Another Day

I finished up the design painting on the animal sign for Karter!  I decided I didn't like the elephant footprints on the letter for the elephant, so I looked up "elephant print" on Google image search and found a pattern!  Aparently Nike sells shoes with that pattern...  I thought it was pretty fitting for my design, so I tried it and loved how it turned out!  I hope my buyer likes it!  Of course, I'll offer to change it to the footprints if he wants, but I don't think he even saw a photo of what I do for an elephant letter.  I'm still hoping to get it finished tomorrow night so I can deliver it on Friday.  I'll post a few pictures once it's done!

I know I said I was going to talk about my survey taking experiences on this blog too, but I just don't feel like it fits well with the tone of this blog.  So I've decided to start a second one focusing on surveys and other ways of making money at home, and I'll leave this one with just updates on running my store and the things I learn there.  I'll post a link to it once I get it up and running!

Speaking of learning, last night I read some articles about taking better photos, and I' excited to learn more!  I read about adjusting things like the white balance and exposure value on the camera and did some practice with it.  I just bought a Sony Cyber Shot H55 earlier this year and have been enjoying getting used to it.  It seemed like the photos I took while adjusting these settings didn't make the photos better (acutally, they were worse), but I feel like it will help out a ton once I really figure them out. 

I also started thinking about ways to get things lighted correctly.  Right now I don't have a wall to hang the signs on that gets good enough light, so I've been placing them on a blanket on top of my coffee table and pushing it against the glass slider door to the deck to get some natural light on them.  That seems to be working the best, and I'm guessing it'll be even better once summer comes and the light is stronger.  So many days are dark and overcast now!  I can't wait for spring!

Thanks for reading!

Sara
http://sarashandmades.etsy.com/

What's New Today

Well, my first news is that I finished the flower themed sample sign!  I love it!  I'm giving it to my (adult) sister, and she's really excited to get it!  Here's a photo!

My other news is that someone requested a quote on a custom item to match their baby's antique fire fighter nursery theme!  They got cute custom made bedding and want a sign to match it.  I hope I get to make it for them!  It sounds like it'll be a cute nursery!

Still waiting on the order from the lady with the rock and roll themed room.  She said it'd be about a week or so before she placed the order officially, so I'm not concerned about it yet.  I can't wait to get started though!

The animal sign I am working on for Karter should be done in a couple of days.  I'll probably be able to deliver it on Friday!  I got 3 of the letters done last night, so now I just need to do the other 3, varnish it, paint the background, and attach the cutouts and hanging ribbon. 

On another note, I found something else I'd like to do as a sample project.  I found 10" letters in a really cute font for a good price, meaning I can hand paint them and still be able to charge a good price for them!  The font is called Ravie, if anyone wants to Google it and see what it looks like!  I'm going to hang each letter by a ribbon.  They actually come with keyhole cutouts in the back so they can be hung by themselves, but I think ribbon is a nice touch.

Finally, a question for anyone willing to answer.  I have suddenly been getting spam e-mails from people who have had horrible sad lives and only need me to donate some money by giving them my credit card number or something equally stupid.  (Never believe these, by the way.  They're taking people's money and running with it.  I got 2 today that were exactly the same except the name of the "person" sending it was different.)  This has never happened to me before, and I'm wondering if it's from Twitter or from here.  I'm guessing Twitter, because it seems like there are a bunch of shady people on there and it would be easy to collect e-mail addresses from people you don't know and spam them.  I'm taking my e-mail off of there and telling people they can message me if they need more info to see if that helps.

Sara
http://sarashandmades.etsy.com/