Shop improvements and a big sale

This week I attended an online tagging workshop as well as a shop critique session on the Etsy virtual labs, hosted by the lovely and bubbly HeyMichelle (who is, without a doubt, my favorite Etsy admin). There were some great tagging tips - the main one, I think, was to use your tags as an upsell opportunity by suggesting additional uses for your item.

Michelle also critiqued some shops and items, during which she commented on one of my items and several items on other shops which gave me an excellent insight on how I should be shooting my items. Mainly - shoot the item on a contrasting colorful background, so it pops out of the screen.

So I took the weekend, full of remnant coughing and headaches, and the wonderful much anticipated summer day time (there is still enough light to shoot outside at 19:00!) to take some new pictures of items that should have been sold long ago. I think these two before and after shots will help make the point clear.

In the first example, Apple Flutterbutt was shot in front of a pale gray background, which made her look blend as well. I shot her on a new background, this time more colorful and with colors that compliment her pale color scheme, to make her pop out.

The second is a little different method of creating the same effect. My Blushing Flutterbride was shot on a rose pattern paper I had, which I thought matches her character and scenery. I didn't notice, though, how she gets lost in that background. Today I took new pictures of her, this time against the pale wall of our roof garden, with the first of the new spring roses (still so weak and small and pale, on the dry thorny branches). I used a low exposure, to make the image dark and edited the image to give a little extra contrast to the rose, which made her white wedding dress and vail pop out. It even managed to keep the original romantic vibe I wanted to convey in the original picture.

Now, for some shop news - I am having a huge weekend sale on my main shop, since sales have been low thanks to the "terrific" state of global economy. Some of the items are down by almost 50% and the sale lasts till Sunday the 29th. It includes some wonderful magnets, mobiles, paper goods, home decor, and jewelry. If you wanted to buy from my shops, but wanted to save money, then this is a great opportunity. Especially since I am emptying my shop for a fair next weekend, and what you want may be gone after that.

All prices on my sale section have already been revised. You can see the original price and new one on the item descriptions. Barack and Michelle O'Flutterbutt, for example, cost 50$ instead of 62$ is that a deal or what?