I just have to thank all the fabulous women who attended my April workshop last weekend. What an amazing time we all had!!! It was so fabulous to meet you all and spend time together. My poor voice is still recovering but I hope that it will come back here soon. Other than my froggy voice, I so thoroughly enjoyed myself!

A few images from the workshop:

Thanks again, everyone! It was so fantastic!

Well, I've decided to add 2009 professional workshop dates in Sydney, Australia and London, England. So here are the details!

Professional Workshop in Sydney, Australia on July 23-25, 2009. Cost $1095 aud. Location TBA but most likely will be in the Cronulla Beach area.

Professional Workshop outside London, England on September 28-30, 2009. Cost £750. The workshop will be held in the Library of historic Hanbury Manor. You can choose to stay in the manor or there are other less expensive hotels just down the road. We will have access to the gardens for shooting during the workshop. Check out this location if you have a few minutes. It is truly amazing!

Both workshops will begin the first night with a dinner and group discussion. The next two days will be filled with in-depth discussions of creativitiy, composition, technical aspects, all things glorious and photoshop, on-location shooting and ways to make your business work for you. The workshop registration will also include a $100 usd gift certificate to my Flourish Emporium online shop.

I will be opening up both workshops for registration within the next week or two, once I have all the final details and reservations in place. If you're interested in being placed on a waiting list for the workshops or just want to be sure that you receive email updates about them, please email me at nichole@nicholeV.com.

Yay! I'm so excited about these new workshops!

Ok, first of all, thank you soooooo much for taking the time to submit a name for my poor old truck. It's been so fun reading through your posts and seeing all the fun, creative things that you all came up with! I so appreciate you taking the time to share your fun ideas with me!

Before announcing my name choice, I have to acknowledge some of my favorite posts and my runner-up names.

My mom voted for Conni's suggestion of Theodore Blu and Claudia's suggestion of Senhor Theodore because I named my teddy bear Theodore as a child.

I loved do many of the names you suggested with Ford in the name, like Buford and Rutherford and Rik's suggestion of Henry the Ford.

Actually, many of you suggested Henry and Edward. I liked the names, but as those are family names, when I would say, "Let's go visit Ed," I didn't want to have to explain which Ed I meant. My family has a bad habit of naming everything and everyone the same 10 names, I swear, so I thought that I would break from that tradition.

I also really liked Shannon's suggestion of Medwyn, as it seemed a strong nod to my Celtic heritage.

I got a good laugh over Miesje's suggestion of PAT -- Photographer's Assitant Truck.

And Robyn gets the best alliteration award for her comment: "Freakin' fantabulous Frank. He's a little frazzled and on the fritz, but he's funny and flirty and an F100 Ford. Just don't paint him fuchia." As a former English instructor, I couldn't let such excellent literary skills pass without commenting on them!

The English teacher in me also loved Brekke's suggestion of Walt as a reference to Walt Whitman and his poem "To a Stranger."

But in the end, there was one name that stuck with me. I don't know why excatly, but as soon as I read the post, both my husband and I said, "Yep, that's the name!"

So my truck is now officially named

Harrison the Ford

as suggested by Jennifer Clare. I know many of you suggested Harry and even Ford, but the whole Harrison Ford connection didn't click until Jennifer's post. And he's definitely a Harrison, not a Harry. So thank you so much, Jennifer for your clever suggestion. And if I don't email you first, please email me to claim your prize!

As for everyone else, I do so appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment and I'm going to be emailing everyone who posted a special gift certificate for $10 off your next Flourish Emporium purchase. So look for that in your inbox within the next day or so!

Thanks again and stay tuned for a big announcement tomorrow. I'm adding two new workshop dates for 2009 and you'll be excited to see where they are . . . .

Come help me! I've got a new prop and he desperately needs a name!

I've been looking for the perfect prop truck for about 9 months now, so when I saw this one, it was love at first sight. I knew that it was meant to be. He's a 1952 Ford F100 and yes, he does look kinda sad just parked in my driveway like this, but as soon as the snow melts, he will be moved into the trees and my outdoor studio.

I had a pretty long wish list for my old truck and this guy hits them all and then some. He's perfect in every way! He doesn't even have an engine, so I don't have to worry about the environmental impact of leaking oil or antifreeze.

He has it all . . . . a teaser shot of more wonderful things to come (I hope!)

He's only lacking a name. Because, c'mon, who can have a truck like this and not name it? So I'd love some help naming him.

Please leave your name suggestions as a comment to this post and I will pick his name from the list. The person with the winning name will win a free action set of their choice (a $39 value) from my Flourish Emporium store. The contest will close on Friday, March 27th.

Yay! Can't wait for my poor old truck to have a proper name!

Well, I was contacted by the wonderful Ainslie Bernoth to take part in her Inspire Me 2009 Workshop in Brisbane, Australia in July. It promises to be the MOST amazing workshop, with me, Joey Lawrence, Zach Arias and Andrea Joki. Yay!! You can see all the details here:

Inspire Me 2009

Hope to see you there!

Well, I had my first Beginner Workshop on Saturday and it was amazing fun! It was so wonderful to finally meet everyone and see all the incredible things that you guys did during the workshop. I saw beautiful images that people took during the workshop and can't wait to see how you continue to learn and grow over the next few months! Yay!

So to celebrate, I thought a little sale on Flourish would be a appropriate! So use this coupon code at checkout to receive an extra 10% off your entire purchase:

newsletter032009

The coupon code will expire on March 20, 2009.

Thanks again!

Just thought that I would post this link. Heidi Swapp created this awesome behind the scenes look at the shoot we did. So if you want to read about my process and see some of the set up and such, take a look!

House of 3 Behind the Scene

Well, I've been so lucky to be working with three amazing ladies recently . . . the fabulous babes of www.houseof3.com . . . . they are three of the biggest names in the scrapbooking industry: Heidi Swapp, Rhonna Farrer and Janet Hopkins. And they were kind enough to stop by for a little photosession!

So what do you get when put three such amazing woman together?

A little attitude . . . .

Some jumping . . .

Some spinning . . .

and some sledding, courtesy of the amazing Jefra Linn . . .

A lot of fabulousness . . .

But mostly a lot of laughter and fun!

It was so wonderful, you guys . . . . I'm still reeling from so much creative energy in one place! Check out their site!

So new dates are available for my {life as art} workshops! I've added a new beginner workshop to be held on June 6, 2009 and a new professional workshop to be held on August 27-29, 2009. Check out the website for all the details:

{life as art} workshops

Also, I have made my Essential Color Pop and Essential BW actions compatible with Adobe Photoshop Elements 7. You can check the actions out in my Flourish Emporium shop:

Flourish Emporium

If you already own my PSE actions and need an upgrade to PSE 7, please email me. I will send you instructions on how to load your current PSE actions into PSE 7.

Oh, and little teaser image:

More fabulous things to come tomorrow . . . .

So it seems that I'm always taking serious images of my daughter . . . . enough that you'd think that she was a serious kinda girl . . . . of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. She's spunk and sparkle and laughter all the time. Her biggest challenge in life is sitting quiet and still for even 2 minutes at a time!

Case in point . . . . Last summer, I was doing a little newborn shoot with my kids, these photos here:

And as I finished shooting, my daughter opened the little white purse you see lying there on the ground, and whips out her pink sunglasses and pink disney princess phone (seriously . . . . why would she think to put sunglasses and a phone in her purse? as if I carry a purse . . . haha) and starts a conversation, I think, with Princess Aurora about who they're going to invite to their party.

And then she was off to dreamland . . .

One last image . . . . loved how she just grabbed him by his jacket and pulled him in for a kiss. So her!