RamsdenDesigns

Things I Want

But can’t think of a single reason to buy…

Left Column:

Nice Day for a White Wedding by clairelafaye

Luciano the Mouse by cynicthelamb

Grey/white Antique Buffet by SparrowsNest1

Bird Cupcake Stand by whitneysmith

Custom Wedding Cake Toppers or Centerpiece by dandelionland

Middle Column:

Baby Legs Ceramic Salt and Pepper Shakers LooK Still Kickin by modernfx

necklush ultra – red by necklush

IVORY Raw Silk Victorian Inspired Shoulder Wrap by bonzie

Eddie Friedman's Porcelain Dental Mold by blogbloglog

Right Column:

Tiffany Blue Chair by SparrowsNest1

Keep Calm and Carry On Print Poster by queensorder

Standing Fern Kitchen Towels by themudpuddle

Vintage Lace Wedding Shrug by hollystalder

Treasury Fever

The lovely Smith & Bird put me in a Treasury she created showcasing West Australian Artists/crafters.

In Other News

I finished painting the feature wall in the kids playroom today. And apart from the splashes of green paint on the cornices and all over myself it was a total success. No picks yet…I need to clean up first.

Also got my first Etsy Treasury today. It was so exciting.

I dedicated it to my favourite thing in the world. Chocolate. The people who know me know me well enough to know that if the family and a block of chocolate were going down with a sinking ship I’d save the chocolate first before the kids. And I’d only save them so they could help me rescue more chocolate.

Tutorial - Blurred Effects On Photographs

I thought I’d give a tutorial on how to get a nice macro effect on your pictures. I always think close-ups look nicer if they have out of focus bits, it looks like you spent way more on your camera than you really did. This is super easy and takes just minutes in Photoshop. I’m pretty sure too that you could get the same effect using other image programs.

• Crop your picture so you’re happy with the composition.

• Duplicate that image onto another layer

• Add a blur effect to the top layer. Make it as blurry as you want the out of focus pats to be

• Now select your eraser tool, set it to the size you want the focused part to be and make sure the hardness is set to 0% (so the eraser has a nice fuzzy edge). Then just erase out the parts of the top layer that you want to be in focus revealing the sharp focus image underneath. I went in a horizontal line across part of the lower half in this image.

• Just save the image and you’re done. One product image that looks professionally taken.

Moving Past ‘Woe Is Me’

Some things I stress over and obsess over until myself and everyone around me has gone crazy.  Big B doesn’t understand the female psyche and why we go over something in our heads, reliving something that should be in the past.

I do this a lot…stupid really.

But for some reason my art and craft doesn’t fall into this category. I’m able to bounce back with renewed determination and eternal optimism. So I’m over feeling sorry for myself over my abysmal sales at Upmarket and instead have already begun thinking about where I’m going next.

So here are some new ideas I’m focusing on:

1. Exhibiting only at markets that don’t cost much. That way I don’t have in my head an amount I have to reach just to make basic costs for the day. It will eliminate that dreadful desperation I feel at expensive markets. That ‘must sell, must be success because this is costing me a fortune’ feeling.
2. Focussing on cold process soap making. It’s nearly a third of the cost of making melt and pour soaps and actually takes less time too. Cold process soaps also don’t need wrapping to stop them from sweating and have more packaging styles available to them.
3. Viewing soap making as a hobby, not a business. It will eliminate the dreadful fear of failure because I’m only creating to please myself.
4. Never please the buyer. Sounds weird but I think that's a trap I fall into. Instead of making things I like I instead design for my future buyer and it ends up being a mistake because I’m not experienced enough to know who my buyer is. Actually I really don’t have a clue about my buyers and so just end up inventing a buyer who quite frankly doesn’t exist so I completely miss the mark. And doesn’t fulfil my own creative impulses either.
5. Sell by the centimetre. I like this idea. It lets the buyer choose the price and size of their soap and saves me time because I’m not cutting and packaging and labelling and all that. Instead I can cut on demand, wrap in tissue paper or something, stick on an ingredients label and plonk it in a bag. Done. Also the sight of rows upon rows of soaps thrills me to bits. I found this picture on Flickr here and just love the concept.

So that's my new list of inspirations and ideas. I’ll post again tomorrow if it’s all gone down the drain and I’m onto another list of ideas ;)

Market Day

Today mum and I spent the day hawking my wares at Upmarket.

It was, in all honesty a dismal failure. Below are some pics of our stall before I got fed up with it and stripped it of all fuss and bother. I pulled it all bar the cushions and cards down to table level. It looked better after the changes but made NO difference to sales.

Do you think I’ll ever make anything that sells?

To be honest I’ve stopped caring anymore and will now be making what ever I please. I don’t give too hoots about pleasing anyone but myself anymore. And from now on I’m going to consider all markets an opportunity to chat to other crafters and buyers and NOT a place to sell my stuff…cause I don’t think I will ever have a financially successful market.

Here’s my covered-in-market-preparation-crap computer desk right now…a diet coke to cheer me up.

Home Office Disaster

When we moved house I lost all my storage for the home office. And as you can see from the pic below the result isn't pretty. So I've decided my first interior project will be the office.

But the best and also the most daunting aspect of my office disaster is that I get to start from scratch. No more 'this'll do' furniture, finally I can buy exactly what I need for the space I'm in. I can also paint and nail things onto the walls, something that has never been an option to me before.

I've been spending a bit of time thinking about what I need and what I'd like. Unfortunately for me the first item off the wish list was a big cutting/painting/work table. My room just isn't big enough for that...and I don't see Big B letting me swap the office and the master bedroom. What I most desperately need is storage (and plenty of it) and a desk that makes good use of the space. The desk I have at the moment creates so much wasted unusable space.

With that in mind I'll be spending the next few days drafting up plans with the help of a ruler and old favourite, the latest IKEA catalogue.

Stay tuned, great feats of interior design will be appearing on this blog over the next couple of months.

Photographing products is the hardest part of marketing.

It requires an eye for detail, imagination and great lighting. None of which I feel I have when it comes to photographing cards. Oh why are they so difficult? Just little pieces of card and ink, no big deal. But boy do they need good photography to look good.

I'm busy working on my own web shop so as not to be confined by Etsy, not that Etsy isn't tops. I just want everything in Australian dollars. So for some photography practice I took some snaps of this glorious soap I bought at a market. I was busy helping Ali for the day but she let me out for 30 minutes and I snapped these up.

Really people, its soap. And it smells divine.

When I see beautiful soap like this I just wanna run out and start my own soap business.

On to the business side of things. I've been playing with some possible compositions for my product photography and came up with these promising images.

I'm not 100% happy with any of them but am slightly leaning towards the last image composition. Lots of purple, lots of colour and the pattern background makes for a nice faded background.

Calling all professional photographers...looking for someone pro grata.

1 2 3 4 Mummy Can We Watch Some More

I was on the front page again the other day. Thanks to DaraArt again, how she gets so many treasuries I have no idea.

Also, this has been on high rotation in my house. The whole family loves it and we have a few times all sat around the computer watching it.

And...

...I have a necklace in the shop. My first foray into jewelry making, brilliant eh?

I'm pretty happy with them, the varnish is a bit of a problem, it's not good enough but a trip to a craft shop will fix that. That will happen tomorrow...yeah! Good idea (don't mind me, just typing to myself).

By the way don't fear. If you buy it I'll send you a good one with the good varnish.

You're buying it right now aren't you? Go on, off you go...here.