The boy is almost as happy about my new slab roller as I am!

Check out this bead giveaway over at Denise Yezbak Moore’s blog:  7 1/2 pounds of beads! And it’s not just a big box of plastic pony beads, either. Look at this (but first, back away from your computer so you don’t drool on it and ruin it).   Hey, I warned you:

Oh man….am I the only one getting palpitations???

I did a bisque firing yesterday, as I have some orders to fill.  I have some stoneware pendants and beads, earthenware pendants, spacers, and beads, a stoneware texture sheet covered with oak leaves, and all those plant stakes. Those stakes are for hubby for father’s day, but I suppose they are just as much for me since I’m not sure what is planted where. They only went through a cone 06 firing, but I’m planning on glazing some of my midfire stuff shortly so they’ll go through the kiln again to strengthen them up.  I rolled some texture into the clay then rolled over it again to make it more subtle. I then stamped the veggie names onto the stakes (forgot carrots–whoops! At least I know what those look like). I used mason stain to accentuate the letters, then fired them. I won’t be glazing these pieces. I figure if moisture gets into them then the glaze will flake off.

I’m going to make some to take to the flower shop, I think. I used a pizza cutter to cut these out, but I think I’ll use a length of tin sheet next time.

And check out what finally bloomed, 4 years after I planted it (and 2 years after I gave up looking for flowers on it):

Luckily it’s been out of reach of the weed-whacker. I finally ended up putting some stones around the garden so Pete won’t take anything out anymore. He’s dangerous that way….

As I was wandering around the yard a couple of days ago I looked down and saw the cutest, tiniest acorn. Luckily I had just received a package of Mega Mold from Cool Tools, so I was able to create a two-part mold and recreate this little cutie. I can either make half the acorn (for earrings and such) or the entire thing.

(See how my hand is blue? That’s from the shirt I was wearing…eg wear white when you’re photographing your products!)

As I was gabbing on the phone with my mother this afternoon, the dog started going mental. I didn’t think anyone was here, but lo and behold, FedEx was sitting in the yard. What the heck???  I have a pretty good handle on what I’ve ordered, and I know I hadn’t ordered anything that would be coming FedEx in awhile.  YAY!!! The summer issue of Stringing was here, along with my necklace and earrings that were published. I’ve already added the bead set for the necklace to my Designs page, but I don’t have any pictures yet of the pieces for the earrings. Whoops! I sent this stuff in back in January, so I barely remembered what the earrings looked like. They’ll be added to the site in another day.

Today’s bonus: As I was driving down our road a Scarlet Tanager flew in front of me. I’m guessing it was the male since it was NEON RED.  So gorgeous….

I’m finally adding a newsletter to my t0-do list.  This won’t be a hard-sell newsletter; rather, I’ll be including such things as tutorials, book reviews, and special subscriber-only discounts, and maybe some random drawings!  I’ll also give subscribers advance notice of new items that will be available (I’ll show them in the newsletter BEFORE they even hit the blog!). You can sign up here, on my home page, or the link will be posted permanently in the sidebar of my blog.  Look for the first one around the beginning of July. Hope to talk to you soon!

My sister approached me last weekend and asked me to make a necklace for a friend of hers. The only requirement was that it had to have some of my ceramic beads. Other than that I had total freedom. Here’s what I made:

When I was waking up Monday morning and was in that place between sleep and awake, I suddenly knew what I was going to make. I was chomping at the bit to get to the office and get working on it. This piece came together fairly quickly.

Have you ever had a flash of inspiration like that?

BoMar  is a local antiques and collectibles group shop, located just in Wells. You know how when you’re going to a bead show, you are advised to go with a budget and an idea of what you’re looking for (or need)?  Well, you just can’t do that at a shop like this, ’cause you never know what’s going to be there next week.

I had a little runaway to BoMar on Monday. I had nothing in mind, but I took $40 in cash and that was IT (unless, of course, something totally amazing was there).  I wander around, looking at pottery and studying the glazes, checking out vintage jewelry, scouring the paperbacks in the hopes of finding something I haven’t read yet.

Along with 4 paperbacks, I came home with this stuff:

Can you believe that necklace? Vintage Lucite, in all sorts of cranberry and pink tones. $10–BEFORE the 50% discount!  You can’t even buy a single strand of lucite like this for $5.  No intended project…yet. But it’s in my stash.

I picked up some pretty metal buttons to make into molds, and check out those black cut glass shank buttons. They were shiny, so I picked them up.  I’m envisioning some attractive components will come from that vintage brooch as well.  What isn’t shown is an old fork I bought for $1 that has a gorgeous lily pattern all over it.

You have to keep an open mind when you go to a shop like that. There were so many old lucite necklaces there just waiting to be recycled into something fabulous. The facets and colors of these were what attracted me to them.  There’s just so much to see and so much inspiration….it’s easy to see how I killed an hour and a half  in there.

Oh, and pretty much everything I picked up was on sale, so I had quite a bit of money leftover for lunch, which was needed desperately after all that shopping!

I didn’t make them recently, but I took better pictures today during the 20 minutes of constant sunshine so I updated one of the listings and added pieces that have been waiting for a couple of months to get into my Etsy shop. Now the Boy wants to play his games, so I’m getting bumped. Enjoy!

My wedding is five years behind me now. I was one of those laid-back brides who probably would have eloped if I didn’t fear bodily harm from the family (plus hubby wanted a big wedding–what’s with that???). I don’t envy those of you who are agonizing over wedding decisions. Maybe these wedding favor choices will make it a bit easier?

Available in my Etsy shop as a custom order, and coming soon to my webpage.

Backgrounds. Backgrounds can either make or break your photograph. Take this image:

Holy Busy Background Batman! Busy backgrounds compete with your product. These buttons are lost on this paper. Besides everything that’s going on with the patterned paper, the value (ie brightness or darkness) of the buttons is pretty much the same as the paper, so they REALLY disappear. Compare it to this photo:

Not very “artsy,” but you can actually see that there are buttons in this photo.

Compare these:

See what a difference contrast makes?

Another note about backgrounds: I try not to use something that has a lot of texture (ie heavy-weave fabrics, heavily grained wood, etc.). Why? Sometimes it can wreak havoc on your macro setting. You take your photos, get back to the computer to edit them, and discover that your camera was focusing on the weave in the fabric rather than the details in your work.  My two backgrounds of choice are my trusty piece of slate, and subtle scrapbook papers. I have also seen the pages from old books used well as backgrounds, but you need to make sure that your piece is substantial enough to compete with the text. If you like the look but the text is too busy, you can always take a lightened photocopy of the page and use that.

Oh, and watch out for brightly colored backgrounds. Not only do they affect the color of your item, but neon colored backgrounds are hard on the eyes. Along those lines, I try to wear neutral colored shirts when I’m taking my pictures, as the color of the shirt can reflect off the color of your item and ruin a whole photo session (she learned when all the photos that she took looked orange thanks to the coral-colored t-shirt!).

Before you click that shutter button, check to see if there’s anything distracting in the background! Like this:

No amount of cropping is going to get rid of that dresser in the background.

Here’s a picture before cropping:

Eh. Solid background, but the earrings are small, and there’s that line cutting through the photo from the window molding. BUT, the bones of the photo are good. See what happens when it gets cropped:

Your homework: Take a look at the items that are recently listed on Etsy. Which items catch your eye? Which ones don’t and why?  Photo contrast will grab your eye, photo styling will keep it there. Check out your favorite sellers.  What is it about their shop that draws you in? Don’t copy their style (or products–YIKES!), but you can draw inspiration from other shops.

Next time: Get that shot!