Friday, January 22, 2010

❉ Oz Enjoying a Tasty Toy ❉

Life's been busy lately so I haven't had time to blog very often. Here's a picture of just one of the things happening here:

dog toy doberman redThis is Oz, one of our doberman dogs. He received this bone shaped toy about an hour before this picture. It isn't bone shaped anymore. Oz and his sister Karla thoroughly enjoyed tearing the toy into little red pieces. Doesn't Oz look pleased with himself?

Thursday, January 14, 2010

✈ Tips For Standout Pictures ✈

One of my teammates on etsy's Create Crochet Team has written a nice blog article about the importance of presenting good pictures in your shop. Stop by the Create Crochet blog to read what Benjamin has to say.

Benjamin demonstrates nice photography skills in his shop too. Here is his Sustainable Koi:

koi fish crochet sustainableGot to go, I have more pictures to fix !

Sunday, January 3, 2010

♪ Pictures are Everything ♪

I recently decided to update my etsy shop by retaking some flower pictures. Some were shot in less than ideal situations, so I knew I had room to improve them. I ran into a few problems, but overall was glad I took on this little project while I had some time.

My photo editing computer program slowed down my progress until I figured out how to re-set a few preferences. About a month ago I lost the hard drive on my computer. It was a sad day that took me off-line for what seemed like forever. Luckily I had my data backed up, so after a stint in the Mac Shack and a major software upgrade, I thought I was back in business. I re-installed Photoshop Elements, my preferred editing tool. However it had been a year since the last install, so I had to go back to the book to find out how to get everything as I wanted it. Finally I had the tools in place to update the flower pictures.

I worked at being more creative with backgrounds and accents to make my pictures pop. The roses above are sitting on my sewing box and have some greenery wrapped around them. Now I'm eyeing everything in my house to see what would look nice in a picture. These flower magnets are sitting on my marble window sill:

With just a little imagination and good tools, it wasn't hard to get some fresh pictures in my shop.