The Grand Opening "Open House" *whew*

Yay! I got through the Open House. Y'all! I was SO stressed! But it was fun, and well worth it! We did a lot of last minute set up, and moved tables in, food in, a cooler full of ice in, dusted, mopped, swept, etc.

I got to hang my "Open" sign for the first time, and my daughter/assistant, Peri took this picture of me hanging it on the wall outside the front door. :)

We had a steady stream of visitors from 1:00-6:00 p.m. I had some of my framed art prints on display, as well as a slide show. Everyone that came to visit was very positive, including my friend and day-job boss, Brenda (that would be of Brenda's Creative Designs, for those of you who live in the greater Wayne County area). :)

At six o'clock I had my assistant, Peri, draw a name for the Photos On CD package give-away. That's Tim, my son and other assistant, holding the basket. ;)Congratulations to Don and Sue from LaGrange, NC, who won the package.

Meanwhile, back in the marketing department, I am going to be scheduling a spot on the public access morning spot to get the Wall 2 Wall name out there. I'm also starting to take notes on my commercial spots, as well, so this may be a very interesting week!

As many of you know, I offer a different type of portrait package. Your bargain basement packages consist of one or two poses in many different sizes. My session packages allow the customer to get prints of all shots taken, some even matted and ready for framing; many in custom albums. (Email me if you aren't familiar with our packages.)

At any rate, I've got to work some of my Sunday shoot. I will post that blog later this week.

Happy Tuesday, everyone! :)

Grand Opening!!!

Well, it looks like the day is finally coming when Wall 2 Wall Photography will officially open the doors to the studio!

We will be having our open house on Saturday, August 23, 2008 from 1-6 p.m.

Among the goings on will be a drawing for a free portrait package, reduced price 8x10 matted portraits (appointments can be set at the open house), portrait portfolios on display, a catalogue of landscape and still life prints that can be custom ordered to size, and our "meet & greet" for all of our new customers.

Please feel free to email info@wall2wallphotos.com for more information or directions to the studio.

We look forward to seeing you there!

The Misadventures of a Debit Card User

As most of you (all 2 or 3 of you out there that are actually reading these) know, I am a very small business. (Wall 2 Wall? Party of one?)

Because of this, and the fact that I am just starting to get this puppy off the ground, I do not have a generic business credit card. (As a sole proprietor, to obtain one through the bank, one needs to fill out a financial report with information including, but not limited to, your assets (house, car, bank accounts, insurance policies, etc.), your income (and your spouse's if you plan on using it; highly recommended to justify your debt to income ratio if you depend on both salaries to pay your bills), the amount of business you anticipate over the next 12 months, etc. This is because if you are not a corporation (i.e. an LLC) your personal assets can be taken in the event you default on your business loan. Neat how that works, huh?

Anyway...My business checking account came with a debit card that can be used online for those types of purchases. I have used mine twice; once to order checks, and once to order a checkbook cover.

So, yours truly is going through her transactions to balance the checkbook (after having blown the dust off of it) using the online banking function that was re-established after a period of non-usage. I discovered two transactions for $11.99; once on July 1 and once on August 1. Don't ask me why or how, because I honestly don't know.

I get on the phone and call the bank to inquire about the above transactions and they did a little research and gave me an 800 number to call and have them credit the charges back to my checking account. So I called. It was disconnected. BIG shock there, huh? So I called the bank again, and they took my information and stated that a customer care specialist in their fraud department would get back with me within 48 hours.

During the 48th hour I received a voicemail from the bank (I'd been down with a bug since the night of the discovery of the charges and stayed in bed the remainder of the week), who gave me another 800 number to call. Tried that. A few times. Line was busy. Hmmmm. So the following day I get a little packet in the mail that I filled out yesterday and took to the bank. One was an affidavit stating that I wasn't lying about the fraudulent transaction(s), and the other was the actual fraud report. The affidavit had to be signed in front of a notary, and since there was one at the bank, I figured I would just leave the paperwork with them, rather than burn a couple of days waiting on USPS to do their thing. (I don't like them very much right now, either, but that's another story.)

Yes, I know...It's only, what? $23.98? Not a lot of money...Unless you don't have a lot of money in your busines account to start with, because you're trying to get up and running.

I have done a LOT of online transactions over the past five years. I mean, I'm an e-bay addict, purchase a lot of mats and whatnot online for our benefit art auctions, etc. and in that time, this is only the second time anything like this has happened to me.

On the one hand, doing online transactions with a debit card pretty much puts it too close to the actual cash. On the other hand, I'm not really comfortable putting all of my personal assets out there JUST so I can get a business credit card at this point in time. When I do my LLC? Sure. I'll use the business financial information. The less I have to put my personal assets on the line the better I like it. :)

So the only think I can feasibly do at this point in the game is continue to do as I have been, but do business ONLY with companies I am familiar with and have done business with in the past, and continue to keep a sharp watch on what is going on with my bank statements.

The first time this happened was because I apparently didn't read the ULTRA small print when I ordered some business cards (and apparently neither did a couple thousand other people). This time I was not familiar with the company that charged the card, but after having done some research, it seems that the company in question nails people that use other companies. There are another few thousand unsuspecting web-consumers that have fallen prey to this company, as well, so I'm apparently in good company, huh?

Ahhhh, life's lessons. You gotta love 'em. Until next time....

Claudia's Shoot

Wow, and *whew*!

What a busy week it's been!

We did our first portrait session in the new building last week and it went so well! I had the good fortune to take pictures of some of the neatest kids I've ever met! They were not camera shy in the least and it was so much fun from a photographer's standpoint!

I can only hope that they had as much fun as I did. :)

I'm posting a handful of images from that shoot so that Claudia & Caycee can kind of check them out in the interim between the shoot and receiving the package. :)

I am also posting some of the fun, "unofficial" shots that we took, as well.

We didn't have any malfunctions with the lighting, nobody fell off the furniture, and I even remembered to take the lens cap off the camera, unlike my very first session in the dining room. :)

One of the best things about being a portrait photographer is being able to capture families when they are all together.

Thanks, you guys, for letting me be part of such a fun & special evening!

OMG! We Are SOOO Overbudget!!!

I am sitting here feeling sooooo stupid it isn't even funny.

I took last night off. Sue me. I was tired...I mean reallllly tired. I got off of work early, thinking that I'd come home and do a little interior housekeeping in the studio, but I didn't. I sat down in the recliner and crashed. Hard.

I was supposed to go to the bank and deposit a check I'd received, but I figured I would take care of that later. I was also supposed to move the remaining funds from the studio savings to the main checking account, too, but I figured I would take care of that later, too. I mean, we came in SO under budget that it almost hurt, so we thought, hey! Let's put the deck/porch/rails up, since we have all of this extra money. *feeling stupid* But move the money FIRST!!!!!

Lesson learned? Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow.

Wait...I got that backwards. That's what you aren't supposed to do. Which is what I did. Dangit!

Lesson learned? ALWAYS (no matter HOW tired you think you are) do today financially what you probably shouldn't put off until tomorrow. I.E. GO TO THE BANK WITH THE MONEY!!!!!

Johnny had to go to class in Havelock this morning, so we got up at oh-dark-thirty, and I caught up on house work, laundry, soaps, etc., completely oblivious to the financial issue that awaited me.

Then, around 10:30 or so, I decided a little R&R would be a good thing, because everyone knows that all work and no play makes Jules a dull girl, right? I threw on my swimsuit, grabbed a Nicholas Sparks novel, went out to the backyard and laid out by the pool, swam a little bit, and didn't think a thing about financial stuff. I mean, c'mon. It's Saturday, for heaven's sake...give a girl a little down time! Went inside, took a shower, cleaned some more, and finally got motivated enough to come in and check email and whatnot, logged into my bank, and *gasp* find that I am tres overdrawn!

You have never seen anyone move so fast! I was moving money around like one of those guys you see in the old movies doing the shell game. I absolutely almost never overdraw my account, but guess what? I really shoulda stopped at the bank on my way home yesterday, and I never shoulda crashed in that recliner. I hate an overdraft fee. I mean, c'mon! I almost NEVER get them! I make a habit of NOT bouncing checks, man! I'm serious. I take it personally if I get an overdraft fee. I'm feeling pretty stupid right about now. Why? Because as much as I hate an overdraft fee, I hate four of them even more!

I love this studio. I do, but I've gotten really slack when it comes to the finances. I am usually the one doing online banking every single night of the week and this last couple of days have been so surreal. Thursday night I posted in here, just as happy as a pig in...well...sunshine, and didn't even think to look at the bank balance. I was so busy reveling in the fact that I actually had lights, music, and the Internet, that I completely forgot to move money when money needed to be moved. Shame on me. Really. From financially responsible adult to kid with new toy in record time.

Note to self: Dear Julie....GROW UP!!!!!