Rings! Rings! Rings!

I have been on a ring-making frenzy.

First I ran out of ring blanks. Then I discovered an old stash of vintage buttons. For weeks I had button stacks sitting in my room waiting to be made wearable! So I ordered 20 ring blanks, and the result...


A rose garden of rings!

I also made a couple rings without the copper roses:


And I can tag Vintage onto the title because they're made with vintage beads!



Regarding the photo tips series - it will continue, but is on a temporary hiatus because between teching a local play and the insanity of finals, my spare time is nil. (Nil is a word that doesn't get used enough.)

Thanks for your patience! I hope you enjoy my creations.

Help!

I need your help! I made these beautiful button stacks with vintage buttons and now I don't know what to make with them! I only have two.



What do you think?

Two rings?

Earrings?

Hairpins?

Something else?

I'd love to work them into a necklace or a bracelet somehow, but how??

Please help!

Tips for Good Listings: Lighting and the Evils of Flash

A recent edition of the email newsletter for Etsy Sellers commented on the evil that is flash, but I would like to expand on why it is evil, and also address the horrors of tungsten lighting and the importance of white balance.

I've photographed a pair of earrings that I made. Because I made them for myself, they are clip-ons. However, if people like them enough, I may remake them and sell them.

We'll start with flash.




























Flash vs. Natural Light

OK, the difference is clear. But I'll point a few things out.

In the photo with the flash, the colors are different, and the shadows are harsher. And the photo with flash is actually darker than the photo without! But more than all that - is that the kind of lighting you'd normally see the item in?

Unless the item is something that would normally appear in harsh light - and I can't think of anything that would - don't photograph it using that light.

This does not apply for artistic photography - flash can produce some interesting results by accident or if you know how to use it.

OK. Now to lighting in general.

USE NATURAL LIGHT.

Tungsten is Evil.

Tungsten makes everything orange. Even when using tungsten white balance, the colors are off.

That being said, bright daylight is very bright and will create some pretty harsh shadows. Cloudy days are your friend.

I'm lucky. I have a sort of frosted plastic covering the outside of my window for additional insulation. I always have great photography light.

Windows are your friends. Set up your photos on the windowsill, maybe early in the day when the sunlight isn't as harsh.


White balance is very important as well. Your photos will look blue or orange with the wrong white balance - and you CAN'T rely on auto-white balance. The colors on your items need to be true to life.

Photos taken in tungsten with different white balances:









Big differences, right?













Various white balances in natural daylight:

Once more, a big difference.


The completely blue one is tungsten white balance. Maybe that gives you an idea of how warm tungsten light is. ((shudder))













So pay attention! Bring out the booklet that came with your camera, find out how to adjust the white balance, and then play with it until the results match reality.

Next I'll talk about shutter speed, and photographing in manual mode. =D

Corrections? Comments?

I <3 My Suitcase

$3 at Salvation Army got me this awesome suitcase:



I think I'm going to decoupage/glue newspaper in the shape of a flower with a vine over the scuff above, with smaller flowers over any other scuffs, and then paint over the newspaper with some bright color of acrylic paint.

(please excuse the wonky drawing)


I can't wait to get started!

Picture Time

OK, picture update.

These are the sleeves I'm going to cut off to make my arm warmers:

BROWN:



BLACK:

I have a bunch of options embellishment-wise for the brown one, because my mom found a bag of old buttons and they're AWESOME.


These pictures somewhat suck, because I took them pretty early this morning which means they were taken in tungsten light, which messes up the colors.

HERE are the tutorials I mentioned before:

Arm Warmers (scroll down)

T-Shirt Hat

Plans for new items

I haven't made anything recently for my Etsy shop, because life has been a bit hectic lately. So instead, I shall share with you my Plans For New Items.

On my recent foray into the great and mighty world of free online sewing tutorials, I discovered both a tutorial on making arm warmers out of old sweaters and one on making cute hats out of old T-shirts. Naturally, my thought was: Matching sets!

If I'm going to cut up an old sweater I might as well use as much of it as possible.

Now I know posting this blog without pictures will seem totally hypocritical after posting a blog about the importance of images, but the next post will be full of pictures, I promise you. =)

I'll have the first in the photo tips series thing up by Friday (see previous post). And tomorrow - or possibly later today - I shall sketch out and scan my plans, and find the link to the aforementioned tutorials.

I have a brown sweater that is far too small and a black sweater that is all stretched out. The brown set is getting all embellished with various buttons while the black set will be unique and lovely without any outside assistance. ^_~

The Importance of Images

We live in an increasingly visual world. Proof: in Shakespeare's day, people didn't go to see a play. They went to hear a play. Which is probably one of the reasons that Willy the Shakes didn't write many stage directions other than Exits, Exeunt, or my personal favorite, Exits, pursued by a bear (in The Winter's Tale - look it up if you don't believe me).

Online, especially, graphics are key. A website is not a novel. Know why? It's on a screen. We are programmed, from decades of television, to expect images from screens. And it should be that way. Screens are hard on your eyes - add that to crowded lines of text and you're headed for a headache and vision strain. Images give the eyes a resting point on the page.

If you're selling something online, the stakes are raised. The customer needs to feel as if they know the item. They can't pick it up, feel it, turn it over in their hand before buying it - you have to do that for them, through your pictures. This puts you both at an advantage and at a disadvantage.

Advantage? The right photo can make anything look good. A great photo can be enough to sell an item, regardless of price or description (as long as the description isn't full of typos - more on that later).

Disadvantage? You've got to learn how to take a great photo. And then you've got to take them, and load them on your computer, and crop them, and adjust the color, Et-Cetara, Et-Cetara, Et-Cetara (as the King of Siam would say). It's a lot of time and a fair amount of effort.


I spend a decent amount of time on the Etsy Critiques forum, so I've gotten a feel for what works and what doesn't, and what some common mistakes are. I'm gonna do a series of posts about good photography and good listings.

Has this been done before? Yep. Many many times, by professionals and experts and newbies alike. But it hasn't been done by me, and though I'm no professional, maybe I'll have something new to say. And some things need to be said a lot.

To be written about:

Setting Up Your Shot
Backgrounds
Lighting & White Balance, AKA The Evil of Flash
Retouching/Editing
Choosing Your Main Photo
Close Up vs. Zoomed Out
Troubleshooting
Listing Do's & Don'ts

& more as I think of stuff to write about.

PLEASE comment on the posts when I post them! Feel free to correct me, disagree, or add to what I've said. I am no professional - these are just things I've learned from experience. =)

FABRIC!

I took a trip to the fabric store today! ~^_^~

I got the fabric for my cargo pants - lovely bright yellow and turquoise for the trim.


And I got a couple fat quarters to make a sewing supplies bag - the white is the outside and the green is the lining. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the white fabric is AWESOME - all bright colors and hearts and flowers and stylized zippers and patter pieces and measuring tape and sewing paraphernalia mixed in! Perfect for a sewing bag.


I'll be using EveningStar's Simple Zipper Case tutorial from Burdastyle:


The dimensions will be different - deeper and longer I think. I can't wait to get started!

Gearing Up for Sewing...

I'm getting a sewing machine for my birthday, and this summer, I'm going to be working in an internship with the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, and the site is right on the beach. So I'm making myself some new clothes!

After almost a month of searching, I finally found a pattern for cargo pants that wasn't totally lame. Most seem to not be made for actual use besides lounging around the house. Why would you need pockets to do that?

I'm going to be part of the set crew, so I'm going to make them out of something tougher than just cotton - linen, probably. I went to my local fabric store the other day and looked at what they had in the type of fabric I wanted, and now I'm even more excited than I was before.

Originally I'd decided to stick with the traditional camo, army green, black, khaki, etc.

Now I'm thinking yellow with turquoise trim. And maybe another pair with purple or green. They had such good colors! And I'm planning on dying my hair orange and reddish pink and blue anyway, so why shouldn't the rest of me be colorful?

Other than the cargo pants, I've been looking around online for some free patterns and fun projects, and I found some great stuff on BurdaStyle!

They have awesome free patterns, but for some reason once I download the PDF, I can't open it on my computer. So I took a look at the how-tos instead, and found a bunch of great stuff there as well!

This mini purse is easy and cute, and enlargeable if you want. It looks so stylish, and seems simple to make from the excellent directions by kquade. I can't wait to try it out!


I also found this wallet-making tutorial, which I will be attempting once I get some more skills. It doesn't seem too complicated, and the result looks like something you'd buy at Target, but I'm not sure I want to tackle snap buttons yet.


These Indian salwar pants look sooooo comfortable! I can't wait to try to make some. The pleats in front will be a challenge, but I'm sure I can do it.


Check out these and other great how-tos on this awesome site! More of my discoveries coming soon. Happy stitching!

Arts and Crafts

Why is it that when someone says something about "The Art of (whatever)" or the "(whomever)'s Craft" it sounds all high-toned and artisan, but when you hear the phrase Arts & Crafts the association is with Girl Scouts, and cheap things made quickly and inexpertly out of Popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners?

Popsicle sticks are actually pretty awesome. In the original version of The Parent Trap, one of the Haley Mills makes a Popsicle stick birdcage that looks AWESOME, and reminds me of a lot of what I see featured on Etsy. And having spent several summers at a summer camp as a kid, I can testify that there is nothing inexpert in making a lanyard. That takes serious skills. And people would spend all day knotting a friendship bracelet that would in the end be a beautiful and intricate piece of jewelry.

Maybe it's because you don't have to spend a lot of money to do "Arts & Crafts". Maybe it's that people remember doing them as a kid, and therefore think it must be cheap and require little skill. They're wrong!

So here's to Arts & Crafts, that sadly undervalued and underestimated category of creations. Here's to tissue paper and Elmer's glue, popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners, finger paints and boondoggles and all the crafts we learned as a kid and have left by the wayside. Vivan las Arts & Crafts!