Photography

Talk to any Etsy seller and they will tell you that one of the most important things they can do for their shop - and also one of the most frustrating - is taking good pictures.  I have been using a white background for my photos thinking that it's a nice clean look.  Here's an example of a picture of a card on a white background:

As you can see, the background isn't a nice, bright white color; it's actually dingy looking.  To get a really clean, white background you need really bright sunshine or some good lamps.  Another thing that would help is some good photo editing software so that I could brighten up the background.  I use a free photo editing website called Picnic and the old adage "you get what you pay for" is certainly true.  It's better than nothing, but doesn't do all that I would like.

I recently tried taking pictures of cards on the same window sill I always use but without the white tagboard I usually use.  Instead I just set the card on the wooden sill and the pictures look like this:

It's much easier to brighten up the picture because the software isn't trying to decide what should be white.  I think the card actually shows up better, but I'm wondering if the wood is distracting.  I'd love to hear your thoughts - which background do you think shows off the card better?

Another trick I use when taking pictures is to use an item to prop up some items, such as tags as shown below:

Any idea what items I used to prop up these tags?  Duck calls.  Duh!

Card making

As promised, to follow are pictures of the cards I was busy making last night.

This card was made using some adorable birdie paper that I had, I think it's from October Afternoon.  I love the colors!  The yellow & white accent paper is actually the back of the birdie paper.

I used vintage sheet music to make this card - the sheet music is from the 1950's and very thin.  I learned the hard way not to cut it with my Cricut; it stuck to the mat and wrecked the mat - it's no longer sticky.  Anyway, my mom is involved in choir and has lots of musical friends so I thought she would like having some music-related note cards on hand.

I saw this cardinal patterned paper and knew that my mom would love it, so I used it to make several cards for her.  Most of them are thank-you cards, but I made a few miscellaneous cards too.

Another music-related card for my mom.  This one says "just a note" and could be used for just about anything.  I have a set of music stamps, such as the just a note shown above, and rarely use them so it was fun to get them out and try different things.

This picture is very blurry . . . don't look too long or you will get a headache!  A man I know is retiring (he's been a lawyer for 40 years!!) so I wanted to make a card for him.  I used the same pattern that I have used in the past for graduation, Confirmation and Easter.  The vellum is printed with words that describe life in retirement such as "no more ties", "playing tennis", etc.  I used Becky Higgins font for the word "congratulations" - love it!

Because I had some small pieces of sheet music left over I decided to make a few birthday gift tags.  I love making tags!

So that's how I spent my Saturday evening.  I had lots of fun and it was nice to make a variety of things.  Today I'm working on a few new projects which I will post in the next couple of days.

Christmas is over folks - let's move on

I made this mini album back in October of 2008. The front and back cover features a fun orange and brown scroll design.  I don't know if I've had any other item get as many views without ever selling.  I get lots of comments on the mini album and I think the price is reasonable ($12) but for some reason it hasn't sold.  It's possible that the pictures don't show very well, or maybe it's just not anyone's style.  If you have any thoughts about this album feel free to share them!  Here are some photos:

The album has 20 completed pages tucked into protective sleeves for safekeeping. Because the pages are removable you could easily change the order of the pages or add photos, art or journaling and slip them right back into the protective sleeve.

I still like this album and may just use it myself!

I'm just a busy little crafter tonight.  For some reason I'm in a card making mood, which means that my mom is about to get a bunch of cards!  I'll take some pictures in the daylight tomorrow and post them for your viewing pleasure.

Is the weather outside frightful?

Oh, there's nothing quite so exciting as the possiblity of a big snowstorm!  It's all over the news right now - Minnesota is going to be hit with a 3 day snowstorm, and the weather folks are predicting 14-24 inches in our area of the state.

What?  That's just not possible!  I heard that the last time there was a big snowstorm right at Christmas was back in the 1940's.  WOW.  The prediction is that the snow will start Wednesday evening, which really doesn't fit into my schedule that well.  I have plans Mother Nature!  We'll see.

In the meantime, I finished a custom order for 35 Bachlorette Party invites.  I'd love to show you a picture, but none of the pictures I took are very good - I used some shiny silver ribbon that didn't photograph well at all.  So, take my word for it - very cute.

I've been gathering supplies for Valentine's Mini Album - I can't wait until I have time to work on it!  There are so many really fun items for Valentine's Day so I have great expectations for this album.

Are you ready for Christmas?  Presents wrapped?  Food prepared?  I need to make 2 cards, and they are supposed to have a pig on the front.  Huh.  I don't have a pig on either of my Cricut Cartridges . . . guess I'll have to search the web.

Merry Christmas!

Vintage papers

In September I went to northern Wisconsin with my Book Club for a nice, long weekend.  On the way (it's about a 3 hour drive) we stopped by a roadside stand hoping to find some good bread.  We found that and so much more!  They had baked goods, vegetables that had been canned, antiques and free coffee!  We seriously thought we had hit the jackpot.

While my friend looked through the baked goods and vegetables I was drawn to a pile of old books.  I found this old ledger and fell in love!  It is from the 1920's and contains pages and pages of ledger papers.  Some of the pages have been written on but many are blank.  Here's an idea of what the inside pages look like:

Also inside I found this letter:

It reads:

Dear Mrs. Schultz:  In compliance with your request we can give the following description of your late husbands diamond ring.  The ring was purchased September 5, 1951, the cost at time of purchase was $900.  The diamond was approximately two carats and an old mine cut stone, white in color and very slightly imperfect.

The letter was dated August 5, 1958 and was from Bagley & Company in Duluth, MN.

I love this book, and plan to use the pages for a future project - and I'll probably add some to my The Office mini album in my shop, although I have to admit it will be difficult to part with any of these pages!

New item in shop!

I listed some new Itty Bitty Birthday Cards in my shop this week.  These little guys have been popular, but I ran out of the paper I have used in the past so I had to find a new color combo.  This patterned paper is one of my favorites - love the colors!  These cards come with little white envelopes are are sold in sets of 4.

I'm currently working on a custom order for 35 invitations for a bachelorette party - and the request is they be "really girly"!  Sounds fun, huh?  I also have plans to make a Valentine's mini album . . . I have all of my supplies gathered up so now it's time to start laying things out and see how they all fit together.  I plan to have it listed in my shop in early January.

I have presents to wrap and I also need to get things ready for my daughter to come home from college for Christmas.  I have taken over her bed as part of my crafting workspace . . . lots of papers all spread out!  Time to get that cleaned up as she will be home soon!  YAY!

Sketchy Thursday challenge

Last week I sponsored a challenge on the Sketchy Thursday blog, which posts various challenges that are typically scrapbook page layouts but sometimes cards.  I was excited about the opportunity to sponsor a challenge and mailed off the prize to the winner on Friday.

I had so much fun looking at the layouts that the entrants submitted that it got me in the mood to do some scrapbooking myself.  I haven't completed any layouts for a while except in my The Garden mini album and I have lots of photos that need to be scrapped.

The Sketchy Thursday blog has a challenge posted now for the January Design Team, which means that the winner will have a change to be a DT member for the month of January.  I thought the sketch was cute and decided to play along.  You can see the original sketch here.  The challenge was to use 3 different patterned papers and 3 different embellishments on the layout.  My submission is at the top of this post - notice the 3 patterned paper, 3 types of ribbon, 3 black brads and 3 white/black flowers.  Lots of threes!  I had fun making this page, partly because the picture was so darn cute!

goshery embellishment set No. 2

This fun new embellishment set was just listed in my Etsy shop!  I used both new and vintage materials to make this set; you can get more details here. 

I had so much fun making this set.  I bought some vintage sheet music, both individual sheets and a few books and I've had a hard time actually using it . . . kind of like writing in a book which is something I can't do.  I finally decided to use the sheet music and loved working with it.  I also had fun looking through my Cricut cartridges for some new items to cut out and was surprised to see that I have an apple shape!  Who knew!

I made this set specifically for the Sketchy Thursday giveaway challenge which I'm sponsoring this week.  If you would like to try to win this set just visit the Sketchy Thursday blog here and find out what you need to do (you'll have to wait for Thursday as the name implies!).

Also new for December is the offer for a free set of gift tags with all purchases from goshery.  I made a cute Christmas set with fun muted colors, but because the colors are so soft the set doesn't photograph well at all!  It's hard to sell something that you can't see, so instead I'm giving them away to December customers.