I had some crafting plans for the summer. A watermelon quilt, some red, white and blue projects for the Fourth of July, and maybe a shell ornament or two made out of felted wool. Oh well, they'll wait until next year.
Now it's time for pumpkins, colored leaves, and Halloween candy.....Hello, Fall!
This is a penny rug I finished yesterday. I can't help but think of Butterfinger candy bars, chocolate drops, and caramel corn when I see these colors together. I'm not sure why all the candy comes to mind, unless it's an automatic association between fall and Halloween candy for me.
I'm really pleased with the way this rug turned out. I should have it listed in my Etsy shop tomorrow if I can get the photos uploaded today. I've been using Flickr for my photo editing and I've been pleased with it so far, but they've just changed some of the features and it's taken me a little while to get used to them. I could use a photo editing package that Steve bought me for Christmas the other year, but 1) I've gotten used to Flickr and 2) we haven't worked out a good system for my laptop to access the external drive we use to store all our photos (a Mac vs PC issue). And then sometimes it just takes me awhile to get a good picture of my items. This last photo with the pumpkin is a good example. You would think that a log frame house would be the perfect backdrop for any rustic, folk art, or primitive themed object, right?
Somehow it's not. Either the lighting is too harsh or the shadows are too dark or the decking just looks plain weird. And I usually forget to check what might be in the background of my photo, so often there's a big electrical pole in the distance or an unsightly black spot of washed out dirt where I just moved a flower pot out of the way on the left there. (Ahem. In my defense, at least it's not the spot where the bats have been pooping.)
I've been looking at pictures on Etsy and I like the ones where the item is placed in front of a simple wooden shutter or the quilt is simply draped over a wooden rail fence. While our back deck railing is made of wood logs, it's in dire need of being revarnished and will leave icky yellow flakes of old varnish on anything I put over it. Our neighbor's fencing is electrified barbed wire, and that's just not going to give the same atmosphere, will it?
I don't want to invest much into photo props for the items I want to sell, but good pictures really do make a difference when you're selling online. When I first set up my Etsy store, I knew that the photos would be important to any prospective buyer since they can't actually pick up the item and handle it in person. Still, I didn't realize how much time it can take to photograph an item to it's best advantage and then edit the photo for uploading to Etsy. So much to learn.
