantile store in the late 1880’s!  It’s a beautiful building with original tin ceilings and wood floors.  Oh it’s glorious!  Since I am from Argenta and my family settled in Argenta in the late 1880’s, all of this holds dear to my heart.  Oh you should see our paint colors!  So divine!  I am just giddy with joy   Can’t wait till you stop by and see us.  We hope to officially start “shooting” in January.  That’s our goal, anyway.  Being a procrastinator (like most of us photographers seem to be!), it may not be January, but oh it sure it sounds good!!  More to come on this and hopefully with an actual “open” date.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll add me to your blog roll and feeds and come back daily to see what’s new here.  I’ve been very busy getting back into the groove since the birth of Finley and with the holidays coming up, well, it’s a bit crazy.  But I’m a blogger and will always make time to come chit-chat here.  Thank you for joining me on this journey!  I’m so excited!!!!!!

With love ~ Val

P.S. And, here’s my new logo designed by no other than…. me.   Sometimes I have to put my graphic design skills to good use.  It’s the last month, I think, that I’m paying off those student loans!  Another “hip, hip, HOORAY!”

I had to put in the "speech bubble" just for fun

Tristan and Aidan just had a new baby brother arrive to them about 2 months ago named Keegan.  Their mommy, Nyan, wanted some photos of the three of them for herself and grandparents, something they've never had before.  I was excited to do this for her, not just because I know her, but also because I wanted to meet little Keegan who is just a couple weeks older than Finn (although their due dates were just a few days apart!).  Keegan is adorable!  So tiny and fragile yet so handsome!  He's a sweetie-pie, and you can tell his older brother absolulely ADORE him.  Momma may feel like her life is a bit chaotic now but they say boys always put their mommas first, so one day she's going to be pampered with so much love from "her boys" who will always hold a very special place in their hearts for her.  And knowing Nyan, I know she deserves that.  Thanks again for having me do these for you.  xo ~ Val

Randy and Vickie have been friends of ours for about 6-ish years and I've been dying to take their family photo for that long, so when they finally asked me, I was thrilled!   We had a lot of fun at their shoot and thankfully, Randy was on his best behavior   Thanks, guys….I can't wait to do it again!   Just promise me you won't wait till Chloe's senior pictures, ok?  Hugs and kisses to my favorite neighbors and very dear friends { xoxo } and oh, Maia bugs Neil every night about "going to Chloe's house", so we need to schedule that "play date" soon!  K?

My baby boy…he was born Sept 10, 2009 weighing 7 lbs 10 oz and 20-1/2 inches long.  The sweetest little dumpling I had laid my eyes on in a long time.  The best little gift.

I had a long pregnancy.  Lots of drugs to sustain it, including an injection I had to give myself daily, plus frequent trips (almost weekly) to Peoria, 1-1/2 hours away, for Echocardiograms on little Finn’s heart.  Because of an antibody in my body, Finn could have acquired it during pregnancy making him viable for heart problems.  Thankfully nothing ever “came up” and today he is 2 months old and very healthy.  I’m very, very thankful.

I had a scheduled c-section.  It was scheduled for the 17th but because of the cord being wrapped around his neck (and other pregnancy problems) my doctor decided taking him early was best, but they had to make sure his lungs were developed.  I had an amniocentisis and sure enough, his lungs were perfect-o.  So they took him at 47-1/2 weeks.  The c-section went fine and I got to hold my little baby right away in recovery (I never got to have that with my other c-sections).  Then the further recovery went well and I was released from the hospital in just 2 days.  Record time for me.  I had a minor headache when we left but I was told it was from the spinal anesthesia and that it would go away.  So home I went.

That day my headache got worse.  The next day it was even more agonizing…the worst headache of my life…so bad I could not function.  It was a 10 on the pain scale.  So, I called my doctor.  They sent me back to the hospital to the ER.  Before they could give me a “blood patch” (which was the cure-all to spinal headaches where they inject your own blood back into the hole where the anesthesia needle went into the spinal cord creating a “block” to any spinal fluid leaking out where it wasn’t supposed to be), they had to give me a CT scan to make sure there wasn’t any other underlying cause.  Well, just my luck, something else came up.  And it was blood on my brain.  I had a brain hematoma.  To hear those words, you cannot even imagine the thoughts running through my head…the pain in my heart and the emotional roller coaster I imagined I was to embark on was frightening.

To make a long story short, the blood on my brain did not grow.  (Thank God.)  However, my headache was not getting better.  I ended up having a blood patch, and after a day of rest, the headache finally finally started to go away.  I then got to go home!!!  What a wild ride.

I’m so incredibly thankful for the prayers and the ANSWER to prayer.  You don’t realize how lucky you are until you experience something like this.  I was able to go home and get back to being a momma.  Nothing fancy in that, but it is the absolute best job in the entire world.  It really truly is.

So Finley…he hung in there with me on my wild ride.  The kids stayed back with grandparents (thank you, grandparents!).  Today, we’re back to being a normal family…a new family of 5.  I love it.  We all love it.  Finn has really fit in perfectly.  The missing piece to our family puzzle had been put into place.  We are now complete and on with our beautiful thankful lives we go.  My family and I…we are truly blessed.

Here are some photos…some from Finn’s first few days of life to some more recent ones.  And of course a few of my other cuties, Noah and Maia.  Thanks for reading “my story” and I hope you enjoy.  Make sure you come back…I’ll be posting a ton more in the next couple days.  Lots of love ~ Val

My kiddos at the hospital with their big bro / big sis shirts on. 

Maia helping mommy out with feedings.  She thinks she is a mommy, also.

Happy Halloween from my little pirates!