Friday 29 August 2008

Lots of Treasuries

I made a Treasury today featuring members of the Photographers of Etsy Streeteam who are based in the UK and as there aren't too many of us, I also used pictures taken by POE members in the UK.

Rule Britannia
By Eyeshoot

My Gold and Green print was in a gorgeous collection of green and gold end of summer coloured images:
+++++xxxxx+++++
by riyzedesignz


Foxglove and Hearts was in another lovely one full of great colours which was curtated by a very talented painter:

Gloriousness
By Beacon 11

Thanks to you both!

Wednesday 27 August 2008

The Waiting is Over

I've never had to wait for so long for a Treasury.....I think I've been unlucky and they've all been expiring in the middle of the night. Anyway, I've loitered with the window open all day and finally got my first one as Inter Alia and it's a great selection of sewing machines, ephemera bags and paper tags. I think it's a bit unusual.

Stitching, Sewing and Tagging
by Inter Alia

Saturday 23 August 2008

It's a Bank Holiday Weekend....

And it's starting with a family wedding in Liverpool today. I'm one of the photographers which luckily gets me out of doing all of the formal shots and hovering around the altar, I've been asked to do hand held photojournalism type shots, to capture the moments which the Pro won't get as he'll be too busy wrangling grannies and babies. I was a bit freaked out about it, but after seeing the not so great wedding photos at an online gallery of two very smart friends which probably cost them a fortune, I'm a bit less concerned. I'm taking my lightweight zoom, my wide and my 50mm - actually all my lenses apart from my too heavy to carry zoom. I plan to put the photos on a Photobox gallery so that the guests can do a bit of shopping at their leisure and I'll hopefully make a bit of dosh. I can't quite work out how to get people to look at the gallery though, perhaps I'll make a link on my website and then sprinkle my business cards around the reception for people to pick up....

Anyway, enough about that.

My path through moss print is in a gorgeous Treasury this morning:

It Began With a Photo (Part 2)
by Indie Chick

Click here to see it onsite until it expires at 9.23 on Sunday


Friday 22 August 2008

A tasty quick lunch at home


A tasty quick lunch at home, originally uploaded by multum in parvo..

Perversely, I quite like it when there's 'no food' in the fridge and I have to have a bit of a rummage. This was a yummy rummage lunch - courgette and mushroom frittata with home made spicy chutney and some watercress. It even photographed nicely as well as being delicious.

POE Treasury

I've recently joined the POE Team (Photographers of Etsy) who seem to be an amazingly motivated bunch, putting Treasuries together left, right and centre of fellow team members work. I was in one of these this morning with my new Blackpool Doorbells Print.


A POE Show!
by Wren Photo

Click here to see it at Etsy

Wednesday 20 August 2008

Lost in the Supermarket

My lovely Moroccan chair print has appeared in a great titled Treasury full of great items,

Lost in the Supermarket
by Spongetta

Tuesday 19 August 2008

Cards for sale at Greetings by Photobox

My cards are now live on the Greetings by Photobox site, an offshoot of the mighty Photobox. They asked for submissions of designs by 'Pro Gallery' holders and even though I think that the Pro Gallery site is terrible, ugly and hard to navigate (a new site is due soon apparently) I couldn't resist sending 15 designs in. It's taken a while for them to show up and it's not a complete offering yet, as there's nowhere to organize your submissions/tags/profile yet, they do say that it's on it's way "soon". I am concerned that they will be accepting every design which is submitted - I'm not saying that mine are the best there...but there are some photo cards which are just bad photos with poor colours, bad lighting and ungainly shadows. I do hope that there will be some vetting process else the site will be flooded with hundreds of average cards and I think that the customers will end up being overwhelmed by choice and just won't bother.

Anyway, here's a screenshot of one of my cards on the front page:

Thursday 14 August 2008

Adventures in Bookbinding

I've been mildly obsessed with the idea of making books/journals for ages now. I have had a couple of attempts at simple stuff like punching holes and using book-rings to 'bind' an assortment of papers. It works, but it's not quite what I wanted. I've tried covering cheap and nasty shop bought notebooks, but that didn't quite work either.

For the sake of speed I tried staples (following a very clear and impressive Instructable) instead of Coptic stitching with some success and after one major cock-up and tantrum managed a seriously hefty book using all sorts of papers - Financial Times, printing tests from my various experiments, clothes catalogues and some lined and squared papers and a bit of iMac box for the covers and a chopped up hankie for the cotton spiney bit. I hate the application of white glue which leaves everything crinkled and nasty looking, I'll have to go to it with my iron to see if it can't be smoothed out a little. Nevertheless, it's a good book and I'll keep it for myself. It took a whole day to make, so I doubt I'll be churning them out to sell without masses of practice!






Then I had a second bash at traditional Coptic binding (having lost the fantastic tutorial I'd used at the beginning of the year, I had been disheartened and confused by many sets of impossible to follow instructions I'd come across). What I really wanted to do was to bind on the hard covers without using glue and to get that lovely sexy chain stitch on the outside of the signatures (see, I've got the lingo already!). Instructions for this proved almost impossible to find, but today, I found a good if rather (visually) unclear video on You Tube. It did the trick and I managed, for the first time ever a stitched 'book' with hard cover. It's not big and it's certainly not pretty, but hopefully it's start and I won't get too disheartened or bored and give up. Again.


Brilliant Timing!

I've decided to spend a bit of time on my Eyeshoot shop today and started off by checking the Treasury list, as the page opened I saw to my amusement that there were exactly 333 lists. This threw me into a wee panic as I didn't have a selection planned or even a title, so I hurredly typed and saved the rather lame title of Red, Blue and Green and then whacked it in the little box when it finally turned up. Not exactly the ideal way of creating a Treasury, but I got to it quick smart with the help of the Colour Tool and have made a pretty good job of it. I don't usually go for the big and bold colours, but it's been so dull here that I thought that a nice injection of bright would be a good thing!

Here it is:

I've also decided to upgrade my Trunkt Portfolio as $99 forever isn't exactly a massive amount of money, I'll make it back if I get just a handful of sales. But I can't get the payment to go through and it's really irritating me.....I'll try again later. If I don't loose interest and change my mind.

I had an email from Greetings at Photobox saying that my card designs are live on site, but I don't see any sign of them so far. Irritating. I hope they show up soon.

Wednesday 13 August 2008

Treasuries

I've not been spending much time in my Eyeshoot shop lately as I'm desperatley trying to fill up the new one, Inter Alia which has made three sales so far, but all for minute amounts of money and there's one non paying buyer, which is a first for me! I've not sold a single digital thing which I'm sort of disappointed about as I think that they look good....it would seem that I'm not in with the in crowd!

Anyway, Eyeshoot was in three Treasuries last night and here they are in all their colourful glory!

Grasshopper
by Lizzy Watson

Missing Amsterdam
by LAS LOPEZ LAS
I Got the Blues
by planet treasures

As usual, a massive thank you to all three curators for taking the time to find my work and to include it in their lovely selections!

I think I'll have to put a Treasury together as Inter Alia, I've done a couple as Eyeshoot and it was fun. It's time to find some great ephemera and papery items to show off.

Friday 8 August 2008

Friday Treasuries

I was in two lovely Treasuries today, the first from the excellent Photographers of Etsy Street Team:

And the second is a great selection of black and red with a first time appearance for one of my mosaics:
Circles in Squares in Hearts
by Old Bag Crafts (Hurrah for Etsians from the UK!)




Featured Seller at Imagekind

I had a nice surprise today to find that I'm one of the two front page Featured Sellers!
Let's hope it leads to some sales....

Friday 1 August 2008

Quick and delicious lunch at Al Faisal's

I'm sending this photo of lunch to my blog from Flickr on my iPhone. Isn't technology wonderful!