Polymer Clay Bracelets

The more you do something, the better you get. I am living by this! I am working toward perfection!

My friend over at Memorabeadia http://memorabeadia.blogspot.com/ convinced me to do an art show with her and a couple of her friends. It'll be fun! We'll serve iced tea! They'll see our art!

And so as I continue plodding through the remainder of the Winter months, I am perfecting my bracelets! The latest bracelet has not been finished, but is the closest I have ever been to not needing too much finishing so I am excited. I plan to have a dozen ready for the show.

Our Delaware Artist Showcase is on Friday, June 3rd from 6:00 pm until 10:00 pm. Just a quick show complete with the Delaware Community Band and the afore mentioned iced tea! That's right folks, a band!

We think it's important to let people know what we can do. So we're inviting them downtown to our art filled space. There's hope for a large crowd since its a First Friday and many stores are open late. I'll tell you more in future posts. We do have a lot to offer!

Diversification by Necessity or How My Jewelry Photography is Evolving

Today, I took lots of pictures of the flowers in my yard. The flowers are so impressive and I can never quite comprehend the miracle of their design and beauty. Because I had to learn how to take pictures of my beaded jewelry, I've learned a lot about macro photography. With all those flowers in my yard, it just seems logical that I should gravitate toward them. They are simply spectacular. I joined Imagekind.com where you'll have the opportunity to pick up one of my photos and you can even have it framed before they send it to you! It's a CafePress company and I am thrilled to be a member! Please take a look: http://www.imagekind.com/stclairphotography_poster Have a great day and I'll keep my eye out for some more gorgeousness to photograph!

Originality Use Your Own Mind Creatively No Copying

By usually walking the Earth in a fog, it takes a little longer for me to figure things out. Maybe it's not the fog. I have been making jewelry for about ten years. I went crazy for stones early on. After reading all I could get my hands on, I had to have semi-precious beads. I knew every stone's name. I ran to the market place and bought what I could. I didn't care about making jewelry for me. I cared about making jewelry with those gorgeous stones that I found. One day, there was the realization that I needed to sell my jewelry. The artist had to become a salesman. EW! So I entered into the craft show arena. What the heck? What is that? I had a list of stuff that I had to have with me at every craft show. I had requirements to meet at every craft show. I had to fit everything into my car and drag it out at every craft show. I made fifteen dollars by the day's end and had to fit everything back into my car and take it home and put it away! There is no secret here, it is an uphill climb, and I've probably made it ten miles. My great revelation at one particular show was that I had jewelry for women but nothing for little girls. I pondered this problem with my merchandise. I knew I wanted something colorful. I knew it had to be cute. Finally, I saw a pinwheel and my polymer clay pinwheels were born. They were indeed a resolution to the problem. I am fulfilling a need. Of course that meant I had to learn how to use polymer clay. From January to May, I worked diligently to produce my pinwheels. I loved the results. I sold many pinwheels. I gave away even more pinwheels. I need to make more. This is my own creation. This is very exciting. No one else makes these. I used my own creativity. I produced an original item. It's a small item. It's just a start. But it's mine. I did it.

Macro Photography Means Close Up!

You know, it's taken me at least two years to understand Macro Photography. I've learned a lot in that time. I've learned huge amounts about photography. I bet I could ace a beginner's course!

Shortly before Spring 2009, I finally figured out that "natural light" can come right through a window in my warm house! That was helpful!

Naturally, I am always taking the longest route to the goal that I hope to achieve. It's just the way I am. I know this about myself, so even if I don't achieve my goal right away, I know I can learn something!

Probably in late June, someone mentioned the words "close ups", when referring to macro photography. That was one big bright lightbulb that went on! Whew! You mean, Duh!

Finally, I think I have the process down! Yay, me!

So what you can take from this post, are two things. If you want to take pictures for your Etsy Shop, you need to have natural light and a macro setting on your camera that you actually use.

It's the coolest!

When I finally figure something out, I'm probably the last to know, but in case you didn't know, that's what you need to understand about macro photography for your Etsy Shop. It'll save you two years, if you're anything like me.

Craft Show Preparation 101: The ETSY Eco-Chic Craftacular Craft Show at Whetstone Community Center

Well I don't really know how I got myself into this one but I am certainly glad I did!

I am a member of Etsy Team Columbus and on the outreach committee. We met one day and WHAM! we started a craft show! It has been a great journey. There is a lot involved. There have been bumps and tight turns and learning. That's what I love the most is learning all about what it is that I am doing. I will never stop learning and I don't think anyone should. Learn something every day.

The Eco-Chic Craftacular is a juried arts and crafts show onto which an ecological flair has been placed. We have eco demos. We have recycling. We have crafts and art derived from the things that at one time would have been considered landfill materials. We have quality. We have team effort.

Preparation for the Eco-Chic Craftacular has been challenging. There are so many things that need to be considered in order to have a successful show. We are about fifty percent complete as far as laying the ground work. We had to secure a place and secure a date. Then we had to get a team member to make us some graphics. And another to make a website. We're neary full for vendors and the sponsors are coming through for us as well. Next there will be publicity to arrange.

It is live. It is a live being at this point in time and growing as it should be.

If you are a vendor, good luck to you!

If you are a sponsor, thank you!

I will post more about the Craftacular as we get closer to May 16 and 17. A wrap-up entry the week following our very first team show!

Photographing Beautiful Jewelry Finally!

Well I finally caught on! This is the result of at least two years of hard work. Well, maybe the last two months were the most intense, but I think I have the procedure down, and now I can move on to the decoration part of the photo. I read all the posts about photographing jewelry. I re-read them. I took about a million bad, really bad pictures. Yet, every single time I posted a picture that I thought was an improvement, it looked the same. Too dark. I went to the forums and asked. Too dark. I purchased a new camera. Still too dark. I went to my Etsy Columbus Team members and they said,,,,"Just use photoshop and clean it up." My vision of using Photoshop meant using the "eraser" tool to turn everything white. Nothing worked. So I took all the constants in my quest. I had a lightbox that was huge, so I cut it down. My camera settings were on Macro and No Flash. I had two "utility" lights with 100 watt compact flourescent daylight bulbs. I bought two more lights and two more bulbs. You know if it's too dark, you add more light. Still too dark. Still too dark. I went back to the drawing board time and time and time again. Finally, I started turning the "wheel" on my Canon A590IS. This wheel changes the type of picture you are taking. You want to take a snow picture, put it on snow. You want a portrait, put it on portrait. I took a picture at each setting. I kept all the other contstants constant, with four 100 watt bulbs. I put them on my computer and FOUND the setting that I needed! Yay!!!! The old setting I was using was automatic. The new setting was M for Manual. It has a MACRO setting and it has a No Flash setting. I took two lights away. This may not be perfect, but I am going to use it for a while. They are so much better to me. They are very comparable to others. It's time to post and sell my hand-made jewelry on etsy with my new and improved photos. Have a great day!

About Volunteering and MLK and Barack Obama and Heather

Happy Martin Luther King Day! Happy Pre-Inaugeration Day! I am a core member of Etsy Team Columbus. So I am on a committee and there is one person that just joined our committee and you know what she wants us to do? She wants us to all consider volunteering!!! What? Why do I want to do that? I am on this team to mingle and learn from like minded fellow artists. I am on this team to sell my jewelry. Now you want me to do what? I can't believe it. I don't have time to volunteer. I only have enough time to run up and down the highway and earn a living. I don't have time to volunteer, there aren't enough hours in the day! I don't have time to volunteer and you can't make me. So what does that Barack Obama do? The guy I helped vote into office. The guy whose hand I shook while I was in Philadelphia. What does that whole Obama family do? They volunteer on Martin Luther King Day! I didn't vote for that, did I? I can't believe it! Oh, so now I HAVE to volunteer! So ya take the lemons and ya make the lemonade. And you share your skills and the results of your labor. And everybody is happier than they would have been if you hadn't done something! Oh! Now, I think I can! Now, I think I can squeeze a few more things into my day!

I think I could figure out how to add volunteering to my agenda. Okay, I suppose it's probably taken a little longer than the time its taken to write this to decide that I need to volunteer. I know it's taken a lot of soul searching and prodding to arrive at this decision. I'll be on the volunteer wagon in my neighborhood. I'm gonna look forward to it too.

Gee, thanks a lot Heather, and Barack and oh, yeah, Martin Luther King!