Getting ready for the Festive Season

Oh dear! I seem to have completely gotten out of the habit of blogging. I have been so busy sewing and designing, oh and I have made loads of prints too, but I just haven't had time to think about my blog and as we are getting into that season when all crafters disappear to help Santa I seriously doubt my blogging regime is going to be reignited anytime soon!

I am already seeing the order book stacking up so if you need to order anything get it done sooner rather than later!

I thought I'd share some of my new designs for Autumn - Winter 2012:

Lavender Filled Strawberry cushions:

They come as a set of three in various combinations.

Lavender Love Birds and Kits:

There are loads of new products in my shop, these are just a few, I'll update of the others next time I get a two minute slot!!

Reworking and adding new images

It's been a few weeks since my last blog post. I was away in Cornwall for a few weeks to get rested and gear myself up for Christmas. I have also been catching up on all of those small adminy type jobs that seem to accumulate and actually take up quite a lot of time if you don't tend to them as and when they crop up.

One such job is re-wording and sorting my images for my not on the high street. com storefront. The lovely people at not on the highstreet.com have been very helpful in supplying all partners with a series of online guides to watch that talk through how to improve my listings and ultimately maximise sales! I watched the short presentation while on holiday (yes I know I was supposed to be having a break, but it was actually quite enjoyable).

I was both astounded and also very proud to see that one of my images had been used in the photography guide. It was used to illustrate that good images can be achieved by partners, without much expense and without the need for a professional photo shoot. My image was shown alongside two photo's that were taken by professionals! In terms of styling and composition and light, all three were considered good examples of photographs of tote bags, here's my pic:

Now I am definitely no photographer but I do have Photoshop and some skills in reworking images, namely adjusting the light and shadows, cropping and messing about with the exposure. I'd be lying if I said I don't have a decent camera, but it's about 7 years old and I don't have any flashy extra lenses just the one that came with it.

So today I have been working through the guides again for optimising my listings and also reworking new photo's and adding new, every time I make an order I try to photograph it so that I am always adding new photo's to my storefront, firstly to keep things fresh and up to date but also because my photography has improved drastically over the last year, photo's that I thought looked awesome last year now seem dull, dark and outdated!

Here's some of my new improved pics:

I am only about a fifth done with getting all my images improved but I think it's going to be worth it! This year I was shortlisted for category Best Store Front at the not on the high street. com Make Awards So I am thinking with my new improved images I may try to win it next year, then again maybe not!!