Teddy Bear's Picnic

If you have been following this blog, you know that my daughter had her first baby last year.  I was so enamored of the baby who lives here in Colorado, that I packed up all my worldly goods and moved from St. Louis to Colorado to be near her and to watch her grow up.  It's hard to believe, but one year has passed since her birth.  I don't regret a moment of making this move out to Colorado.

My granddaughter's name is Maggie, and we celebrated with her in style last week.  Her mom created a Teddy Bear's Picnic for her and the family.  First Mary, my daughter, created darling invitations that she mailed to us.  They were on pink card stock, with a cute poem inside and the dates of the picnic.  She used Maggie and her bear friends in a picture that she glued to the front of the card.  Don't you wish you could be at their picnic? :-)

The weather cooperated beautifully for the party outdoors in Maggie's back yard.  We had some of a bear's favorite foods, salmon salad, lox, cream cheese and bagels, berry salad, and of course cake.  What bear would ignore a good chocolate cake?

Maggie got all dressed up in a sweet purple and white dress.  For those of you into "all things handmade", this is a handmade dress that Mary bought at a small shop in Salida, a quaint town nestled in the mountains.

Then Maggie enjoyed her first birthday cake, and I mean she REALLY ENJOYED IT! She totally immersed herself in the experience.

What a memorable day!

Apples Hangin' from Your Ears?

Apple Love Earrings

It's apple time!  Pick them, eat them, cook with them, and wear them from your ears or on your wrists.  I found some cute silver apple charms and have combined them with red beads, green leaf beads and silver to make some fun jewelry for this autumn.  Check them out at Plum Beadacious!

Apples for You Earrings

Apples for You Bracelet

Jewel Tone Colors in Hot Air Balloons

Over Labor Day Weekend I had the pleasure of getting up early and heading over to Windsor, Colorado where a hot air balloon event took place as part of their annual Harvest Fest.  There in a small park they had about 10 or so hot air balloons.  When I first arrived they were laying totally deflated flat on the ground.  It was early in the day, about 7:00 on a Saturday, and I had rushed to get there by 7:00 thinking that these grand balloons would all lift off into the sky at that moment.  When I saw that they all needed to be inflated first, I was a bit disappointed thinking I would be standing there all morning, waiting for them to lift off into the sky.

Boy, was I ever wrong!  Shows how much I know about hot air balloons.  Shortly after I got there several of the people began inflating balloons with huge fans and flames.  I wasn't close enough to figure out exactly how this happens.  It was so much fun watching these large balloons lift up onto their sides one by one, stand straight up full and proud, and then quickly rise into the sky with hot flames shooting up inside of the balloons.

Here are some of the balloons I saw.  The colors are fabulous, and one is quite fun.  The balloon represents the moon, and a cow is jumping over it.

Photos of Jewelry in Natural Sun Light

Since I moved to Colorado, I have many more opportunities to take photos of my jewelry in natural light.  My key light sources through windows are to the east and to the west.  Both are good, but in different ways.  When I lived in St. Louis, I took my photos for my shop, Plum Beadacious, in the basement with a homemade lightbox and artificial lights. I had everything set up for me to place my jewelry for the shot.  I did occasionally change background surfaces, and programmed my camera for the type of light I was using.  I think I got better over several years at doing this, but the pictures still had a harshness to them that I never did eliminate.

Now I have been playing with taking pictures in natural light.  I can get fresh crisp color that is not harsh, but I can't get it consistently.  The light changes from hour to hour and day to day.  Take a look at the pictures of a beaded id lanyard I made for a special order.  These pictures were all taken about 5:30 PM after I got home from my day job.

The first picture is one that was taken in my east window, somewhat shady at 5:30, but it has been a beautiful sunny day.  I placed the lanyard on the white painted window sill.  The blinds were lifted to allow as much light as possible to spill through the window.

Nice, but a little blue looking.  This is because of the shade at this side of the house at 5:30 PM.  However, by adjusting the lighting level on Photoshop Elements, I can improve this picture dramatically.  I do this by using the Full Edit function and going to 

• Enhance
• Adjust Lighting
• Level 

There you will see some icons that look like eye droppers.  I clicked on the white one and then moved my cursor over my photo to a place on the white background that is closest to true white and is not too close to the item or any shaded areas.  I then clicked my mouse, and magically the entire picture lightened up.

I then went to 

• Enhance
• Auto Sharpen

This provided crisper edges to my jewelry photo.

Next I selected the crop tool and cropped the picture to a square.  

Once I do all of this, I select File, Save for Web.  This allows me to tell the program what size picture I want.  Since Etsy recommends 1000 pixels, I type in 1000 pixels, and since the picture is square, and it is constrained to proportion, the picture ends up being 1000x1000 pixels.  I can then save it into my pictures folder in Windows.  It is ready to post on Etsy or anywhere else I would like, such as this blog.

Here is the edited photo - same one as above.  It is much brighter, but is it the best it can be?  Not really!

Let's take a look at a photo taken minutes later at my west window.  The sun was quite intense there at 5:30 PM.  I lowered my nice honeycomb blinds about 2/3 of the way, and I placed my item on a table about two feet away from the window sill.  The light was more intense than the east window, but not glaring.  I also used a soft decorative floral background.

Look at the first picture here taken at the west window, unedited.  Notice the crazy angle.  This is how I took the picture.

Now look at the edited version of the same picture.  I changed the orientation by going to

• Image
• Rotate
• 90% right

Then I did the same edits with the lighting level using the white eye dropper, and auto sharpened.  Don't you think it looks much better?

These edits are quicky fixes to immediately enhance your photos.  There are more sophisticated techniques to make them even better.

Natural light is my friend for my jewelry photography, and besides that my life is definitely enhanced by taking pictures in the wonderful sunshine instead of a dark basement with artificial light.

I invite you to share your experiences with photographing your jewelry, whether done in natural or artificial light.  We can all learn from one another.  I hope this is helpful to some of you.

More about Beaded Lanyards

Handmade Spark - You Gotta Love It!

I can't prove it, but I think Handmade Spark is one of the best things going for Etsy sellers!  I joined Handmade Spark on July 29, 2010 paying only $6.00 for a month's membership.  This site allows an Etsy seller to have a mini-site on www.handmadespark.com.

This site has good articles and SEO, which means it gets traffic!  So....

I signed up on 7/29/10.  At that time I had sold 23 items on my Plumbeadacious Etsy site in two years.  I have been listing/relisting about five items a day for several months, and my last sale was on July 15.

DRUM ROLL PLEASE! I sold three items to different new customers from the time I signed up on 7/29 through yesterday, August 1.  Hooray!

Take a look at what I sold.  Each of these items has been listed on Etsy for a long time.

Yellow Millefiori Bracelet sold on July 30

Under the Sea Earrings sold on August 1

Pink Flower Violet Leaf Earrings sold on August 1

Sunshine Inspired Earrings

What a fabulous day this has been!  It is one of those at home days where I got some things done around the house and found time to create some new jewelry.  Here in Colorado, we often have breezes even when the weather is hot.  Such was the case this afternoon.  One of my favorite activities is to take a beading project out on the deck and create beautiful jewelry while I enjoy the beautiful weather.

The lampwork beads in these earrings have been sitting in my collection since early last fall.  The black eyed susans and shasta daisies blooming in our yard inspired me to create my own sunny garden earrings.  These earring are spicy hot, with fabulous movement in the way the crystals dangle beneath the lampwork beads.  

Enjoy the eye candy!

Spicy Yellow and Orange Lampwork Earrings

Sugar Plum Delight

I totally enjoyed designing and creating this necklace.  For those of you who enjoy creating jewelry, this type of necklace is a great way to improve your wire wrapping skills   Each of the sweet plum colored Czech crystals are individually handwrapped with sterling silver 24 guage wire and dangle from a strand of delicate pink seed beads.

For more information and to purchase  - Sugar Plum Delight