Rockin' the product photos!

My good friend Ryan recently gave me some advice: "Drive to the store, buy a frame, and take pictures of your prints in the frame so people know what they will look like on the wall." She gives good advice (she does consultations--if you need help with your shop, look her up!), and my Etsy shop has been needing some tlc, so I decided to follow it. (Thank you Ryan!!!)

First, I bought an inexpensive little frame. Then, I decided where I wanted to shoot. I wanted an area that looked welcoming, but not too busy. A bit of color, but not enough to distract from the print. I finally decided on my dining room table. I put out a nice place setting, and a bowl of fruit, then put a small nail in the wall where I wanted my prints to hang. Finally, I set up a couple of clamp-lamps to get the area well-lit.

I have to be honest, there is a part of me that hates that Ryan gives such good advice, because to follow it means WORK. You should have seen me during the photo shoot. I had to turn up the music to get me motivated, and at least every other minute I had to give myself a little talk, "Lea, you are NOT going to stop now and finish tomorrow! Do you really think you're going to keep all of this set up until tomorrow? It will just be in the way! If you take it down you'll just procrastinate putting it all back together again." I give myself pretty good advice, too.

So I stuck to my guns. I pulled every print I have out of its plastic sleeve (I would recommend, if you carry prints, to keep a stock of them on file that are not in plastic sleeves, because it was really annoying to do this), and carefully took turns placing each in the frame, shooting, and replacing it with the next. I should mention that I took some time carefully placing my tripod at the beginning of the shoot so that I wouldn't have to re-position my camera every time.

Viola! It took a good bit of work, but it was worth it. Now all of my prints have a nice setting so that my customers have an idea of what they could look like on their wall. Plus, of course I kept the close-up scans in each listing so they can see the prints in detail.

Now to update all my listings!

Now on DaWanda!

After a recent conversation that I had about the current U.S. economy, trying to reach European markets, and selling in multiple venues, I was inspired to open a shop on DaWanda. It is free to list and they only take a small percentage of the final sale, so I thought it was worth a shot! I found the conversion to Euros a bit confusing at first, but then I found this great money exchange website and it was a snap. Now I know how international sellers feel on Etsy, having to convert everything to dollars! Other than that, I must say listing on DaWanda is very intuitive, I didn't have any problems or confusion at all, and I was even able to use the same banner & photos that I use for my Etsy shop. For now, I am just listing prints and other things that I can easily replace, as well as my portraits. I think it would get to confusing trying to keep track of originals in more than one venue. I am also interested in finding another venue to list my supplies (no commercial supplies are allowed on DaWanda), so if you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them!

Wish me luck!