Crafts by Chris

Musing on polymer clay, beads, jewelry and other stuff.

ray of sunshine

My ray of sunshine during this LONG, NASTY winter has been my new Grandson. He definitely brightens up my day. It’s amazing how much they grow and change in just the few days between times that I see him. He’s really been starting to smile and “talk” a lot.

Trying to get back into [...]

in need of some color

This is what I’ve had to look at for the past 75 days. Snow, snow and more snow. Depressing, huh?

What better way to shake off the winter blahs than with some colorful spring garden beads.

Perhaps you would like to whip up some lovely spring/summer polymer clay colors for your own creations. Check out [...]

balance

Balance
ever elusive
seemingly just out of reach
We try to balance work with family time. Notice I say “try”. I’m not sure anyone is ever truly able to create the perfect balance in life. I’m working on being more flexible and going with the flow. No matter how much time you spend creating a workable [...]

how to create an ad from a product photo

While we are on the subject of photos, I wanted to show how to create an ad from a product photo. This is something that comes up quite a bit. Most people understand the basics of cropping and editing their photos, but not how to resize them.
Let’s say you want to create a 125 [...]

bead photography – part 3

So, now you should have well lit, crisp clear photos that shouldn’t require much editing. I’m assuming everyone knows how to crop their image to get rid of any excess background.
Here’s my basic cropped image with nothing else done to it.

My photo is still a little dark. I really need to upgrade [...]

bead photography – part 2

Three of the most important things for nice clear photos are lighting, which we talked about it part 1, using the macro setting on your camera, and a tripod.
Using the macro setting is a must for close-up photos. Most cameras have a macro setting, just look for the little tulip symbol.

I highly recommend using [...]

bead photography part 1b

I wanted to address a couple of questions that came up regarding the light box. I also should say that this set up will work for jewelry or any small item, not just beads.
Jael asked, “What’s the red thing at the top, Chris?”
The red thing at the top is a heavy duty clip that [...]

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