I'm moving! (UPDATED!)

Hi everyone!  Just to update you -- I'm in the process of moving my blog over to WordPress.  It's here if you'd like to take a peek.

Sorry -- have corrected the link!  :-)

It's time! The $7 sale is ON!

I never thought I'd say this, but I have too much jewellery.  And what's worse, it's not even jewellery that I wear!  It's time to make room for some new designs in my Etsy shop, so the $7 sale is on!

I've reduced the prices on nearly 80 pairs of earrings -- some by 70%!  Once these babies are gone, they're gone!  But fear not -- I have loads of new lovelies to take their places!  :-)

Earrings in this post:  Trudy and Violetta

They like me, they really like me!

After much faffing and deleting and hmpfing, I've finally managed to get a Facebook fan page set up correctly.  Nothing has ever made me feel less technically competent.

Please swing by and LIKE my page -- I'll LIKE yours back!

I'm a FEATURED SELLER! :-)

I'm absolutely thrilled to announce that I'm the first featured seller on Ugly Be Gone!

Click here to read the interview (and see my big ol' face!). 

In this post:  Cove earrings and Smoke necklace

SUNSHINE SALE!

In honour of the GORGEOUS weather we're having in the UK, I thought it high time to run a little sale -- a sunshine sale!

So, for a limited time only, all items in my shop are buy two get one free! 

I currently have 300 items listed and more are on the way, so you're bound to find something that takes your fancy.

Fingers crossed the sun keeps shining!  :-)

Photoshop in Five Seconds (A Mini Tutorial)

I've fallen a bit behind in my photography lately -- too many new beads to play with!

This morning, before work, I gathered together all of my new pieces and took some quick pics and have just finished editing them.  I always enjoy other people's tutorials, so I thought I'd let y'all take a gander at my Photoshop process.

***Disclaimer***:  I don't know nuthin' 'bout usin' no Photoshop.  I don't have a Photoshop book, or a manual, or a handy help guide.  Everything I know (and that's not much) is the result of trial and error.  If you are a professional Photoshop user, go ahead and look away now -- I'm certain I'm doing something wrong and am not following the "rules", but I like the way my pictures look (sometimes).  Please let me continue on in my blissful ignorance.

Ahem.  Thank you.

So.  These pictures were taken this morning at around 8 a.m.  South-facing window.  In my guest bedroom.  On the windowsill.  I was wearing a pink pyjama top with a dog printed on it.  My hair looked like hell.

Here's the straight-out-of-camera shot:

It's alright, right?  But it's kinda dark.  And not an Etsy-friendly square.  And it's sorta blah. 

The first thing I always do is crop my pics.  Here's this one cropped to something resembling a square (actually 395 pixels wide by 369 pixels high -- my pictures are always slightly bigger across than they are up and down...just like me.  hmpf):

Look!  The earrings look so much bigger!  You can see what they look like now! 

But, the picture is still sort of blah.  Flat.  Nothing's popping out.  It's just not terribly interesting.

So, I employ the Levels too.  That's CTRL + L for all y'all high-tech types.

A little box will pop up that looks like this:

Now, make sure the little Preview box is ticked. That will allow you to see the changes you're making as you're making them. Nifty!

To start, you're going to click the black arrow on the left side of the box (the TOP black arrow, not the bottom one) and drag it toward the grey arrow in the center.  Very slowly.  Small moves.  You'll see your picture getting darker.  This is what we want.

You're going to do the same thing with the white arrow on the right side of the box (again, the TOP white arrow, not the bottom one) and drag it toward the grey arrow in the center.  Your picture will get lighter and brighter.  This is what we want.

What you're doing here is increasing the way the light and dark elements of the picture play against one another.  You're creating contrast.  You're adding interest.  (NOTE:  This is what *I* say you're doing.  I'm sure there's an actual definition of what's going on here, but you know, I don't know what it is, okay?)

And here's what the Levels box looks like after I've fiddled with it.  See how the black and white arrows are closer together?

Here's the picture after the levels have been adjusted:

 

Don't things look brighter?  If you scroll up and look at the previous picture, the colours aren't as bright -- it sort of looks as though you're viewing the picture through a sheer grey veil, right?

The last thing I want to do is brighten up the darkest area, which is the top of the earring in the foreground.  You can't really see what's going on with those copper beads, can you?

So you're going to go up to the Image menu at the top of the screen and choose Adjustments > Shadow/Highlight.  A little box will pop up.  Your picture will also immediately become brighter as the shadows are removed (but only if the little Preview box is ticked!).

Now, what you want to do here is play with the slider in the Shadows part of the box.  It's currently set to 50%.  If you want your picture darker (with more shadows), you'll drag the slider to the left, resulting in a lower percentage -- think of this as the percentage by which the shadows are being reduced.  If you want your picture lighter (fewer shadows), you'll drag the slider to the right, resulting in a higher percentage.  Again, think of this as the percentage by which the shadows are being reduced.

I want this picture to have fewer shadows, so I'll move the slider to the right.  62% looks and feels about right for me, so that's where I've settled my slider:

And now my picture looks like this:

You can see a bit more detail around the tops of the earrings now, right?  There's more texture to the copper bead and you can see the separate petals of the flat flower right below that bead.

And that's that!  For the pictures I took this morning, I went through the process here.  Some days, I don't need to adjust shadows, but as it was pretty grey and cloudy this morning, my pictures were dark.  Some days the levels need a bit more tweaking before the picture more closely resembles what the jewellery looks like in real life.

If you're new to Photoshop, give these steps a go and see what you think.  Obviously everyone's pictures will need different levels of editing, but cropping, adjusting the levels, and adjusting the shadows is something I do on more or less every picture I've taken (recently -- some of my older pics need to be reshot, so don't judge me!).  ;-)

Oh, also, something I've discovered recently is that putting something green in the shot makes shooting blue beads soooo much easier.  Without that leaf in the background, my camera would've turned this picture into something like this:

And no amount of tweaking would help that poor little picture!

Good luck, y'all!

The final countdown. . .

So. Yesterday was my 32nd birthday. Yay! It was a lovely day.

And May 28th is my husband's 33rd birthday. Yay! It'll be a lovely day.

And May 29th?

Well, May 29th is gonna suck.

Why?

No white bread. That's why. No white sugar. That's why. No white potatoes. That's why.

THIS is coming back into my life:

That's right, friends, it's time for Lola to take a little trip to South Beach! Whoo. Feel the excitement.

Can you feel it yet?

Yeah, neither can I.

But I think that has something to do with the no white bread/white sugar/white potatoes thing.

If you don't know about the South Beach Diet -- it's basically just healthy eating. Lean meats, plenty of fruit and vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy, etc. Common sense eating (i.e., not low carb, not low fat, not a liquid diet, no calorie counting, no weird food combinations). You know, eating the way "normal" people eat.

But I ain't normal, y'all. (You can pretend like you didn't already know that. It'd be the polite thing to do.)

I like cake. And cheese. And butter. And bacon.

A lot.

And I have PCOS, which is a whole big mess that basically means that gaining weight is one of my special talents. Yay me!

But I think it's time to tame that talent. Plus, I'd quite like to get back to the States to see my family some point in the next year, and the mere thought of squeezing my currently larger-than-large arse into an economy class seat gives me the dry heaves.

So yep, I'm heading back to South Beach as soon as my husband's birthday (and its associated cake) is out of the way.

I've done it before (and lost 70 pounds), but then I fell off the wagon and ran straight into a bakery. Basically, I was losing weight (I can't say "getting thin" cause I ain't nor will I ever be "thin") for a friend's wedding and once the wedding was over I forgot to remember to continue to eat healthily.

So it's time to actually make this change and stick to it. I CAN do it and I WILL do it. But I needed to tell y'all about it -- I need to be accountable to someone and knowing that at least 78 people will be aware that I'm changing the way I eat will help me stick to it.

This is NOT going to turn into a diet blog, so don't fear. As of right now, I don't plan for there to be any weigh-ins or before and after photos. I'll just mention how I'm doing...maybe once a month or so? And I'll quite happily answer any questions anyone has. And do feel free to ask -- I'll be honest and it'll help me with the whole accountability thing.

So there you have it. Roll on May 29th! In the meantime, if you need to find me, try a local bakery. ;-)