reworked

I've mentioned a couple times recently that I've been making new versions of a lot of the made to order pieces in my shop.  The primary reason for this is that many of them sold over a year ago and the old photos simply aren't that good.  I also want to make new versions of a few of them because the original ones aren't really a style that I'm doing much anymore or require materials that I don't have on hand and am not really interested in purchasing again (such as Swarovski buttons).  Finally, I'm sure it's not a secret that I have a lot of listings in my shop.  While I'm going to continue to add new listings of course, I want to continue to improve the ones that are there so they sell.

Lately I've been doing one remake for almost every new piece that I'm made.  Here are the ones that I've gotten up over the last month.  With the exception of the last two, these pieces work up fairly quickly (which in beadweaving time means less than 3 hours).  So it hasn't been too hard to work them in between larger projects.  Click on the photos to go to the listings.


I made this one with the green beads that were left over from Yellow Brick Road.  I ran out of the original Emerald City bead mix a while back, so it was time for something new.

One of my other recent goals has been to work through the beads that I've had set out for future projects...before we even moved to Milwaukee.  I pulled these oval shaped glass beads out sometime in late winter or early spring.  It was way past time to get this one done and move on.  These skinny bracelets are permanently discounted so get them while you can.  It doesn't help that they are difficult to photograph.

This pendant coordinates with my Champagne Party cuff.  I'm hoping that better pictures of my pendants that include the snake chains will help them sell on Etsy.  They've done well in person.

I hadn't made a pair of leaf earrings in long enough that it honestly took me a while to get the rhythm down again.  This is one re-shoot that I was very happy with, especially because the earrings have already gotten 2 new hearts.  I used a close up shot for the first listing photo.

This piece is a little simpler than most of my work.  I made the original sometime in late 2008/early 2009 so I'm sure it's not surprising that the photos desperately needed an update.  A lot of my work is not cheap because of the time involved.  I like having $7-$15 pieces in my shop, too, to keep more impulsive buyers looking (and shopping), so it's nice to have some of these simpler pieces in the mix.

I actually redid the photos for this piece just before it sold so it was in pretty good shape.  But this is now a standard line in my shop so I went ahead and made this while I had some of the colors out for a different project.  I'm pretty happy with the color balance (we all know how tough that is with purple) and the overall look of the photos for this piece.

Finally, this is the remake of Something Blue that I've mentioned a couple times.  This is another tough color palette to photograph.  The photo editing definitely helped.  I have taken and analyzed so many photographs over the last few years that it's hard not to be overly critical of everything that I do.  I will probably never be 100% satisfied with a piece like this that is tough to shoot.  That doesn't change the fact that: 1) this new bracelet complete fits with my current jewelry style, and people who frequent my shop regularly will realize that and click on it and 2) the new photos are still so much better than the old ones.  I'm also just not used to the light gray yet.  The dark gray looked unnatural to me for a long time, too.

It's easy to stress when the holiday season hasn't started yet and we want our shops to be the best that they can be before then.  But sometimes it's good to relax, too.