New Etsy Listings

Yesterday, I had a couple big assignments that I decided to neglect in favor of some jewelry photography, editing, and listings.

I pulled out a big bag of clearance jewelry and my light box. The bag was full of items that I found myself not displaying at shows because I 'didn't have room' - but really, it was because the pieces didn't fit my personal style any more and they didn't inspire me. Lacking inspiration, I decided to clearance the pieces rather than repurpose them.

I had a great time. Photographing necklaces seems much harder that photographing earrings! I definitely need a better camera. Mine doesn't have a macro setting, so parts of my picture are out of focus no matter how hard I try. I used gimp for editing, and began listing on etsy. Listing takes much longer than I remember! I was watching United States of Tara while I was working, and it was taking me about an episode and a half for each listing. Phew! I only got through three, but I have some more photos edited and ready to go.

I'm pretty proud of the pictures, but I need to work on my listing expertise. Anyone have any helpful tips? Any articles you found valuable? Let me know in the comments!

First Show: Pumpkin Patch

Today was my first craft show of the season. I barely got everything done that I wanted to do-but it looked great!

My mom helped me out big time by supplying a couple big shutters, painting them, and drilling holes for me. But she is promising me a pink drill, so I can drill my own holes soon! :)

I really wanted a nice way to display all my earrings together, in a way that was easy on the eye. It totally worked out!

My business/earring cards took by far the most of my time, and I seriously under estimated how many I needed! I have a lot of hole punching and tea staining to do for next week. Bad news? My fancy hole punch is already failing! It's roughing up the edges. :(

More bad news? I've lost all my Halloween stuff from last year! I whipped some up real quick, but still sad! I hope I find it.

New Business Cards

Although I haven't been around for a couple days, I actually didn't completely stop posting. I wrote a lengthy opinion piece on Monday, but it ended up being far more of a rant and far less of a coherent argumentative blog post, so its hanging out in my drafts somewhere. I got some type of a flu on Sunday night and have spent the last couple days in varying degrees of discomfort, watching romantic comedies and playing Black and White 2. (And still working and going to class, but being generally unproductive otherwise.) I'd never seen Love and Other Disasters but now I'm quite the fan! Side note: I started Portlandia about five minutes ago, and I'm... I don't even.

I've been awaiting tons of packages from all my crafty impulse buys and working on small projects as the packages come to my door. In addition, my lovely boyfriend accompanied me on an extended errand/shopping day on Sunday, where I got some really cool stuff for some bigger projects I will hopefully be working on soon. My first show of the season is next weekend! Eek!

I always liked the look of the stamped metal pendants hanging from a simple cord. I'd like to get into the kind of metal stamping stuff, but for now, these go really well with my scrabble tile pendants! I have a little bit of cleaning up around the edges to complete. I got a GIANT bottle of Diamond Glaze, which didn't come with the tiny applicator like my crystal lacquer always did.

I've also been working on new business cards.

I bought a stamp from Vistaprint because I originally wanted to use scalloped hang tags. I ended up getting perforated cards from Avery, so in retrospect it would have been much easier to simply print on them. I do like the slightly varied look of stamping the cards, though. The design at the bottom is from a paper punch by Martha Stewart. I have a lot of different experiments to perform on the cards, but I'm also really excited about them as they are! I'm going to use them as business cards, but I'm also going to poke holes in some for earring cards. They will be great with the new display I'm planning because they will hang easily.

I want to try tea-dying them, to be a creamier off-white color. I'd also like to try to color-dye them - maybe with koolaid, or food coloring. Does anyone have experience with these processes? Like I said, a lot of experimenting!

Game Day: Formula D

Today, WVU played Georgia State! Honestly, though, I only know that it was game day because I saw tons of gold and blue and did a quick google search.

I don't care about football games, but I am fond of board games. So, I bring you my first game day post, featuring Formula D! I bought the game on recommendation from my boyfriend, having watched it on Wil Wheaton's Tabletop webshow. We reeaally thought my roommate would enjoy it. Tonight was the first time we played! Given this, we played the beginner version but we're really excited to try to full game soon. Here's the rundown.

You move your race car by rolling dice, determined by which gear you are in. Higher gears roll bigger dice, so your little car moves faster along the track. We were all neck and neck when this was taken. :) I actually had to slam my brakes to avoid hitting them!

When you don't slow down enough for turns, get too close to other cars, and various other dangerous actions, you have the potential to take damage to your car. Of course, being too cautious means you risk second or third place! Or, as my boyfriend said, "first loser and second loser."

We all got a little risky at the end. My handsome man gained a huge lead and finished a couple turns ahead of us by being a bit riskier a bit earlier. I pulled ahead of my roomie juuuust in time to eek out a second place finish, but with the most damage. Ouch!

It was a fun game, and one I'm glad to have added to my growing collection. Has anyone else tried this one? Have any recommendations for board games? Let me know in the comments!

editing lightbox photos

I promised a tutorial on editing the lightbox photos, so here we go! For this tutorial, I will be using gimp, a free editing software available online. The tools are essentially the same as those found in photoshop or paint shop, but I'm not sure how transferable this tutorial is to other programs. Don't forget you can click on the edges of photos on my blog to make them bigger.

I'm starting with this picture of bottle cap earrings made from Landshark. The only thing I've done to this photo so far is scale it down 50%. Step One is to go to "Colors" on the top toolbar and select "Levels."

You're going to click on the white dropper tool, circled in red, and then click on an area of your background in the photo. See how much that changes it? I selected one of the lighter areas, and then accepted the changes.

My picture is now much brighter! However, I wasn't satisfied with the shadowing towards the outside, so I cut it out. I used the freehand selection tool to delete those areas.

Almost there! You can see that this left a definite line in my photo from deleting it. I went ahead and ran through my levels again to brighten and clean it up. Finally, I cropped the picture down to 1620x1620, which is the size I'm trying to make all my images. (Arbitrary, but consistent.)

Isn't that so much better? And pretty easy! I've been messing around in editing software for a long time, so this wasn't bad for me - I hope it was easy to follow if you are new to editing!

How is your photo editing going? What program are you using? Let me know in the comments!

the night is dark and full of terrors

But I brightened it up!

I love trying to be creative in my photographs. I love incorporating natural elements, and using the nice bright sunshine. I have a couple problems, though. The neighborhood gives me some strange looks when I wander around with handfuls of jewelry and a digital camera, for one. Secondly, I simply find lightbox photos to be far more professional and attractive! I've been searching for the perfect box for quite some time. I've tried cardboard boxes, tissue paper, various light sources, pledging my first born, and extensive photo editing and never got a result with which I was satisfied. Until today, that is!

The solution was simpler than I ever would have thought, given to me courtesy of The Pretty Pickle. I only had to buy a couple lights - which I wanted for fall's craft shows anyway - and a clear plastic storage box. Easy peasy! Read the full tutorial here.

When I was taking the pics, I was floored because they were so much nicer than any other lightbox method I had tried! They looked great on my camera! When I transferred them to my computer, I was dismayed to find they were a little darker than I thought. So, I brought them into gimp, my trusty free photoshop substitute.

I plan to post a complete tutorial on lightening photos from lightboxes, but I stayed up far later than planned piddling around with this project. Any success or failure stories in photographing your products? Let me know if this one works for you!

An Introduction

You want to know about me? Well, I'm Annie. I attend West Virginia University and I'm a masters student in Business Administration and Human Resources. My undergraduate degree was in marketing.

I dabble in a variety of interests. I love crafting, especially jewelry. I love reading and my poison of choice is fantasy. I love games - board games, video games, card games - but rarely find the time to play. I run occasionally, and have interest in a healthy lifestyle that is often unfulfilled due to my love for junk and my busy lifestyle. (I work a lot.) I love watching shows when time permits - some of my favorites are Doctor Who, Pretty Little Liars, Supernatural, Sherlock, and Game of Thrones.

I have an amazing boyfriend, fantastic friends, and a brilliant creative family, all of whom I love very much.

I would love to talk about crafting, shows, books, societal issues, food, and fitness - so I will! That's why I have this blog! I hope you enjoy getting to know me, and I would love to know you as well. Get in contact with me! Comment on my posts! A blog is boring without interaction.