Studio Saturday with Lorelei Eurto

Welcome to Studio Saturday! Each week one of our contributors gives you a sneak peek into their studio, creative process or inspirations. We ask a related question of our readers and hope you'll leave comments! As an incentive we offer a free prize each week to bribe you to use that keyboard. The following week we choose a random winner.
This weeks winner is commenter  Cat, whose go-to finding is WIRE! That's mine too!Congratulations!!

You have won a pair of Verdegris patinaed double soldered Circle components compliments of Shannon LeVart of Miss Fickle Media!
Please forward an email to Shannon with your address so she can send your bead to you!


This week we sneak inside of Lorelei's Studio...

Tis the season of craft fairs! I imagine it can get pretty crazy for those who have many of these shows on their schedules. I do two shows a year and it's about all I can handle! This year was the second year that I participated in a fundraiser put on by a local Jewish Temple in town, that featured Live Music, Art, and Local Food. I also do an open house at my home, but that's not for a few more weeks, so I thought I'd talk today about some important things to remember when doing craft shows.
 
One of the most important things to me, when doing craft shows is DISPLAY. I put a lot of thought into it, probably too much sometimes. And have been fretting about this years display for several weeks. A few weekends ago, I did some surfing on Flickr and found a nice group called : Jewelry and Bead Booths. That day I found a vendor who used some cool vintage wooden boxes and this started me on a treasure hunt for something similar. Joe and I headed out to one of the local antique malls, and I ended up finding some pretty cool things to include in my set up, such as a very unique Time Card slot, a small wooded bench, and a large wood tool box. Are you sensing the wood theme here?

Paired with some items that I found around my house, I was able to create a funky, earthy, vintage type display that not only was eye catching to shoppers, but showed off my jewelry quite well too!
 
Some other things to remember at your next craft show:
 
* Make sure all items are priced.
* Try not to harrass the shoppers but act like you are happy they are there, and I found that standing up, not sitting- caused people to ask questions and engage in conversation!
* Avoid a crowded table top
* Bring extra lighting
* Table clothes make a big difference, the ones I used had a woodgrain pattern on them!
* An inexpensive alternative to table clothes, that my DH recommended, were some natural tone canvas drop clothes used for painting!
* Pre-packaged items are a great addition to your display and make for easy gift buying!
* Always include a business card with purchases, in hopes that the buyer will look you up in the future!
* Bring a mirror and encourage people to try the jewelry on
* Offer up the ability to make special custom orders if people seem like they can't find what they were hoping for.

Here is the video of my set up all together....

This week, I am offering up a pretty little collection of my tin components. In order to be included in the random drawing, you must answer the following question in your comment:

 
What is the most unique thing you've used in your jewelry display at craft shows? 
 
Thank you for stopping by the Art Bead Scene today! I hope you enjoyed your stay,
Happy Beading!
Lorelei

Friday Finds with Lorelei: WORDY

Got something to say? Why not say it with your art beads!  I compiled a groovy list of my recent favorite wordy beads for this weeks Friday Finds. Please find the links below for each of the beads shown. enjoy!

1. Peace Collage pendant- Amanda Davie
2. Nanette pendant- Jade Scott
3.I Can Fly Heart pendant- Gaea

4. Wood burned pendant- Loose Feathers
5. Amore Heart pendant- Joan Miller Porcelain
6. Dictionary Jar pendant- Kylie Parry
7. French Buttery Resin Art Bead- Be Resinable
8. Ceramic bead set- Lisa Peters Art
9. Seek Wisdom connector- Green Girl Studios available at BeadLady

10. Hope charm/focal- Floridity

11.  Ceramic Bracelet Focal- Librasundesigns

12. Closer to Free pendant- Swoon Dimples

13. dictionary paper tubes handmade beads- PaperandWhimsies

Studio Saturdays with Designer Lorelei Eurto

Welcome to Studio Saturday! Each week one of our contributors gives you a sneak peek into their studio, creative process or inspirations. We ask a related question of our readers and hope you'll leave comments! As an incentive we offer a free prize each week to bribe you to use that keyboard. The following week we choose a random winner.

This weeks winner is commenter number Sabine of MyCriticalEye! Congratulations Sabine!!

You have won a free copy of the Color Drenched Metal tutorial from Shannon LeVart's studio!
Please forward an email to Shannon with your email address so she can send your ebook to you!

This weeks Studio Saturday is with Jewelry Designer, Lorelei Eurto.

 

Actually, instead of hanging out in the mess of my studio today, let's head down to the office, and chill at the computer, shall we? I want to talk today about creating your own photo collages.  Photo collages are easy to make and they are so fun to put together, I know you'll all be doing it non-stop once you learn the steps.

There are a few reasons why photo collages are cool:
1. They act as a really awesome marketing tool- for either bead makers or jewelry designers!
2. Showing off your beads or jewelry in groupings with other pictures  helps create a power of suggestion.
3. Outfits are my favorite choice for creating collages, but other things like color/ texture photos also help

make an attractive collage!

Step one:
Download Picasa- it's free photo editing software, and I love using it to edit all of my jewelry pictures. So it has a dual purpose here- editing, and fun collages. You can't beat that!

Step two:
Find images you want to use with your bead or jewelry pictures.  Choose pictures that are eye catching, and I recommend not stealing peoples photos- so make sure they are copyright free.

To snag photos, create screen shots:
PC users: Press the Print Scrn button on the keyboard- image will be saved into the screenshots folder in 
Picasa.
Mac users:  Press command + shift+4 then select an area. Takes a screen shot of an area and save it as a
file on your desktop.

Step Three:
If you use a PC, you'll have to crop your screen shots so that all you see  is the picture of your article of clothing or photo.
Mac users- your image should already be cropped.

Step four:

PC: after all shots are cropped, save the pics to a folder, then move your bead or jewelry pictures to that same folder. It's easier to create your collages if all your pics are in one place.

Same goes for Mac.

Click the folder within the Picasa program, so you are viewing all of your collage images. Holding down the Ctrl / Command(mac) key, click the photos you want to use in your collage.
Click the COLLAGE button at the bottom of your screen.

Step five:

You must pick which kind of collage you want, chose the type at the top left, drop down menu. I like to use Mosaic. You can also choose the monitor/display size and create thicker grid lines here.

Click Create Collage button. the collage will be saved in the Collages folder within Picasa.

Attach your new collage to a blog post and Voila! You've got insteant Power of Suggestion!

I am showing 2 examples, one with an outfit, and one with different types of images- so you can see they are both quite attractive and show off my jewelry designs.

This week, I am giving one lucky randomly drawn winner, one of Kelley's new Lampworked glass buttons!

To qualify to win this Mustard and Clear glass button, you must leave a comment with your answer to the following question:

What other cool marketing tools do you know of? Care to share?

Thank you so much for stopping by my office today, I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

 

Studio Saturdays with Designer Lorelei Eurto

Welcome to Studio Saturday!

Each week one of our contributors gives you a sneak peek into their studio, creative process or inspirations. We ask a related question of our readers and hope you'll leave comments! As an incentive we offer a free prize each week to bribe you to use that keyboard. The following week we choose a random winner.

This weeks winner is Erin of Tesori Trovati!

Congratulations Erin!!

You have won a fun "Off to see the Wizard" necklace from Tari Sasser of Claybuttons!

Send Tari an e-mail with your address and she will get it right out to you.

This week we visit the studio of Lorelei Eurto, Jewelry designer.

This week, I have gone outside of my studio and down to my Dining room to show you how I take my photographs of my finished jewelry pieces. Photography is a vital step in showing off your art beads.  I utilize a large North facing picture window in my dining room, along with a small wooden bench, and some kooky props. Watch this little video below, I'll show you what I mean.

I took a photograph of the bracelet in full sun. This is something I try to avoid, as I don't think it really shows off the piece of jewelry very well. There are shadows, and overexposure of light can really affect the true colors of the beads.

Below you'll see the photographs I took while I was shooting the video! 5 different shots to get a variety of different angles, plus a photo to show scale of the piece when it's worn.

To enter to win THIS BRACELET, yea! this exact one!

Please answer the following question in the comments section of this post.

What photography tips do you have? Do you find

that a certain prop works better or a certain setting on your camera is key

to your jewelry shots?

Any questions about

my process can also be posted here!

A random winner will be picked next Saturday, here at Studio Saturdays on ABS!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Give Back to Haiti

I have teamed up with Andrew Thornton, to collaborate on a piece of jewelry that we wanted to auction off for charity to help in the efforts to rebuild Haiti after the devastating earthquakes. 

Go over to my blog post, and leave your bids in the comments. The auction started yesterday and continues through til Midnight on Monday, April 5th.

A donation will be made to The American Red Cross/ Haiti Relief Fund.