Pictures are Worth a Thousands Words (or Sales!!)

Tweet Happy Friday, Team Fest Members!

I opened up my Etsy shop just less than a year ago and have learned so much - especially about the importance of pictures! If you're new to the Team, check out our Shop Critique thread. You'll get some great advice from a new pair of fresh eyes!

Some of the comments I received were in regards to my pictures. If you're not an avid photographer - this seems to be one of the most popular challenges. In my particular case, my pictures were always kind of dark, so I tried going outside in direct sunlight. I quickly learned that it's also bad to get too much light. I couldn't win!

I started doing some research and found that many suggested a light box to create even bright tones in your pictures - but of course - I did not want to go spending $200 for one!! Luckily, I found a great article on how to create your on light box in our Team Fest Seller Solution section. So, with a little help from my husband, I made my very own light box!!

Front of the Light Box:

Inside of the light box:

Here are is one of my hairclips before:

Now after - using the light box and adding some simple rocks and clay pot:

Some tips for constructing the light box:

• You don't have to use Bristol board. It's pretty expensive. I just bought regular card board paper, but make sure its a bright white.
• I do suggest buying that exact bulb the author recommends. It can be easily found in hardware stores. I originally bought another kind and the pictures did not come out bright.
• If you don't want to spend the money on the light bulb - sunshine is always free!! The light box is also great is direct sunlight. You may have to adjust the brightness a bit on an editing software, but it works great!!

Fixing pictures is not as scary as I thought and using little props here and there really do make a great difference!! Pictures are the one only way we can share our craft with the world wide web, so get creative, use some props, and start snapping away ( :