Wordless Wedneday: Wild flowers

The parks in Coventry have a new initiative this year to designate an area to wildflowers.  The results are stunning.  I hope the idea lasts.

Wordless Wednesday: Pink or Green?

Just can't decide! Can you help, please?

The dog's blog: An update on my assessment

Hello again,
Lots of you were kind enough to wish me luck with my Pets as Therapy assessment last week (see this blog if you missed it) - thank you.  Well, I'm happy to report it went really well - I got top marks in everything except that right at the start I pulled a bit, which I always do when I'm excited because I'm in a new place.  Even when I was being brushed, I totally resisted the temptation to even try eating the brush!

Yawning!

Mummy and Daddy were so pleased with me that I was immediately taken to Pets at Home to get treats (and a little tug toy gift for my friend Buddy who kindly lent me his short lead for the assessment).  Then we went to the park for a lunchtime walk where I met another three friends, the retired guide dogs, who are always great fun to run around with. 

After all that activity, I was totally flaked for the afternoon! 

Now the forms have to go back to the Pets as Therapy office where they decide whether I'm suitable, which could take three months.  The whole thing was nearly off when Mummy discovered she had to include a photograph of herself with the application as she's totally phobic about having her photo taken.  Anyway, she's decided she can always wear a balaclava during the visits so as not to scare the patients!  Finding a photo of me was not a problem as the place is full of them.  I chose this one where I think I look calm and serene :-)

See you soon,
Lucca  x

Folksy Friday: Fruits of the Forest

The woods and forests look pretty abundant at the moment, and I keep having to pick up the fallen apples, so why not a collection of non-edible fruits from Folksy sellers?  Click on any of the pictures to go directly to the shops.



1. Fruity fridge magnets by Kettle of Fish
2. Fruit wreath by Cranberry Charms
3. Bowl of stained glass fruit by JTs Creative Glass



 1. Apple pendant by Funky Art 2. Berry bookmark by Cinnamon Street 3. Pear door stop by Crabtree Lane

You can find more Folksy goodies on this fruity Pinterest board.
And you might like this treasury on the same theme on Etsy too.

Wordless Wednesday: The dog blogs again

Just look at the size of this!

Photography tips from a non-professional: Making your product photos stand out

This blog post on photography was so popular, I thought I'd dare to venture down that road again and show you my tips for post production, or making your product photos really pop after you've taken them.

I use Gimp but I'm sure the instructions are pretty much the same for other photo manipulation software.  Gimp is my choice because it's free and there are bits of it I can understand.  If only I had more time to work with it, I'm sure I could do some pretty cool things.  But I'm a confirmed amateur, and I'm deliberately avoiding any technical language here because I just don't understand it. 

Anyway, here goes!  Hope it's helpful.

Open your photo in Gimp - you perhaps want to make a copy to work on.  Here's some tigers eye and carnelian earrrings looking a little grey and flat.  What I'm showing you here is how to get a white background and make the image stand out but without distorting the colours or contrast of the product.

 Choose the 'colours' menu, and from that 'levels'

You get a graph - don't panic!  You are going to manipulate the graph, but it won't be like maths in school, honestly :-)

 Locate the little triangles underneath the graph at either end...

 ... and simply grab them and drag them to where the black shape on your graph starts.  I've started with the right hand one and pulled it over to meet the end of the black blob graph shape.  Note how this has already lighted the background from grey to off white. ('grab' and 'blob' are technical terms, honest!)

You can experiment with moving the triangles further, but you'll see once you are in the zone of the black shape of the graph, you'll start to distort the colour and contrast.  Keep the triangles right at the start of where the graphs start at either side, and you'll generally get the clearest image.

 You can save now, or alternatively, you can pick up the 'dropper' icon on the right....

 ...and pop it anywhere on your background.  With a bit of luck, it will give you a snow white background too!  Combine the two approaches and your product should really start to stand out.

 You've done it!  Any problems, you can always use 'reset'.  Don't forget to save before you quit. 

Phew!  My first tutorial with screen shots.  Let me know if it's useful, and if I've made any mistakes. 

Alison

Wordless Wednesday: Duck!

After half a mile, you're probably safe!

Wordless Wednesday: Roots

These fallen trees in a very old wood we visited are amazing.  The root systems are as tall as a man in diameter.  And the trees are still alive.  Nature is so resilient.

BESTeam weekly feature: RaeoLight on Etsy

Raeolight from Joplin, MO, is a shop dedicated to fine photography, converted into prints, cards and magnets, calendars and jigsaws and other great gift ideas.  There are some great photos, all taken by Rachel, who despite having no formal training, uses the power of photography to really offer some really stunning images.

I'm going for a spring, summer, autumn and winter collection to show how all the seasons of the year are captured by this talented young photographer.  Click on any of the pictures to go directly to the shop.

Spring and Summer





Fall and Winter







There are some seasonal items too, and a special section of gifts under $20 - perfect for this time of year.

You can catch up with Rachel and see more of her work here:
www.facebook.com/raeoflightphotos
or
www.raeoflightphotos.blogspot.com

BESTeam weekly feature: Danizabeth on Etsy

Danizabeth (Danielle Elizabeth) from Peru, IL, hosts this striking shop full of color enhanced photographs of cars in salvage yards, acoustic guitars and landscapes and features around Illinois.  Danizabeth is also a painter and graphic designer, and you can see her love of art and color in her striking work, which invites you to look at the world around in a slightly different way.

My favourite picks from this shop reflect the use of color enhancement on these striking photographs.  Danizabeth uses Photoshop to make these colors really pop and I think this gives her artwork a slightly surreal feel, like your looking at the pictures in a dream.

Here are my picks from the salvage yard shots:





The service truck and acoustic guitar at a local salvage yard. Blues and yellows are fantastic, aren't they?

The old green Chevrolet door handle with peeling paint layers around it. Danizabeth writes that 'The reds are coming from places that had been primed for a repaint which add a lot of character.'

And here are some landscape shots:





The first is Mount Ayr in Iowa.  I love the a-symmetry of the shot, and the beautiful colors of that field and building.  You can definately imagine yourself lying on that grass soaking up the view, can't you? Then an historic covered bridge in Illinois.  Red and green must be Danizabeth's favourite colors, I reckon.  If I've read it right, you can get seriously fined for 'leading any beast faster than a walk on or across this bridge.'  Best not take my dog, then, as his average speed is a gallop :-)

I have several really important things in common with Danizabeth, besides sharing her love of color.  One, we like animals (click here to view Bagheera in all her black cat glory).  Two, we love music and the beach - OK that's more than one thing.  Three, an addiction to shoes.  Four, we are left handed.  You can pick up many more interesting facts like these on the blog.

Check out more at the links below:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Danizabeth
http://www.danizabeth.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/danizabethphotography

Size matters revisited

Rose quartz earrrings

Do you remember this blog post?
 
It caused a lot of interest, and there were a lot of great comments, 26, made at the time. The issue of size in photographing jewellery is a big one for sellers I know, and I've seen it discussed in lots of the handmade forums. A friend of mine in the Lonely Jewelers Etsy team recently did a great blog post on a similar subject, how to make sure you bought the beads and findings that you wanted in the right size. 

Tree of life earrings

Green glass bead necklace

A lot of people commented on using the golf ball as a comparison, but not many thought it enhanced the jewellery!
 

The suggestion I liked most, and the one I'm trying out with all my new listings now, was from The Crafty Bride. The idea of using 1 cm squared paper, which is not intrusive, and enables you to take another shot that shows the intricacies of the piece in question, I thought was really inspired. 

Turquoise and white agate earrings

Here are some examples from recent listings. What do you think? It would be great to hear your views. And The Crafty Bride should win a prize for having such a great idea, and sharing it. What prize do you think I could award?

Wordless Wednesday: Some flowers

Photography tips from a non-professional

Can't believe that I'm going to give advice on photographing jewellery - I am anything but an expert!  However, a couple of people recently got in touch to ask me how I got my photos so clear - this was really flattering, and honestly not something I was expecting.  If you had seen the photos I started out with and the ones now, you'd appreciate what a steep learning curve I've been on.

After 8 months selling online, I've probably redone my photos about six or seven times.  It's an incredible waste of time and effort, so if I can pass on anything I've learned and save someone a bit of time, that'll be good.  Most of the advice I've picked up has come from lovely people in the Folksy and Etsy community (including members of the Lonely Jewelers on Etsy), they are the best source of tips and great at critiques.  Frequently I was in despair with the photos, and ready to close the shops because of them.  Although I don't hate taking photos now, I'd still rather be making jewellery or writing about it.

Professional photographers should look away now (or in fact anyone who knows a lot about it) because I'm sure I break most of the rules.  After all this time and a lot of reading, I still don't really understand what an F-stop is or why depth of field is critical.  I'm sure these things are important, but I've got to that age where you realise you can't learn everything about everything so you have to be selective! 

This is also about photography with limited space and little equipment.  I use a digital camera that is old and bulky by today's standards, and I live in the smallest house you can imagine.  My most expensive piece of new equipment is my floor standing tripod (it cost about £15) and it's now probably something I'd reach to save if the house were on fire.  You can see it in my set up here:

There it is all ready for the camera to sit on top.  It lets me get every possible angle on the jewellery and takes up very little floor space.

You might have noticed by now that the tripod is pointing at a windowsill and a piece of mulberry wrapping paper is blu-tacked to the window.  I told you this was non-technical stuff, didn't I?!  I did buy a light box originally but it never worked for me as well as natural light.  The wrapping paper diffuses the light nicely, I think.

Here I've placed the earrings to be photographed.  They are on a piece of silver craft card.  I've probably tried every background you can think of, and reflective ones definately work best for me.  For some, I use a piece of white glossy photo paper, but for the mookaite colours here, I like the silver card.  It actually comes out more white than a white background.  The physics people could probably tell you why, but I can't!  I love the reflection, and so long as your customer doesn't think they are buying two pairs of earrings, I don't see there's much harm in it.

You can just see our neighbour's house across the road in this shot!

My other tips for getting a good shot are:

• set the white balance manually on your camera every time you start to shoot a new object
• experiment with different exposures (+1.3 and above work best for me)
• if it's too sunny or too gloomy outside, forget pictures for the day!  There are probably other things you can do for your shop that day
• use macro and a bit of zoom together (I'm sure that's breaking the rules completely...)
• get up close and personal - you can have one shot with everything in, but the others can celebrate the detail of your work
• use some free software like Gimp to touch up, but don't overdo it.  If you're photo needs too much adjusting, it's probably better to start again with a different shot.

Here they are.  What do you think?  Comments and tips most welcome.

Etsy picks Lovely Labs

This week I'm going to give in to my love of all things Labrador-related.

As I type, my own pooch is doing his ritual wandering around the room, trying to decide if his tea has given him enough energy to play with a ball on a rope for a while, or if he's really too tired and should get settled on the sofa for the evening!  When he does settle, he won't look quite the same as this beautiful brown boy photographed by sdgphoto, but it will be similar:

Earlier in the day, Lucca had a bit of a swim in the river, something he's lucky enough to do most days.  He's never been in a boat - I think we'll leave that one until he's a little calmer (when will that be??!) I love this print by nativevermont - it beautifully captures the classic Labrador pose when alert and interested, I think:

Being a very sociable fellow, Lucca meets up with numerous doggie friends during the walking day.  Seeing one other Labrador makes him incredibly excited - if he were to encounter this brood from thelab it would be mayhem:

But it is nearly time to get Lucca a little companion.  Not sure yet what type of dog, but he's already been named 'Ted'.  Maybe it will be another brown Lab and they'll look as adorable as these two from art4milkbones

Sleep has won over toys now.  Lucca says goodnight!