glass beads

New lighting solution for photos

 Back in the saddle with photographing beads-got my new light boxes from Doug Baldwin yesterday evening and they work great!

 The shot is a little dark looking since it’s in my garage, one nice thing is you can easily fold these up and store them in their respective pouches..but I’ll probably leave mine out since I’m always needing photos of my work, it seems. Had to clear off my desk top- these are large pieces as you can see with my lone bead sitting on my photo backdrop.

 Here are a couple better shots of my necklace that I wore to the Gathering- pardon my unraveling silk- didn’t have time to sew/secure it down before traveling.
 I was willing to splurge a little on these lights since avoidance of taking pics for Etsy was becoming something of an unwilling sport! If this makes photographing a little easier, you can bet I’ll be all over it.

Shop Update
Some quick pics of work that will going up this week on Etsy. Starting to get in gear for BABE! 2011 in Oakland, CA on Nov. 12-13th. Can’t believe it’s almost been a year since the last show, time has certainly been fleeting.

 This set is something I tried to re-do from a previous sale after having some requests..the only difficulty with this is that this style is obviously organic and free form which makes it hard to truly replicate, especially when there’s fuming involved. We’ll see if it goes over well on Etsy. AND I even left them shiny!

Pixie Dust- not just for Tinkerbell

Planning another shop update momentarily, spent yesterday experimenting with Pixie Dust- a tricksy powder that lends a magical shimmer to beads. Don’t know why I’ve never used it before now, but so glad I finally took the plunge. They’re a little hard to properly photograph and convey the shimmery metallic look of the beads.

And Another

pic by my wonderful Sis-in-Law:I’m not sure how everyone else who sells online does it- when you take pics do you also think of how the layout will look on business cards, postcards, etc? Since Etsy uses square images for the products, that is the way my pics usually end up cropped. Or maybe you take one or two pics that is a little more..artsy? The plan is to try and take a couple different layout shots for the sets/focals that really set my heart aflutter and save them for business cards..after all, who doesn’t like options?

Translation from Mind to Making..

My mind is a sometimes dizzy place, with way too many thoughts bouncing around and then going off on tangents..which then forces me to work backwards towards my original thought similar to that guy in Memoir.

This idea of ‘leveling up’ (Scott Pilgrim reference, sorry lol) has been on my mind and using raking w/ stringers has been something on the back burner for a while now.

I finally decided, “what can it hurt?”, and just jumped in w/ no planning. Turns out, for me at least, that every d’oh! moment eventually leads to improving my technique. The first d’oh! happened when I dropped one of my brass micro shapers on the concrete, and wouldn’t you know it, it was the supa sharp pointy tip that hit the concrete and caused a slight kink on the end. Which worked great at raking the stringers today!

The next time was when I blew a hole out on a hollow big hole bead and I was determined not to chuck it since I’d already spent 20 min. making it. Once I patched the hole, it had an interesting raked edge that my squirrely brain stored as an idea for later on. There’s been a few other instances but I don’t want to bore you or me listing them all.
While the execution of the idea is still a little rough, perseverance will now be my friend until I’m satisfied.
I’ll try and get pics tomorrow after they’re done tumbling.

Press Play

Between playing with the Straight Sided Lentil Slim Lg. + press and trying to figure out if hubby’s camera is better than the one I’ve been using reminds me of the saying: PPP (practicepracticepractice). I rediscovered Picnik– the pic above is a before and after using that feature, it did improve it a little, there is a lot to explore and I just haven’t had the time recently. Definitely something to put on my to-do list.

This shows my progression using the new press, the second and third beads are the only ones not on a white base. Seashell Swirl and then Yellow Ice over a core of clear are the 2nd and 3rd bead’s base colors. The Yellow Ice reacted badly w/ the Dk. Raku powder which is that black color you see on the bead..live and learn.