The Great Reorganization Project Begins

Drawers open
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

Good morning! I hope everybody had a lovely weekend. Mine was pretty good actually.

I'm finally cleaning and organizing my studio. Starting by putting away blocks in newly purchased drawers. Oh how I adore the Container Store! Finally all my small and midsized blocks of carved wood have been safely put away instead of lying around here and there in my studio like they were before. I mean really is that how I should treat my beloved woodblocks? The blocks that I haven't carved are safely stored on a shelf on my pegboard. The only problem I see with this drawer solution is that I don't seem to have much room left for future blocks!

Though if my Gocco experiments keep going like this then that top drawer that I have currently used for Gocco goodies may find itself free for more woodblocks! I haven't given up on Gocco completely but I am not a happy camper. After producing such worthless cards I had half a mind to take some of the blank cards I have left and make beautiful woodblock prints on them! If I had the energy I would have too! Maybe I will do that today. They could be really pretty but selling them at a price that is fair to me yet might be tricky. People will only pay so much for a card I think.

Bad news from studio cleanup is that I can't find one of my favorite newly carved stamps. It is a simple enough design that I should be able to duplicate without much of a problem, but I would rather not!

I'm still playing around with my lightbox and photoshop skills after getting tons of advice from people! Some wonderful souls even took my flawed images and fixing them for me! Having contacts that are photographers is certainly helpful. As tempting as having them fix my images in the future is I really need to learn how to do this myself! But maybe a few could be fixed while I am learning! For example this one that I put up on Etsy yesterday is certainly looking rather washed out compared to how it looks in reality. It could use some TLC but I struggled with it so much in Photoshop yesterday and wanted to list a mirror so badly that I put it up even with the flaws. I figure I can always change the photos later!

Pregnancy is sucking me dry again. Getting stuff done is hard, I am shocked that I was able to clean yesterday after the horrible night I had before including puking up acid at 2am! But I may have discovered a surprising cure for the horrible acid. It was suggested to me months ago but I ignored the suggestion because at the time Xantac was working great and it sounds weird and gross. But a swig of apple cider vinegar seems to help more than anything at this point! I was able to sleep through the night last night and that is a small but important victory for me.

Soon I need to go to the doctor to have a nurse look at the shot my midwife gave my on Friday testing for TB. This is so pointless and stupid because unless the sign of TB is having no sign at all I don't have it. The nurse is going to check the puncture area for any discoloration but there is nothing. I may not be a nurse but there is nothing there! But since I am not a nurse my eyes don't count. Can't even see that I had a shot at all! Imagine that, I don't have TB!

Lightbox - Help!

Pocket Mirror
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

Hi guys! Unexpectedly I am back today. I was planning on taking the day off blogging but I need your help. You see I got a lightbox yesterday and I used it for the first time today and I am getting mixed results with it.

First off I have no idea how to get the pure white background that some sellers manage to get. I have been using sunlight as my light source so maybe I need some sort of heavy duty lamp? I don't know. I don't think the photos look bad at all, but having that pure white would be nice.

My second dilemma is that I kind of miss the old background. Here is a revised listing with lightbox photographed images. The original photos were the worst I had so I made sure to update this one first. Now here is a listing that didn't use a no lightbox and has a block of wood as a backdrop. As much as I am drawn to getting the pure white background I do think the woodgrain pattern is beautiful and appropriate for my mirrors. Maybe I should try taking some shots tomorrow with the woodblock placed in the lightbox?

My final question has to do with what type of shot the first shot should be in the listing. Head on or at an interesting angle. Most mirrors on Etsy are shown head on for the first shot. The photos Kate took for me are head on. So I am leaning towards head on first with angle shots following.

Thanks for letting me unload these questions. At the very least the lightbox helps me get good shots easier. But boy did getting the top shots hurt because I had to stand on the sofa and that hurt my poor hips, knees and ankles bad. I took as many as I could before I had to stop and hobble away. Ouchie!

Have a great weekend everybody.