Last month I had the pleasure of touring the new Two Paperdolls studio in Wayne and even caught a glimpse of the birth announcements being designed for my wonderful client E. Still, I was unprepared for the sheer delightfulness of the finished creation.  What a lovely surprise to find this in my mailbox. For those of us who love all things paper, Two Paperdolls cannot be topped.  I even picked up a couple of things from their Etsy shop yesterday.  Thank you to N. for showing me around, and E. for sending me the darling card announcing sweet Addie's arrival.

Remember this adorable girl and her mod nursery?

Prepare yourself for the deliciousness . . .

Oh, and a little certain someone wondered why SHE wasn't in the spotlight today.

LAURIE WOOD!  Come on down! (or up, or over!)  Congratulations to Laurie and many thanks once again to all who entered!  My super scientific random method included putting all of the comments that came in into a separate e-mail folder, making duplicate entries for those of you who tweeted etc but forgot to put an extra comment in, and also throwing in the names of those who have already registered for the workshop (just in case!). Add a random number generator and a five-year-old helper and there you are!

Laurie, send me an e-mail with your choice of date and I will get you all set up!

Thanks again to all who entered and all who will be attending.  You are the best!

UPDATE: Yay!  Everything seems to be working fine yet again.  Thank you for your patience!  For the record, I am using 1% of my bandwidth, so I don't think we were overrunning the server.  I say this, however, as someone who really has no idea if one thing relates to the other.  ha ha!  At any rate, we are back on track and all comments through 4:30 were accepted into the contest. Going to the Random Number Generator now and will be back at 5pm with the lucky winner AND a special time-sensitive announcement.

Comments for the workshop contest will be closed in one hour at 3pm EST. Enter now!

Be sure to check back at 5pm to see who has won AND for a special time-sensitive announcement for those who did not win but who still wish to attend.

Thank you! I have been thoroughly humbled by all of your kind remarks and appreciate them more than I can express.

Good luck, everyone!

p.s. Just in case this blog starts acting up again, I will post the winner + announcement over at the WordSmith blog as well (different hosts/servers).

UPDATE: Apologies for the slow-loading (if at all loading) blog yesterday. Why oh why would there be a server outage on the day I run a contest?  :)  The contest is still open through Friday, March 5th at 3pm. Thank you!

While the cat has been out of the bag on facebook and twitter for some time now, I have yet to announce the big news on the blog.  That's right, the Joyce Smith Photography natural light studio will be opening soon in downtown Wayne! I've looked longer than I care to admit for a space and am so happy to be giving up my part-time job as a commercial real estate stalker. I will be equally happy to leave my current position as renovation overseer as well.  Painting and lighting projects should be complete this week, and the beautiful white floors will be next.  Then the fun part . . . the cavalcade of furniture deliveries (think beautiful modern classics that are *also* kid proof!) will arrive. Stay tuned for details regarding our grand opening in April.  I cannot wait to introduce clients to the space and detail all of the wonderful advantages it will provide.  It goes without saying--though I will say it anyway--that I will continue to offer on-location sessions in addition to sessions in and around the studio. More details on everything studio are forthcoming!

And now, a little eye candy for my photographer friends. This beauty arrived in the mail yesterday, just in time for my birthday today. Happy Birthday to me indeed!  I cannot wait to play with this storied medium format camera. Some of my favorite blogs show off the art produced with this camera beautifully.  Check them out if you have time! And yes, watching my daughter look for the nonexistent LCD screen on the back of this film camera was priceless!  

Finally, a present for YOU on my birthday! I'm giving away one free seat to an extraordinary workshop.

Yes, you read that correctly!  Would you like to attend either the May 6th & 7th workshop or the July 10th-11th workshop?  If so, here's how to enter! One lucky winner will be chosen randomly and announced on the blog this Friday, March 5th.

1) leave a comment on this blog to enter once. Please note that comments on my facebook blog feed will not be transferred here--you must comment here. : )

2) if you'd like to enter more than once to increase your odds of winning, you may do either or both of the following:

-- tweet about the contest, providing a link to this blog post, and come back here to leave another comment saying you tweeted

-- if you'd like to post about the contest on your own blog, providing a link back here, that's good for an additional comment and entry as well

Ready . . . steady (keeping it British here even though, regrettably, I am from Florida : )) . . . go!  

I've been a little scarce on the blog lately--mea culpa!  I have a nearly overwhelming number of things in the works right now (oh please tell me that FedEx will be delivering my clones soon! ;)) but many big announcements coming up in the near future.  Stay tuned!  Buttercup is licking her chops in anticipation. :)  Actually, if there were a thought bubble on this image, I think it would simply say "bacon!"