Featured on the Austinist

Check out my interview in the Austinist! Since I'm not a local, what I can gather is that the Austinist is a frequently updated blog/news source about happenings in Austin, TX. They're doing profiles of various Stitch artists and luckily for me, Jennifer Perkins of Naughty Secretary Club sent them my way. Some nice person even commented already on how much they love my jewelry - awesome!

To see more Stitch previews and reviews from the Austinist, visit their Stitch section. You can also visit the Austin Craft Mafia to learn all about the ladies behind Stitch.

Photographing jewelry with Gemmafactrix of etsy.com

This is a great video posted by etsy about photographing jewelry. In it, Brooke Medlin of Gemmafactrix shares her secrets of taking great jewelry shots with the world - I definitely followed some of her advice for my own jewelry pictures! Quoting from their video post: "Brooke Medlin visited us at the Etsy Labs in March 2007. She taught classes on jewelry making and photography. Based in Ohio, Brooke also ran her Etsy shop Gemmafactrix.etsy.com out of our Brooklyn homebase for two weeks."

So, if you've ever wondered how to take quality photos of small items (such as jewelry), you should really take a moment to watch this video - it's well worth your time!

Click To Play

The girl is good - she's sold over 2600 items on etsy!! AND she has 100% positive feedback. That's pretty darn impressive. Here's a great example of one of her beautiful photos below. She really makes me want to get a better camera, or at least one I understand how to use properly...

I personally take photos with natural light like she does - I set up my jewelry shots right next to a window in my apartment but unfortunately this means you can only shoot them in the daytime when it is sunny out. I recently bought a light box but it just did not give me enough light to really pick up all of the little details of my jewelry. When it gets warmer out, I may try and take the light box outside and see if diffusing the natural light works better than trying to use the little lights that it came with...

New Discoveries

I just discovered how to take screen snapshots on my Mac by downloading their handy tip of the day podcasts, and then I discovered that I can post a wish list in my blogger profile!! Wow!

So... if you ever wondered what to buy me for my birthday, Christmas, Columbus Day, Labor Day, etc... here's a link to my etsy wish list complete with a screen shot:

Back from the Girlie Show!

The adventures of freshie & zero take us to The Girlie Show 2007 in Oklahoma City! Ten hours there and ten hours back... another long journey for Freshie & Zero, or should I say, Beth & Greggars? We listened to some David Sedaris, tried to listen to Stephen Colbert's new book on CD (put us both to sleep unfortunately), and learned that although Arkansas has bad roads, Oklahoma has worse ones. Fortunately, the gals at the Girlie Show know how to throw a rockin' craft show. It was held here at a neat old building formerly known as the Farmer's Market where they also apparently host boxing matches:

There was a line out the door starting at 5:30, and the show didn't open until 8:00! The decorations were really cute and girlie, of course, which I loved. The layout of the show was great, and it was pretty packed all night. I was a little afraid that the merry customers (a.k.a. wasted) were going to knock my tables over or spill a cocktail since they were setting their drinks down on top of my necklaces (that's a first!), but we got through the night without any mishaps.

we're safe behind the tables!

On Saturday, we listened to great music - if the Oh Johnny! Girls ever come to your town, I highly recommend going to see them! I even bought a special present for a special friend, but I must not reveal it until Christmas... mwa ha ha... We also ate at a yummy restaurant called Cafe Nova because when on the road, it's important to investigate the local cuisine... All in all it was a great show and I'm glad we were included!