Merry Christmas!

Words cannot express how blown away I have been this year. I give all the glory to God for allowing me to dive into my love for photography with such success and I want to extend my extreme thankfulness to all the people who have given me the opportunity to make this dream a reality.

Thank you for pushing me when I didn't want to.

Thank you for believing in me when I said I wasn't good enough.

Thank you for being my friends even though i'm taking your money... ha! just kidding!

(mad props to Alicia for taking this picture :)

I *love* them!

Well, I missed a day yesterday... oops! but seriously, this is the only real Christmas card I have left. the next one i'm posting was supposed to be real... but it was late, we were tired... well, you'll see later on.



Aww! Look how stinking cute they are! Once again, Melissa rocks my socks. We were sitting together after mini-shoots a week and a half ago and she was like let's make a Christmas card... so we did!

It took all of about 20 minutes, record time. Because she was right there and we picked everything together. That's the way I'd like to do it with everyone!

I will be posting one more today... it's pretty much out of control

2 more days!

This particular card (as well as the one I will post tomorrow) were totally last minute ones. It worked out perfectly, and they came just in time to get out so they would arrive in mailboxes the week of Christmas!



Recently, I acquired a ton of vector art. I have been having more fun with it than I ever imagined. I don't even know how i survived without it before! The swirlies on this card is some of it. I love finding new things like this!

Flanders in da house!

I am laughing my head off as I do this post... becauuuuse

Tim's actual suggestion and desire for the card went like this.

Picture it: Same picture as shown here, but the wording changed to say, "merry Christmas... from the Flanders family (by faith)"

And then, 3 or 4 shadows lined up next to him here.



He is completely OUT OF CONTROL.

Anyways, good times, I like the way it ended up and since it was all his design essentially, he liked it too... good thing. HA!

Only 4 more days to go...

all wrapped up

Not like I think anyone really cares, but it's currently 11:56 and this WILL be being posted TODAY! All the way home I was thinking "oh no! what if i miss it and end up posting 2 in one day again?"

Like i said, I'm sure you care ;)



Anyways, only 5 more days til Christmas! Can you believe it? This is obviously Robb, Anna and Danielle's Christmas card hehe

Anna said to me this week after I gave them to her, "I should have had a kid a long time ago. Sending out Christmas cards has never been this easy." Hilarious I tell ya :)

I hope you all are cozied in during this crazy snow weather we're getting here in the ROC. I'm personally looking forward to my nice comfy bed right about now... speaking of which...

I'm out!

Smile!

Do you remember Joshua? and his mommy and daddy too of course :)



I'm very pleased with this one, it really didn't help that my subject matter was so adorable and good at posing! All three of them!

I'm going to keep it brief since I have a lot of work to do for upcoming family arrivals (ahem, cleaning etc) but I would like to direct your attention to the followers list I added to my blog yesterday. Please visit and click follow so I know who's stopping by!

And as the card says, I sincerely hope that this season is bringing you lots of reasons to smile :) I am, that's for sure!

because she's the mom, that's why!

These lovely people are my mommy and daddy. I still have yet to post their session, but that may be indicative of the fact that the cards were ordered before the actual pictures :)


This card was one of my biggest challenges as far as "making it work." I had an original design so close to this one, but not. if you know what I mean :) But this was the end result and I couldn't be happier, and I know for a fact that my mom couldn't be happier either... and that's what really matters :)

The Christmas card countdown!

Like i mentioned in the last post, I was thinking, oh yah, i'll just start posting Christmas cards in a couple days...

Cuz like, I wanna have it worked out so I can do one a day for 9 days before Christmas... yah, maybe I should get on that in like a couple days.

Wow. Wake up sista! It's already EIGHT days from Christmas! holy cow!

So, let it begin. I already shared with you the very first promotional Christmas card that I made in this post, but now it's time to start at the beginning of the mayhem that ensued shortly thereafter. I had NO idea how many people would take me up on doing Christmas cards this year... and now that the season is over, I am totally thinking about adding a cards/announcements aspect to my business.

This was my first request for a card from Chelle over at Creative Momma and I just LOVE it! We played around with a couple ideas before finally settling on this as the final creation.



How cute is the picture she sent me to use too!

Well, if you're not ready for Christmas by now, you better get on board! Cuz it's coming, and the cards will be too :) Stay tuned for more tomorrow... and the next day... and the next day... ok, you get the point LOL

the very first mini-session (rochester family and children photographer)

Yesterday was the last day to get stuff in to be on-time for Christmas and after it was over, I was so ready to take a break from staring at this screen constantly! I thought it would be really nice to take a whole day off from the lappie... but apparently I didn't need as much of a break as I originally thought :) This is in fact what I love to do! So, I'm back, and I felt it was only fair to share some more pictures.

This is the first mini-session i did probably about 4 weeks back now. It took just under an hour to get all 4 of these kids captured. They were all very good... except the 2 year old. But honestly, would you expect anything less of a 2 year old! I sure don't ;) Make me work for my money that's what I say LOL!



I am growing a certain affinity for sister pictures. I have ideas floating in my head for a sister's project, I just have to figure out how it all fits together. This particular picture is one of those that i saw so far ahead of when I actually clicked the shutter... that doesn't happen all the time. But when it does, it's nothing short of amazing. The last picture in this post is one that I will love forever and always... it's one of those pictures you miss in between everything else that is going on :)



I seriously don't remember how many I shot of the TWO OF THEM before I got this one! I'm not kidding when I say I think it was about 60. And this was the LAST one I took. Because when I got it, I got it haha! No need to drag it out any longer :)



This is Abigail... so sweet :) I don't know her very well but I have a feeling she has an artistic bent. She was very excited to do these pictures, and that's when I have the most fun taking them. It's always so much better when they want their pictures taken, am i right ;)



Here's Wesley. What a DOLL! I can say that because I'm fairly sure he won't find out ;)



This kind of picture is honestly one of my favorites :) just sooo cute! Lila was such a ham in front of the camera and it's so cute that this pic turned out because it really shows the silliness that she exhibited most of the shoot. that's the best!



And then there was "the 2 year old" haha! he is totally adorable, but he wanted nothing to do with me, my camera or anything picture related. Like i said before with the picture of the two boys together, this was another "shootasmanyasyoucanbeforeherunsaway!" shots LOL!


This picture is going in one of my all-time favorites. I have a lot of favorites, but there are only a few that make it to the favorite favorite list... how cheesy am i?

Anyways, there's only one more mini-shoot to post before I'm caught up with them... then I'm going to move into the 9 (yes that's right 9!) days of Christmas cards :) oh SNAP! that means I need to start TODAY!!! I'm SO excited!!! AHHH! Christmas is coming!

It's all Melissa's fault

In all my attempts to post once a day for as long as possible, I unfortunately do not have time to upload any pictures today! However, comma, I have been in Buffalo with Melissa, who is an awesome photog and she shot a couple mini-sessions of her own! Go check out her work on her photo blog.

I have a lot of stuff to post, but it will have to wait...

And I also decided that since I designed 7 Christmas cards this Christmas season (possibly 8!) so starting next Thursday (or Wednesday) I will be posting a Christmas card a day! Woohoo! Let the countdown begin! Christmas is soooo coming! and I still need to do shopping... oops.

Christmas mini-sessions

I've been brainstorming today while I sit here backing up my computer. Ugh.

I had a thought a couple weeks ago to do some mini-sessions but wasn't really sure how to do it. But I figured it out! And I hope you are as excited as I am!

Last night (my first night with the 5D!) I set up a mini studio in my dining room. It was really quite simple, but the pictures were turning out great! My mom was shooting, I was shooting... and neither of us were wearing make-up or trying to do anything special. We were just playing.



This is my 2nd favorite shot of the night, if you'd like to see the first, go here.

But it occurred to me, if it's this easy for me to take pics in my DINING ROOM why don't I have y'all over and help you make a FABULOUS Christmas present for your family :)

So here's the deal!

The mini-session (up to 4 people) will be $50 and include:
- the time and talent of the photographer at my home studio set-up
- 10 final images
- digital reproduction rights
- a single set of 4x5 permanent proofs

aaaaaaaaaaaaand!

***25% off cards and print order for any booked referrals!***

This offer is open to anyone in the area (or anyone who wants to travel to the area :)

I have 2 dates and 2 locations open for booking.

Saturday November 22 in Avon at my house

and

Saturday November 29 in Brighton at my friend Melissa's house


Please contact me asap if you would like to book for either of these dates. I already have one booking and I haven't even posted this yet!

contact@amandaslakesphotography.com