LAST MINUTE DIY VALENTINE GIFTS

This is it! Tomorrow is Valentine's day! Have you got all the gifts bought? If not there's always time for a bit of diy, it's cheaper, it's more valuable and these, that I selected today, are very easy to do. 

[ source: Confetti filled hearts / Friendship bracelet / Heart tote bag / Heart shaped tea bags ]

14 GIFTS FOR THE 14th

Happy week! This week is mostly about Valentine's day, here on the blog. It's Friday already. Time to share and show our love to those who are so important for us. Today I made a list of awesome gifts to show our appreciation to friends, sons and daughters, husband, boyfriend, all family... I hope you enjoy my selection.

[ source: Two hair pins / Watercolour "cutting diamonds heart" / DIY scandinavian Valentine hearts kit / Box of random notes of love / Twin heart baby vests / Tiny heart in a pot / Valentine's card / Felt pillow cover / Pink Bigfoot pin / Women's slippers grey cat /  Hearts post earrings / Mug tiny heart / Shower for two soap / 925 sterling silver heart ]

TREASURY FRIDAY

Well, last Friday I made a special pink treasury to celebrate all the pink in the house. A friend saw it and said: "It's a shame I don't have a bit of pink in this house but I love my blues above all things". Reading this I immediately promised her that I would make a treasury specially for her blues and here it is "Making my friend's sons happy!"! I hope my friend and all mothers with a predominance of blues enjoy this collection.

ALL ABOUT... the Bermuda triangle

Happy, colourful, hot as a holiday in the Bermuda triangle! Enjoy, it's time for a break!

1 - Square shaped bangle by Judit Wild
2 - Party flag crochet bracelet by Silayaya
3 - Wood brooch geometry triangle laser cut by Yuriy and katerina
4 - Lolly metal cuff bracelet by Beth De Hart
5 - Triangles geometric pattern notecards by Noemi
6 - Wallet "Svilla" by Pikfine

GUEST POST: I’ve snapped the shutter- Now What?

The lowdown on editing programs for Etsy shop owners

So you’ve created a great set of images, obtained the best lighting possible in your environment but something looks a bit off. Don’t worry this is fairly normal until you get it all figured out (it sometimes happens even when you have it all figured out). While perfect lighting the first time is the ultimate goal, things don’t always go the way you planned.

Keep in mind that when shopping online the quality and presentation of the image (your product) is everything. Potential customers will look elsewhere if your image is not in focus, is too dark, too light, unrecognizable or amateurish.

Let’s explore a few things that can cause your image to look less than what you had in mind.

The first image in each set is one that you should not use. The second is a rendition that is acceptable for use.

Too dark

The color of your product doesn’t look quite right

Product is not cropped tight enough to show off your product

 

It’s out of focus (this is always reason for a reshoot)

The list of things that can go wrong can seem to be endless (but hey, that’s how we learn). The first step is to pay attention to the details and “get it right in camera”. You quickly learn how valuable this is once you realize how much time you could save in editing.

Speaking of editing, let’s look at 3 programs to help edit your images along with one program that I believe is a must for anyone that is serious about organizing and editing your images.

#1 – Adobe Lightroom

If you take lots of photos and lots of different angles of the same image the best program is Adobe Lightroom (there is nothing else close to this for the features, price and functionality). 

The program runs $149* and while that may seem like a lot of money it will save you hours upon hours of editing time.

Here are features that I love about Lightroom:

•Catalogs your images complete with keywords so that you can find them easily.

•You can adjust one image and apply those same changes to the rest of your like images with the click of a button. Let’s say that all of your photos are too dark; just fix the first one then apply that fix to the rest of the images that are too dark with the click of a button.

•Easy one click dust and spot removal.

•Simple cropping tool that allows you to quickly crop to the correct size.

•Allows you to make “collections” of images that make access even quicker. Say you just photographed that great new line of red rose paper flowers along with a line of orange holiday greeting cards during the same photo shoot. You won’t need to sell the holiday cards utill the holiday season, but the red paper flowers are really hot for the wedding season and you need to work on them pronto. Just create a collection named “red paper flowers” drag the images into that folder (the images still remain in the original spot but the program creates a virtual copy). This helps you find the red paper flower images so fast you will never want to go back to the old way again.

•Non-destructive editing. Say what??? Non destructive editing means that any changes you make in Lightroom can be undone with the click of a button. This means you never hit the save button only to realize that you overwrote your original image by mistake.

•You can quickly and easily post to social media sites such to Flickr, Facebook and more with a click of the button.

•The program makes it a snap to export the correct sized images to use in your online shop.

There are so many other features that make Lightroom the best program for an Etsy user that there isn’t time or space in this blog to point them all out. While the learning curve is a bit steep, I personally find it easier to use then Photoshop Elements or the Photoshop CS editing programs.

Learn more about Adobe Lightroom at: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-lightroom.html?promoid=KAUCD">

Editing tools that you may have but are unaware of:

#2 iPhoto for Mac owners

If you are a Mac user you certainly have iphoto that came with your Mac. iPhoto is an easy and cheap way to edit. It does a fine job. I find it much better to make the corrections manually and stay away from auto correct features.

#3 Photo Gallery for PC Windows 8 users

If you are a Windows 8 user Photo Galley was included. This is a basic program that will help out if your image is pretty close and just needs a tweak.

Without sounding like an ad for Adobe Lightroom, I suggest spending the cash to purchase this program. It will pay for itself in no time at all!

                        Written by Scott Board

* For UK residents: you can find Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 on Amazon and it can cost you around £92.

TREASURY FRIDAY

A new princess is arriving to our kingdom. I'm so happy that Laura is going to have a sister to share secrets, make men's life miserable (joking) and daddy's task of trying to keep them under his wings more difficult.. That I made this "Making my daughters happy" treasury! Hope you enjoy it!

ALL ABOUT... Let's travel the world!

My love for travelling and adventure... I miss long journeys, forgetting the time and getting "lost". I know, it's difficult to get lost nowadays but not knowing where we are even if only for a moment give us the awesome sense of real freedom.

1 - "Hello adventure" print by Girl from blue skies
2 - Battered Fiat car miniature by Sophia Andreas
3 - Travelling brooch by Dianthusa
4 - Let's travel the world globe necklace by Anne Emma
5 - Travel bag in leather by Carey Liang
6 - Paper airplane earrings in wood by Press Send

TREASURY FRIDAY

This "All together now" treasury is a mix of items giving a pastel inspiring board! I could have them all!

ALL ABOUT... Blue marine

The deep ocean is the motif of this inspiration board. The deep blue waters full of life and incredible stories. Let's dive in this blue sea and let's find how remarkable it is!

1 - Handmade original watercolor painting blue waves by Yao Cheng

2 - Chevron recycled decorative pillow by Irina

3 - Linen cotton dish towels by Coyawo

4 - Handmade Curried Leather Sneakers by Francesca M 

5 - Magnolia bakery open sign photograph by Emily

6 - Clutch made entirely of LEGO by Agnieszka Biernacka

NEWS FROM KOALITA GIFTS

Hello dear readers! It has been quiet around here. Well that's because first little Laura was sick. Then me. And things got a bit difficult to manage. I'm slowly getting back to work. Here are few pieces from Koalita Gifts's brand new collection inspired on Pantone. I hope you enjoy it!

Jewellery available

After some shopping for material, a bit of search for knowledge, pacience and creativity... we present you our first pieces of jewellery from the Autumn/Winter Koalita Craft 2011 Collection. More are expected during this month.
See it all at our Etsy shop

A great treasury with summer sales.

Time to go shopping. Lots of opportunities to get more for less on Etsy (click on image)

Summer Sales

CHECK OUT! We are offering a 10% Discount  on purchases until 31/08/2011. Go to our Etsy Shop and have fun shopping a beautiful handmade bargain.

My new items...

A few brooches that I made are already on our Etsy shop. I hope you like them all because much more products are coming... keep tuned

More inspiring work

by Tamar

She is a very talented woman and a source of inspiration for me. I love her work, specially those lovely earings she makes. I'm an addict to earings in general. Earings and rings are my preferences when we are talking about woman accessories.
Tamar doesn't know but I had chosen her to make the earings and the necklace to my wedding, if she could of course. But, with the wedding postponed, I will have to wait to have my gorgeous accessories from Tamar. Well... I'll carry on dreaming with it while she's making her new collection. I'm going to keep an eye on you Tamar  :)

Lovely Pink

* Soon available at our online shop

Work in progress

The first set (pencil case + keychain) is being made.

See it in one of our shops soon.

This one is for me!

Sweet cherries and funny dots to take with me everyday.

Set: pencil case + keychain 

New sets in our shops soon, just for you.