nicholeV photography [the blog]

WooooHoooooo!! Group Buy for Actions and Templates!

Well everyone, this is my first (and maybe only, lol!) public group buy! WoooHooooo! Consider it a special treat for those of you loyal people who frequent my blog!

Here are the details!

I have 2 template sets designed with Jefra Linn:

• Gentle Stork Baby Announcement Templates
• Distressed Victorian Christmas Templates

And for the action sets. These are the action sets that I currently offer:

• Essential Color Pop
• Essential BW
• Complete Workflow
• Vintage Action and Textures
• Urban Action and Textures

You can see info about my actions and such on my website and I should have examples of every card in each template sets up there by later on tonight: NicholeVan Actions Website

Also, you can order a CD of your purchases for an extra $10 or for just $2 more, I'll send you that CD beautifully gift-wrapped. So hey, buy two sets and give one to a friend for the holidays!

And soooo sorry, but this group buy ended on Thursday, October 4 at midnight EST. 

Photo Contest Winners . . . .

First of all, I have to day THANK YOU to everyone who entered the contest . . . . I was just overwhelmed by the quality and caliber of the entries. You're all to be congratulated. And honestly, the judging was agony . . . I finally enlisted Jefra, my husband and my mom to help me decide. I just couldn't narrow it down. In the end, we took our finalists and actually dropped the picts into the templates and then used that to make our decision. The photos that looked the best in the actual templates were our winners. And we couldn't narrow it down, so we have 4 winners.

Soooooooo, without further ado, I'd like to annouce the winners of our little contest here, in no particular order.

To begin, we ALL adored this shot by Eden Photography:

And we also all loved this shot by the oh so talented Martha or Iseethemoon Photography

Also, I just adored the tones and beauty of Beth Jansen's entry:

And last but not least, I just adored the vintage feel of Therese Marie's shot here . . . I soooo want that buggy and those clothes!

Thanks again to everyone who entered. The contest was so much fun and I just adored all the entries!

Winners, I will email you tomorrow or if you see this before then, email me! Let me know what item you would like and I'll get it sent out to you!

And for those of you who entered, stay tuned . . . . I'm going to post some info about a huge group buy tomorrow! Oh, and how's about a freebie or two . . . stay tuned . . .

So in love . . . .

with this new set of baby templates that Jefra and I have put together! Have I mentioned that Jefra is a design genius?! Anyway, we'd had a set like this planned for a while, but she designed them so much more quickly than I had anticipated.

So I'm soooo excited to announce the new Gentle Stork Baby Announcement Template set. We've worked extremely hard to find and gain permission to use the gorgeous, vintage illustrations within this set. I really just can't express how beautiful these cards are. These little webfiles just don't do them justice, but hopefully you get the idea! Anyway, I should have them posted for sale in a couple days. Here are a few examples . . .

      

And we're currently working on another Christmas set similar to this baby set . . . . with 130-year-old, extremely rare Victorian illustrations that we've received permission to use. I'm so excited to use this new Christmas set on my own personal cards this year! They promise to be exquisite! Now if I only had a baby for this baby set . . . . sigh . . .

And I'm also so excited for this contest tomorrow! I've posted more entries and honestly, the decision is going to be sooooo hard, so I think that I'm going to pass the decision off to someone else, LOL! The contest closes tomorrow night at midnight EST, so I'm going to try to get the judges together (well, Jefra and my DH) and post the winners after the contest closes tomorrow. . . .

So stay tuned . . . .

Contest Entries . . . .

First of all, I can say is WOW!! What wonderful, amazing entries I've received so far for the template contest (see below for more info). Just really incredible stuff you're sending my way! Loved spending time again tonight going through all the entries.  And now to post some. (Ok, so I know I said I was going to do this yesterday, but please forgive me. . . . I'm sure you all know how hectic life can be!)

So as I sat down tonight to post a couple images that have been submitted, I just couldn't narrow it down, lol! Honestly, people?!! Could you make this decision ANY more difficult?! So in the end, I decided to post them all! I just couldn't narrow it down. So here's a link to a gallery of all the submissions so far.

Distressed Victorian Photo Contest Entries

I can't even tell you how excited I am about all these wonderful entries. You people just have some amazing talent! Also, I'll add entries to the gallery as they come in.

And I apologize that I just didn't have the time tonight to go through and add a name to every image, but feel free to post a comment saying which image is yours, or if you're really concerned, send me a watermarked version to swap out or I'll happily jump in and give you a photo credit.

Thanks everyone for all your support and kind words. I so appreciate them! Hope you're all having a lovely weekend!

Some Darling Cousins in the Orchard . . . .

First of all, let me say THANK YOU to everyone who took the time to stop by yesterday. I was literally overwhelmed by your kind comments. So thank you, thank you! And I'm planning on posting some entries into my little contest tomorrow, so check back if you're interesting!

In the meantime, I just had to do my first blog-client-session post today. And seeing how I just finished editing this session last night, it was a perfect candidate!

So here are these sweet little kids. They are cousins and unreally adorable. Just so loved the whole shoot!

 

Distressed Victorian Template Contest

Ok folks, I'm officially launching my blog today. And what better way to start all the festivities than with a photo contest! I love contests!

So Jefra and I will be launching our Distressed Victorian Holiday Templates (see below for more info about them) sometime in the next week or so, but we want some different images for the sample cards. So I'm turning to you! Send me your image that you think would look best in the sample cards I've shown below . . . something a little old fashioned, a little vintage . . . ya know what I mean! Something that will merge well with the style and colors of the cards. If chosen, we'll feature your image in some of the templates and give you a photo credit to boot! (Don't want your photo featured? That's fine! You can still enter and win. If you win, then we'll let you descide if you would actually like your photo featured in our template set.)

Also, the winner will receive their choice of ONE of the following prizes:

• Distressed Vintage Holiday Templates
• Essential Color Pop action set
• Essential BW action set
• Vintage Actions and Textures Set
• Urban Actions and Textures Set

So check back throughout this week. I'll be posting some of the images (with a photo credit of course) as they come in, just to show all the great things that you guys come up with!

The Details:

• This contest will run until midnight EST on Wednesday, September 26th.
• To enter, please email a small version (no bigger than 500k) of your chosen photo to nichole@nicholeV.com. Please include your name (cause I want to know who you are!)
• You may only enter once.
• All photos submitted must be suitable for inclusion on this blog and a holiday card template, i.e. keep it family friendly!
• By submitting your photo, you are NOT giving me permission to use the image in any of my advertising. However, by submitting, you are giving me permission to display your photo on this blog as an example of your work with a photo credit given to you.
• Photos must follow the theme of distressed, aged, vintage. Something that matches the tone and style of the cards themselves.
• Any questions?! Email me!

Just a little teaser . . . .

So just wanted to post a little teaser of what I've been up to lately. I so wanted a set of card designs that would work with my Vintage and Urban action sets. So Jefra Linn and I have partnered up to create some card templates. I spent weeks creating brushes and textures and Jefra spent weeks designing. It's been a wonderful, collaborative experience and I have developed an enormous respect for her graphic design abilities. So here's a couple examples from our first set . . . Distressed Victorian.

Welcome

Well, my first blog post  . . . . it's really about time!

Thanks to all of you for taking the time to stop by. This will be my place to post images from sessions and discuss what's going on with my actions and such.

I also have some exciting things planned for this blog, namely some contests and a few freebies, so check back. Can't wait to see you here!