Product Photography

It's been a busy summer so far, as is evidenced by how quiet this blog has been, but I'm getting back into a schedule and have a lot of fun, new projects I'm looking forward to sharing with you!

I've lately been trying to improve my product photography, and my Etsy shops have been a great place to practice! A must for my serious ventures into product photography have been some professional vinyl backdrops. If you haven't yet heard of SwankyPrints, you must go check them out! I hadn't heard of them either until they were recommended to me in my search for that classic white peeling wood backdrop. This is seriously a fantastic shop! They have a huge variety of vinyl backdrops in a huge range of sizes for smaller products to large studio sizes for children, babies, and families. Plus, if you're slightly hesitant about trying them out for the first time as I was, they offer a coupon code for first-time customers, and then offer you more discounts for returning pictures they can use on the website. Top that with a high-quality product and top-notch customer service, and it makes a shop I'll definitely be returning to again and again! And did I mention how much I love vinyl backdrops? Unlike fabric backdrops, they'll allow me indulge my love of food photography too, and if there's a spill, no problem - they wipe off easily with water and a mild cleaner for larger spills.

Large Periwinkle Daisy Headband on the White Tufted Diamond Vintage Backdrop

Pink Polka Dot Flower Headband on the Peeling Barn Wood Backdrop

 Felt Flower Headband on the Green Grass Backdrop

4th of July Ribbon YoYo Flower Headbands on the Peeling Barn Wood Backdrop

Are you into product photography? If so, do you use backdrops and do you have a favorite source?

Back from a short break!

I'm back! As I'm sure some of you noticed, this blog has been rather quiet so far this year. I decided it was time to take a blogging break due to a back injury in December, and thanks to the help of my chiropractor, I think I'm over the worst of it, so I'm back to blogging!

I will be making some structured changes to this blog in the next month, including a schedule of crafty posts, i.e. tutorials on Tuesday, inspiration for new craft projects on another day, etc..., and re-working my side bar to include more detailed, comprehensive lists of my favorite sewing and crafting websites. I have lots of new favorites I'm looking forward to sharing with y'all!

And what have I been up to these past few months? Not quite as much photography as I'd like, but with spring around the corner now, there will be plenty of beauty outside to photograph.

 I've been working on lots of little fun sewing projects for the shops, including this sweet Apple applique onesie!

 This fleece owl receiving blanket was another quick, fun little project to whip up!

Would you believe this is yours truly? Along with a younger brother aspiring to perfect his photography skills, I had fun doing a 'Black Rider' photo shoot one rainy, foggy evening, and then editing in Photoshop!

Plus, check out our family blog! One of my little brothers, who especially enjoys using a camera, did his own blog post on my craft businesses! 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, friends and blog readers! I hope this finds you enjoying a wonderful Christmas season!

As promised, I have lots of crafty posts in the works! I've refrained from posting them until after Christmas as most of them are Christmas gifts for friends and family members who read this blog. :)

Oh, and if you're looking for a fun selection of Christmas songs to listen to, check out my sister's music blog, Joyfully Singing! She's been posting a song a day for the 12 Days of Christmas as she has a fun collection of traditional Christmas hymns and some beautiful and less well known carols.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Happy Thanksgiving and a Giveaway!

First and foremost, have a wonderful Thanksgiving! With a busy life lately, full of many not-so-wonderful things going on, I find it's been so easy for me to complain and be grouchy. Really, in retrospect, I have so much to be thankful for! There's always the basics that we all list - a good house, cars, plenty of food, a wonderful family, friends...I am indeed very thankful for all those things, but I've been trying to train myself lately to notice and be thankful for all the little things - the things we sometimes take for granted as part of each day.

• The thick carpet of autumn-colored leaves on the ground
• Busy days of work between both my shops
• Wrapping orders in Christmas ribbon
• Sorting, editing and uploading pictures of more stuffed owls (post coming soon!)
• Sipping steaming cups of tea in the evenings
• Little 8 GB flash drives that hold so many pictures...

Which leads to a quick explanation why this is a picture-less post! A few weeks ago, we had a little hard drive "crash". We thought at first I'd lost everything, including five years of photos and documents. Thankfully, I've been able to retrieve everything that's over a year old. So I have most of the photos and documents again, but lost quite a few posts worth of photos I had planned for these next few weeks, including a post of new sewing projects, a cute scrapbook pager covered gift box tutorial, photos from restoring the Remington machine's new twin brother, Macey "Mack", and a photo tutorial on balancing sewing machine tension. This is in part an excuse for the silence on this blog these past few weeks. :)

However, now that I'm up and running again, I'll start over! In particular, I'm planning on sharing a multi-week series through the holiday season on how I'm doing my gift wrapping and decorating frugally! I know there's lots and lots of these posts out there, but I'll be sharing some favorite little things I've been doing for several years, and maybe someone will find them helpful! Stay tuned!

And secondly, if you're a photographer who loves fun, handmade props, I'm hosting a giveaway for a gift card to Tiny Tiptoes Boutique here on Prop Insanity! Do be sure to go check them out and enter the giveaway! We'd love to have you!

What are you thankful for this year?

Applique Onesies

In spite of a very busy schedule lately, I had some time to sit down to the sewing machine and finish these cute little onesies for the Boutique.

I recently discovered Steam-A-Seam 2! For those of you who haven't heard of it before, it's double-sided fusible interfacing, and it makes doing appliques so much easier, and finished result looks so much neater and professional. It's really easy to use too- cut out your fabric shape, peel off the paper, and position your fabric applique on the sticky side. Cut it out, and decide how you want to position your applique on the onesie (or anything else!). Once you've decided how you'd like it to go on, peel off the paper on the other side, and stick it to the shirt. Iron as you do normal fusible interfacing. It doesn't adhere extremely well, so I wouldn't recommend leaving it un-stitched on children's clothing. You'll see in the pictures below that I've done two types of applique, both adorable on children's clothing - the tight zig-zag stitch all around the border, and the straight stitch around the edge that allows the applique to fray softly to the stitching line.

And the fabrics? All came from my stash! I really enjoy having a fabric stash large enough to find what I'm looking for when inspiration for a new project hits!

Cute Gray Hippo

I wanted to share this cute little hippo I made recently. This adorable fellow was a custom order as a baby shower gift to match the mom's nursery. He was all in a medium gray minky dot and the grosgrain ribbon bow was coral with golden yellow dots.

He was fun to make, and I have plenty more gray minky dot left over from this project, so now I'm trying to decide what fun stuffed animal I should make with it next. Any ideas?

313 Photography Challenge - June

Photo Challenge pictures from June - Enjoy!

Saturday - June 2

A fun, recent sewing project - stuffed owls, the pattern for which I drafted. A lengthier post on the owls is coming soon!

Saturday - June 9

My first attempt at working with pom pom yarn - a fun shaggy pom photo prop blanket. This yarn is fun to work with and works up so fast - I've made several more since.

Monday - June 11

You can read more about my 'startling' discovery in the spice cabinet here on our family blog!

 Wednesday - June 13

You can read more about this beautiful treadle head I restored here

Friday - June 15

This is the second pom pom photo prop blanket I made, only knit this time instead of crochet

Saturday - June 16

This was a part of a lovely photo shoot with my sister and her new violin

Tuesday - June 19

One of my current projects - the new twin brother to The Remington

Wednesday - June 20

Photographing one in a shipment of new novelty yarn for CS

Saturday - June 23

This is the first in my new line of OOAK boutique clothing for TTB. A pillowcase dress was a fun and easy project to start with!

Monday - June 25

One of the how-to photos in my first sewing pattern/tutorial for fabric flowers, just released in TTB

Tuesday - June 26

Another photo prop blanket - this one is made from a shaggy, chenille/terry type yarn

Wednesday - June 27

My little brother having fun with dry ice in the kitchen sink

Thursday - June 28

Chicago Deep Dish pizza during dinner with our family from out of town

Friday - June 29

Lovely carnations on our dinner table at a French restaurant

Saturday - June 30

Lovely pink roses from our neighbor's yard