DIY Jewelry Photo Booth

When shooting photos of my jewelry, I prefer to use natural light. Living in Portland can make this difficult a large portion of the year. I have found that since it's harder to find the right photo set up for me, that I'm just not shooting pictures of my work. No new photos means I'm not posting new items to my Etsy shop so my online customers don't see new work (yeah, it's been the same old same old on the website for a while...). I also am not shooting my one-of-a-kind pieces which means that once they sell (at the Portland Saturday Market) I have no record of them. Additionally, in order to get into shows, I need to have MUCH better, professional looking photos with a consistent background. Time to step up my game.

I had set up a sort of photo booth in a closet in my studio/office, but it never worked quite right and I stopped trying to use it. So, I started looking for a "real" photo booth set-up and came across a video on how to make your own. I made a list of the things I would need and got it all in one trip (this is special because I usually get one thing, then another, then another and the project takes forever or I lose interest). I already had one lamp and the tracing paper I used for the windows.

Cut up foamcore. I ended up cutting
these down before I cut the windows
to fit better in the closet space.

Here's how it went (click on the photos for a better view):

The stuff.

Windows cut in foamcore.
I neglected to take photos of taping the
tracing paper to the windows or taping
the windows together.

Here are the windows covered in tracing paper
and taped together. The poster board is cut and
taped to the top back of the thing.
This is the two-light set up.

Sample shot with two lights - top
and right side. These photos weren't
touched up at all.

Sample shot with three lights.

This is a shot with three lights and the items raised on the plexiglass. There is no shadow (except from the thing the plexi was sitting on). I didn't clean up the photo at all. Not sure if I like them floating like that...

Now I have no excuse for not posting new items!

Raspberry Vinegar

With many raspberry bushes pumping out tons of berries, every summer I try to find new, delicious ways to use the rasppies. Summertime brings raspberry ices, buttermilk cake, smoothies, etc.

I used to buy raspberry vinegar for salad dressing, but couldn't find it here (Portland). Last year, I decided to make my own. Easy. Delicious. Fresh. Genius! Simply fill a jar about half way with fresh berries, fill the jar with white wine vinegar, place in a dark spot, and patiently wait two or three weeks. Voilà!





Once you pour off the vinegar, you are left with a mess of mushy, vinegar soaked berry bodies. I hated to throw them out. To me, the most logical application would be a raspberry vinaigrette. I threw the berries into the blender with olive oil, garlic, dill, and a little black pepper. Again, voilà!

The pink concoction is very tangy and, weirdly, has the taste of balsamic vinegar. I haven't tried it yet on a salad, but think that once diluted over a pile of lettuce will be wonderful. (I hope so. I have a lot of it!)

My Ring is on Design Sponge!

Design Sponge did an article about DIY weddings featuring Angie and Tyson's great gig. At the very bottom of the lovely scroll of photos is a picture of the Forget Me Not bow ring (available in my Etsy shop) that Tyson bought for Angie for an engagement ring last December. They got married in July. I'm excited to see the great wedding they put together, and to see my ring on Design Sponge!

Chilly Basement Bathroom

To the left is the bathroom in the basement. This is actually after I clean it up. There were several colors of paint, rusty pipes, wall needing patching, etc. I've painted all the walls (in the rest of the basement too) and pipes one color so - I tell myself - it looks industrial, not just crappy. The color is actually a warm beige, depends on the light though.

This is right outside my studio/office and is currently the only shower in the house. In other words, I use this bathroom a lot. For some reason, the builders of this facility couldn't see their way clear to actually putting the wall all the way to the ceiling. Therefore, when you shower all the heat is gone by the time you step out. This is in the basement and it's November. It's a bit nippy. I needed a cheap, quick, but hopefully not totally unattractive fix for this problem. After much thought of options, I naturally came to draping something. I was hoping for something that wouldn't get yicky too. My cheap solution: a clear shower curtain, sliced up, hole punched and strung on monofilament. I'm happy to report that it works! Because it is accordioned it still lets in some air (good) and light (good), while also keeping the warm air in (also good).

DIY Table Display - Part II

This is a continuation of this post about creating a new table display. To the right is a picture of the finished earring hangers on my table.

The other problem with my table display that I was pondering was a clean way to hang several necklaces that would also be secure (this is a euphemism for grubby hands not stealing from me). I was also looking for something that had height. Previously I had branches in a jar. This looked cool, but could only accommodate a few necklaces, the necklaces kept falling off them, they were hard to transport - they kept breaking so I'd have to find more - and were dangerously poky. I needed something nice looking, sturdier, portable and practical. I had an idea, I just needed to realize it.

The idea was to have cylinders of some sort, about the size of a neck, standing on the table somehow. After talking it out a bit with my neighbor Mary, I came to carpet tubing as the base for these new displays. It's the perfect diameter and quite heavy. Getting a free carpet tube is easy. Getting it home is another story. They are 13 feet long and I drove home very slowly with it sticking forward out the passenger side window, careful not to take out any bicyclists. The photo (above, left) is three 3 foot sections. There is also a 4 foot. To try to cover up their tubyness and to prime them for painting, I used gesso to give them a bit of texture. If you click on the picture on the right, you can see it. I don't think I successfully disguised the tube - that would have taken several more layers of gesso, adding days and weight - but that is actually fine. In the photo, you also see the spine of nails I hammered in from the top, every 2", until about a foot from the bottom. These are to hang the jewelry from. Finally, I gave them a couple of coats of paint. I wanted a dark color to offset the necklaces, but felt black was too stark. I color-matched a cloth I use on the other side of the table. It's a nice dark olive color and balances the table. The last thing I had to worry about was stability. How would they stand up to people bumping the table and touching the necklaces without falling over? To give a bit of stabilizing weight to bottom, I created little sand bags that I can carry separately and stuff into the tubes when setting up.

Here are the tubes and the earring hangers as part of my whole table. I've used the new displays once so far and they seem to work well. The tubes hold a lot of necklaces and I think they look great. The color pulls the table together. I even got a few compliments on my table from shoppers too!

DIY Table Display - Part I

Last year I upgraded my tabling display and was pretty happy with it. The problem was that it had all of my earrings laying down. I thought that many of them would be better presented if they were hanging somehow, but I wanted the hanging apparatus - whatever that might be - to fit in with the new decor. Since I was starting the Portland Saturday Market this month, I wanted to find something new. I looked and looked. Everywhere. Too many places. I finally found what I wanted at Ikea. It was simple and straightforward; basically just a bar on a stand. Perfect! Only they didn't have it anywhere - not online, not in any store that I checked. Shit. So I kept looking. The other evening I started wandering around a craft store to come up with something to make. The staff was beginning to wonder about me because I was there for so long, wandering around, back and forth. I basically knew I was going to use two dowels to make a bar and stand, but what to use as a base? It finally came to me: small plant pot! I found the dowel that was the size of the hole in the bottom of the pot. Once at home, I sawed the dowels to size and nailed the pieces together. I then glued them for extra strength. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures (I *thought* I did...), but after the glue was set, I gessoed the bars as primer and to give them a little texture. They were then painted black. The plant pots work great, but needed something to stablize the bars, so inside is a chunk of styro fitted to the pot with a hole for the stick. Perfect! Total cost was about $2.50 (I had the gesso and paint). It goes to the test tomorrow and I hope to remember to take pictures of the finished product and how it looks on the table.