Eyeballs By Day, Crafts By Night

So, my big announcement…I am finally going to open an Etsy store!

It’s been on my to-do list for a long time, and I think I’m ready to make the plunge! I think my small crafts and many un-used craft supplies have potential to sell better in a venue like Etsy, whereas I will continue to sell my antiques and larger pieces at the co-op. I have been doing some preparation in getting this baby up and running, the first being a small “studio” area to properly photograph my items!

While my photographic skills excel in photographing retinas, they are not quite as proficient in studio work. I have never had any interest in portraits or studio photography that require traditional lighting methods, studio lights and back drops, lighting ratios, etc, etc. One thing I do know is that natural light is ideal in photographing almost anything. I wanted to be able to use natural light to photograph my products, but also not have to wait until the sun comes out and the weather is bearable to be able to shoot. I do live in Western New York after all! My solution: artificial natural light.

These 7.5 watt bulbs from Lowes emanate “natural light”, or an artificial full spectrum of light. They measure at 5000K, which is comparable to noon daylight. I bought two bulbs and two of these clamping work lights:

…and set up a small area on a table in my basement. I have some white foam core boards to use as reflectors as needed. I am using a large crate bottom as my background, because you know I love that rustic look. Here is my basic set up:

And a picture snapped with hardly any adjusting of the lights. I think this is going to work just fine!

Not too shabby for a studio that took 10 minutes to set up and cost about $35.

Here it is with the lights on so you can see. I am using the slatted crates on either side, as they work well with the lights’ clamps. Also, I’d like to mention that I used my digital SLR camera for my photography; my trusty Nikon D80. It’s slightly outdated but works very well for the work I want/need to do. I would recommend an SLR over a point-and-shoot camera if you are able.

I’ll keep you posted on how it works and what tweaks I might make as I start in on this new adventure! In the mean time I have been working on lots of marble magnets of varying themes to sell on Etsy. I can’t wait to start photographing them.

Phew…I don’t know why I keep myself so damn busy these days. I figure it’s going to take at least a month or so to get the store “live” and running. I have lots of items to photograph and some other prepping to do. Anyone out there with their own Etsy store…do you have any advice for this rookie? Any tips/advice you have to offer would be appreciated!

Have a great week! 🙂

So in the midst of all the hoopla getting the booth set up, I haven’t had time to work on a lot of craft projects. I have however, been slowly perfecting my marble magnet technique. I know there are 1000 tutorials online on how to make them, but I have found that your technique and materials can make all the difference between okay magnets and awesome ones! By awesome, I mean clean, clear, and durable.

Here is the latest set! I made them for my friend with pictures of her little girl, Melanie!

For custom sets like this one, I have found it’s easiest to print out the pictures at the size I need them, by bringing them into Photoshop for quick and easy size adjustment.  Start by opening up a new document sized at 8.5 x 11, with a resolution of 300 dpi.

Tip: Remember, if you are going to print an image, the ideal resolution is 300 dpi (dots per inch, or ppi, pixels per inch). Anything less than that, in terms of resolution, will come out pixellated and unclear. For web viewing only, (images for use on your blog, website, etc.) you can get away with 72 dpi.

Then, open up all the images you want to use for your magnets. Select the crop tool. Set your crop settings to 20 mm for the width and height, and the resolution. See the screen capture below. I use 20 mm because that’s the size of the marbles I am using…so obviously size according to your materials!

Crop all of your images and drag them onto your new document one by one. They should look like this:

You can see I did two of each. I selected them (one at a time) in the layer palette, right clicked to make a duplicate of that layer, and re-sized them a little smaller using edit > transform > scale. Sometimes 20 mm is slightly too big, depending on the content of the picture. I like having options. 🙂

I suppose instead of all this, you could just eyeball it and use your magnet to test and see if the images are small enough. I am just slightly obsessive-compulsive and  I’ll use any excuse to play around in Photoshop!

I used this technique with other images I found online. Here are a few sets that I plan to make!

Supplies to get if you plan on mass producing these things:

A 20 mm hole punch, found in the scrap booking section of the craft store. Saves a ton of time and makes a nice, clean cut.

A bulk order of clear, “cabochons”. They are flat backed, perfectly clear, acrylic little marbles. They come individually wrapped like this:

I hate that it’s such a waste of packaging…it’s not very “green.” BUT, it does mean your marbles are perfectly clean and clear and have virtually no defects. I would never go back to using the marbles from the craft store….they aren’t clear enough for my liking.

I bought mine in bulk here! The rest of the supplies/technique can be found in my old marble magnet tutorials; this post was just about tweaking them. 🙂

I would love to see your magnets if you try these! Check out The Graphics Fairy for AWESOME, free vintage art, which would be great for this project!!!!

HAPPY ALMOST SPRING!!! Talk to ya’ll later! 🙂