Photo shoot fun

The girlies don't really like to model for me much anymore. I signed with a modeling referral service several months ago and I ship out my items and get professional modeled pictures for my advertising (I get full rights to the images) and the model/photographer keep my item(s) as their compensation. It has worked out pretty good. One set of pictures was awful and I had to file a complaint and get my items back, but other than that I have gotten some pretty good images and some amazing ones! It has allowed me to get younger and older girls and different ethnicity's than I have in my home.

But I don't always want to send out more expensive or one of a kind items. So I have to fall back on using my home grown models... and bribery.

The bribe this morning?

Mommy needs to sell some more stuff so there will be money available in my paypal account to do some Christmas shopping.

Worked like a charm!

They changed clothes several times, and made silly faces for each other to help me get natural smiles. It was fun! And I got some good pictures.

Uploaded a few new things to etsy this afternoon. Mini Top Hats are the up and coming fashion trend for play and especially for photo shoots. They are incredibly fun for me to make as I get to be creative. I priced mine below the average of the hats currently listed.

Hope I get some sale in the next month.

Christmas shopping needs to get started!

Pocahontas

I'm friends on FB with the nearest Chik-fil-a. Not only do we love their food, but the owners go to our church (and are adoptive parents of two little ones). On Friday the FB post from C-F-A was about a local theater performance. There is a branch of Christian Youth Theater on my area and they put on quite a few shows every year. I love theater, and so do the girlies, but we have never been. So when I saw the post about the show opening I checked it out.

Pocahontas. I knew the girls would like that. Tickets were $15 each. Affordable. I clicked on purchase tickets and it took me to a screen where I could select the performance, and then the exact seats in the local middle school auditorium. Most shows had a few seats on the sides and back, but the Saturday afternoon performance had three seats dead center in row F. Must have been turned back in or something. Everything around it was sold out. So I checked with Paul that he wasn't interested (duh) and bought the three great seats for a girlie adventure.

We had a blast! It was very impressive and so professional from the sets to the costumes to the programs. It is quite an operation. I loved that they had a performer come on stage before it began and open with prayer! The lead role was one of the daughters from the family from our church. She has an amazing voice! We ran into several friends at the show. This was the girls second live performance (took them to the local HS last year for Hairspray). They want to see the CYT show of Annie next month. All the shows they have coming up look neat. Too bad singing is not a gift anybody in our family has been blessed with. The girls were both excited and asked if one day they could be in a show like that. Unfortunately, you have to be able to sing.
For now we'll stick with the audience. We were excited to discover this gem in our community and will surely be back to watch many more productions!

Requesting Prayer

So few people stop by my little piece of the blogosphere, but if you happened to pop by, would you pray for us tomorrow (Friday)?

We are hoping to see God's hand move on our behalf, sense his guidance and feel his protection.

Thanks :)

Make Your Shopping Count!

It bothered me when I started seeing Christmas decorations for sale at some of the bog box stores near me last week... in September. It seems that the start of holiday commercialization gets earlier and earlier every year.

Are you doing any of your gift giving shopping yet? While I don't like to be last minute about mine, I really am not thinking quite that far ahead yet. But if you are starting to pick up a few gifts why not consider shopping with a purpose and support an adopting family!

Sharon, an adopting mom, is putting together a wonderful resource of links to families selling items to raise funds for their adoptions.

Check it out, then check out all the goodies that will not only bring a smile to the face of your gift recipients, but will help bring a child home.