-Cheri:Craft challenge 2 was a blast. The $5.00 limit adds an interesting twist to the challenge. But I wasn’t too worried about it. Here in Logansport we have a really cool old hardware store. I think they have some of the same merchandise that they had when they opened maybe 60 odd years ago. I spent a good hour pouring over the store, opening drawers and looking in all the little nooks and crannies.
I had so many ideas I knew I was going to have a hard time congealing them into one piece. I have a tendency to overdo things so I decided I was going to get a few items and work with them for a little bit to see what I could come up with. I picked up a variety pack of O rings, a retaining ring, a spring, a small flange washer and wire. I have spent probably the last 20 years making things with wire so I was pretty sure if all else failed, I would be able to make something with the wire.
I divided the O rings up into sizes and worked with the large ones to see what I could make. I eventually hit upon the idea of twisting the circles to create a centerpiece for a necklace. I made wire links from wrapping the wire around a pencil and cutting them apart, and formed the longer pieces of wire by making a loop on each end. I was thrilled with the outcome and I think that the hardware store may become one of my favorite places to go for jewelry supplies.
The twisted O ring loop supports the two pendant loops.
As a beader and jeweler hobbyist, there is nothing better than more materials. More beads, wire, findings, centerpieces, doesn’t matter. Yesterday, I made a trip up to Whiteland to Beads Unlimited which is a wonderful store. Their website is still under construction, so you can’t really see just exactly how wonderful, but believe me it is well worth a trip. Their selection of seedbeads, silver, glass, natural stones and metal beads is the best I have found in Indiana so far. There are other bead stores that have more of a particular type of bead or material, but for all around purchases, don’t miss Beads Unlimited.
My favorite items to pick up from Beads Unlimited are jasper and agate drilled stones to use as pendants.
10 drilled stones I purchased Saturday
The color and striation variations that come from agate and jasper seem to be endless and now that they have started successfully dying the agate, it has broadened the uses even further (the turquoise stone above is dyed agate, isn’t it pretty?). I seem to have gone for a more Asian feel with the stones I picked up yesterday, and they are mostly of neutral shades. Some of them are drilled straight through and others have more interesting (and what may have been faulty) drill-holes.
While Loryn was here last weekend, I was showing her my stash and was talking about a pink quartz triangle donut in my collection that has two drill-holes which, as it is a transparent stone, makes it look rather odd. Loryn, the excellent visualist she is, immediately showed me how to use it in a unique fashion. Since then, I have been actively looking for stones with odd holes and found a few this trip. It is wonderful to be able to take this flaw and really make it something unique and gorgeous.
I have also had this small obsession with coral and imagine my joy when I found some blue coral. I have a ton of red coral (in so many shapes and sizes), so the blue was an excellent find.
I have yet to cut them off their strands
Blue coral is a light denim color with darker blue specks and whorls. I bought it in two shapes and cannot wait to use them. Also pictured are a strand of black glass rectangles with dimples on all the sides and two pearl strands. The blue/teal pearls are halfway between potato and spherical (I’m sure this shape actually has a name, although I don’t know it) and are absolutely beautiful. The natural, off-white pearls are dots. They are flat on one side and have a hole drilled towards the top to make them drop beads of a sort, supercute.
I also bought a bunch of glass, both strung and not in varying colors and shapes.
I picked up quite a few neutral to brown glass strands to go along with the pendant stones I purchased. The square green glass beads in the center of the first photo were just too cool and cute to pass up. Haven’t figured out what or how I will use them, but nothing in my stash is ever wasted.
Here is a photo of the entire haul:
I did stay within my budget, only just, but until I actually sell a piece, I am trying to restrict myself, although it may not look it. I cannot wait to create some new pieces from this bead run. Hey, what am I waiting for? Talk to you later!
Loryn’s photography tutorial would be useless if I didn’t actually put it to work. After watching her take photos, thinking about design and white space (which I had a lot of in my previous photos), and considering a photo list of all the shots you need when posting items to be sold, I was set loose with my camera and Photoshop.
I have been on a shell, mother of pearl and pearl kick lately in my jewelry. There are so many varieties of shells and pearls in so many colors and shapes that the opportunities and uses for them are too numerous to name or even demonstrate. I will show some of my tributes to mother nature’s wonder: Mother of Pearl.
I call these my "UFO" necklaces.
These are the three I have completed so far. The pink and white necklaces are both made with pink shell donuts, white quartz round beads, and silver 6/0 and pink 11/0 seed beads. The black necklace is made of black shell donuts, black shell flat round beads, and silver 6/0 and black hex seed beads. I made the hook and eyes out of 18 gauge sterling silver wire.
The difference in my photography before and after is rather dramatic. These are so much more clear and are visually interesting. Previously I had way too much white space and very little actual design. I would just drape the necklace in a circle and shoot the photo. Here I am trying to make the photos a little more dynamic. My camera is better than i remember it being (I haven’t used this one in a long time or all that often when I did use it) and the lights are wonderful (Thanks Loryn for letting me borrow them). My set-up is really pretty small and doesn’t take up a lot of space and being in a rather unused corner helps a lot. It is also really close to my worktable, so no more excuses for bad photos.
Nice close-up photo of the trio! Go Kristin!
And one more shot of my clasps from all three necklaces.
Made with 18 gauge sterling silver.
I think it was a very successful tutorial. Let’s all thank my sister Loryn for putting an end to my atrocious affront on humanity with bad photos. Thing of it is, I can appreciate my jewelry work more and see that it really is getting much better and more put-together now that I have some good photographs of it. Of course, I can also see all the flaws and errors much more easily with macro photography. etsy here I come!
Loryn came to B-ton this weekend to help me get started taking jewelry pictures for my etsy shop. Photography class couldn’t start until I had the tools and environment under control. I had to clean up the are and get the photo table set-up. I have an old drafting table which has become my base, the lights are borrowed from Loryn, the camera is my old Fuji Film 3800 FinePix, and I bought a roll of banner paper from Pygmalion’s, the local art store.
I have hung the brackets and you can see the dowel that will hold the roll of banner paper.
Living in an A-Frame house can cause some difficulties in hanging anything from the walls, so to hang my banner paper which would become my photo backdrop, I purchased two closet rod brackets. I hung these from the walls and put a dowel though the roll of paper. This drapes down to the table and provides a great backdrop that I can replace easily and even write and doodle on with no costly consequences. Just cut and roll out another sheet and you are good to go.
Then came the actual tutorial.
—Kristin
The full photo setup
Loryn here. This is what the full photography set-up looks like. After shooting thousands of objects for sale on eBay, I got the best results by having two lights balanced on each side of the object. The tripod is helpful, but not a necessity with Kristin’s camera, which has good image stabilization.
The power strip has to be close at hand (or foot, really), so we can turn the lights off and on easily. The photo lights are 500 watt daylight bulbs. They are very, very hot, and they have a 5 hour lifespan, so you only want them on while shooting. A truly professional set-up would include lights that are slaved to the camera, so they only come on when you press the shutter release. We’re not there yet, if we will ever be.
Putting the jewelry in place
Here I’m trying out different positions for the camera and the jewelry. The camera has a 6X zoom, so it needs to be fairly close to get nice tight macro shots.
Photography in action
I’ve always thought that product photography is similar to taking portraits. Every object has a “face,” even just metaphorically, and a close up of that face is the shot you want for your thumbnails. Here is the “face shot” of Kristin’s pearl necklace:
Close up of Kristin's pearl necklace
Didn’t Kristin do a beautiful job designing this? She let me wear it when I got married, and it looked wonderful with my pink dress.
After the face shot, I pull back for the complete object. With necklaces, the challenge is to get the item to fill most of the frame, instead of a mostly white shot. It’s easier with a multi-strand necklace like this.
The full necklace shot
After a few adjustments in Photoshop, the photos are ready to go! Check out the next post for more of Kristin’s jewelry! —Loryn
the crafty sisters 