Photo's: Person amongst Scenery

I love making photos and everytime I take it out for a 'session' I feel that I am getting a little better at taking a good photo.

Taking a photo with a person and some scenery?
Don't let them get too far away from you and the lens as they will disappear in the scene behind them and they will be hard to spot and it is less engaging to the viewer.
As a general rule let the person in the scene take up ~1/3 of the image space. 

Murano Glass Part 3 - Mosaico Necklaces no.2

The other day I did a post on how I restrung my mosaic necklace to make it a little bit longer. Today I am going to show you what I have done with the rest of the beads.

The simplest thing I did was to remove a whole lot of beads from the other necklace length until it fit around my wrist before I knotted and trimmed the string making a bracelet.

By taking one lenght of necklace and removing about half the beads (using same technique mentioned here) I was able to make a braclet without too much effort.

With some of the extra beads that were left I made some earring pendants for myself and my sister.

Earring pendates made with 9ct rose gold wire, 9ct yellow gold wire and 9ct yellow gold beads

Earring pendants made with 9ct yellow gold wire and 9ct yellow gold beads

I still have some beads remaining but it is not long enough as it is to make another bracelet for my sister therefore I am going to wait until I have a day off work (that is not a public holiday) where I can go to the city to buy some silver so that I can make my sister a silver bracelet with the beads, which will look very different from my own braclet.

Here is the mosaico bead set that I have now, including the extra beads remaining:

How many pieces of jewellery have you redesigned?

If you haven't, are there any pieces of jewellery you think you would wear more often if it was redone in a slightly different style?

Quick Tips for taking Photographs with a Compact Camera

Getting a good image does not always happen in one shot and can take quite a few tries but thankfully in the age of digital camera's we can take enless photo's without having to think about how much film we are using.

I use a compact camera, firstly because it is much cheaper, simpler to use and much easier to carry than a SLR but I do apprecitate that SLR's take much better photographs if you know how to use it but then again you can still get some pretty good shots with your compact camera if you use the right settings and treat it well.

Things you will want to consider to get better pictures with your compact camera so that you don't need to delete too many are:

• Get to know your camera
• Have a play around in the main menu to see what options are avaliable to you when using your camera
• Most if not all modern cameras come with multiple photograph settings (these are called apeture settings) such as landscape, portrait, party and macro/ flower options etc. These settings are optimised for how far away you are from that object and for the light which is avalible to you in these situations. Though you always have the 'general all situations use' photo setting as a back up it is never going to be as good for photos such as close up images as it is more likely to result in blurry images.
• Most cameras also come with options with how much information is displayed on your screen as you are looking at it to take a photo. Turn it on. Sure you might not know what all those values mean right now but you will slowly start to recognise what some do after a while and you can start to manpulate other functions such as exposure.
• Natural light is your friend
• Though the vast majority of camera come with a flash which comes in handy for gloomy days indoors or at night it is not always your friend. If you have the opporunity to, change the settings so that the 'force the flash off' option is in use and open your curtains/blinds, go near a window or take the object that you want to take a photo of outside if it is still too gloomy indoors. I find it very useful to use the natural light that I find next to a window at home for close ups for my Can We Do It??? Yes We Can!!! photos (a thread on the Beauty Heaven website). 
• Remember with this is that the light is hitting the subject therefore the camera is between the object and the light source.
• Using flash in your images especially with people can often make them look washed out if it is not dull enough for the use of the flash function
• Also remember that flash is sometimes necessary so remember how you turned it off!
• Digital zoom is useless
• Though great things can be said for optical zoom with making far away objects seem much closer that what they are, I do not same the same for digital zoom. Turn it off if you can. 
• Optical zoom enlarges the photo using the cameras lenses therefore is like a magnifying glass and the quailty of the image is very good.
• Digital zoom enlarges the photo by using inbuilt software, this can often lead to a huge loss of image quality and it is better just getting as close as you can in optical zoom then cropping them once you have loaded the photos onto your compter as cropping does not impact on the image quality so therefore:
• Cropping of photographs in Photoshop/Picasa/Windows Picture Manager is your friend if you want to focus on something small/far away.
•  Tripods are great
• Well not really, they are bulky and very limiting to what angle you take photograph from, but the concept is the same, try to keep your hand as steady as you can.
• This is espically important in photos with low light where you can't use a flash such as a city skyline at night/dim light and in some macro photos where the exposure is going to be longer and therefore your camera will need to be dead still for longer.
• When taking photos try not to let your hands get too far away from your body, if you can keeping your elbows tucked into your sides may help reduce the wobble factor with your hands
• Lean one of or both of your hands holding the camera on the back of a chair/table top/ wall to help reduce shaking.
• When you press down on the shoot button there are two clicks
• When you press down to the first stop, your camera is focusing itself for the photo. Pause here and have a look at the screen, some green boxes may appear, this is what your camera is focusing on and what will look the best in your photos. If you don't want the focus of your photo to be what is in those boxes depress the button and have another go. 
• Still no luck? Maybe if you are taking a close up picture you may need to move away from your target by a couple of mm/cm as  you might be too close for your camera's capabilities
• Utlise Photo Manipulation Software
• No matter how hard you try sometimes your photos are good but are still not right whether they are too dark, too far away or the colours undertones are too warm then go and use some photo editing software rather than letting it sit.
• At the moment I am using Picasa on my laptop and Photoshop on the desktop to edit photos. Though photoshop has soooo.... many fabulous options Picasa is enough for a little fix up. Picasa is also relatively more simple and is free to download/use.
• Just like with your camera settings, rather than reading a boring manual it is better to have a duplicate of photo your would like to edit opened in Picasa and spend a couple of hours playing around in it as that is the best way to learn all the functions that are useful to you. My favourite simple editing options are:
• Crop
• Fill Light
• Highlights
• Shadows
• Soft focus

Did any of these tips help you?
What tips would you give to anyone asking you how to get better photographs?

Murano Glass Part 3 - Mosaico Necklaces no.1

As mentioned in Part 2 I bought some Murano beads in Venice but my sister and I bought 6 strands of Mosaico necklaces. They were all 46cm long and the difference between these necklaces was the colour. We bought two dark blue strands, one light blue, one white, one red and one green strand which I have pictured below. 

Light Green Mosaico Necklace

The white strand was snapped up by my mum when we came home (though that was the colour I wanted) and my sister and I were left to divide 5 strands between the 2 of us since mum didn’t want another one. Considering that I prefer to have my necklaces a little bit longer (I feel more comfortable with strands that are 48cm or longer) we then decided that the two dark blue stands were going to be restrung to make some different pieces.

Today I am going to show you the necklace that I have made for myself, this is what I started with today:

What I started with today, some beads have already been used

I first opened the crimp bead holding onto the string on one side of the lock of the necklace so that I could remove all of the beads and knots from the necklace yet leaving the crimp bead and therefore lock on the other side of the necklace secured to the string.

I used a thin flat object to prize open the crimp bead  holding the sting next to the lock on one side of the necklace

Each bead is secured with a knot therefore I pushed a crochet hook through (any thick/long needle will do, a knitting needle probably would be better than a crochet hook)

Slip a crochet hook through the knot

I then wiggled the hook around within the knot to loosen it so that the knot can be removed.

Crochet hook is wiggled around to loosen the knot so that it can be untied

Once all of the beads had been removed and I was ready to restring. 

To remake my necklace I first made a knot right at the far end of the string next to the clasp so that if the necklace came apart beads would hopefully not fly everywhere.

Added a knot right near the clasp so that if the necklace came apart beads will not fly everywhere

The next step was to start the restringing. As you can already see the original necklace was made with a double length of thread which would be too thick to restring normally, therefore I threaded each onto a separate needle as threading them onto one will make the string/needle too thick to fit through my beads.

The original necklace was made from two pieces of thread, so that I could use both and be able to fit it through the beads, each were threaded onto their own needle

I restrung my necklace using the original Murano beads alongside 3mm 9ct gold beads rather than the gold coloured floral looking pieces they originally used when this necklace was first put together. 

The first step was to thread one needle though the hole in the bead.

Threading a 3mm 9ct gold bead with the first needle

Then string the second needle though the hole, but remember to thread both needles in the same direction and be careful to not thread the second needle through the first needles string.

Threadding the second needle through the same bead as above, be sure to not thread through the first piece of string

One both needles have made their way though the bead pull the bead all the way along the string to the clasp and repeat with the Murano glass bead then another gold bead, etc.

First gold bead in posistion on the necklace I am making

After every eight large Murano beads I also made a knot in the string so that if the necklace would ever come apart beads there won't be too many beads on the loose.

After every eight Murano glass beads a knot was made

When I got to the end of the necklace I made one two last knots in the string before trimming the string and securing the crimp bead on the very last knot, squeezing the crimp bead down with some pliers.

After the last two knots (one after the other) were made on the string, the string was trimmed and the crimp bead was squeezed back on

Here is a picture of the finished product, it is only about 4cm longer than the original necklace but that was how long I wanted this necklace to be and plus I have plenty more beads left over to use on other projects.

  

Thanks for reading. 

Do you restring some of your pieces of jewellery that you feel are just not right for you as they were originally?

My Australia Day Eye Makeup

Well whilst preparing for Australia Day I thought I would do something special with my eyes and so I went to the Beauty Heaven Forums for some inspiration in the thread called Can We Do It??? Yes We Can!!! And I decided to try out one of the looks from page 86.

This look itself was easy to create with just a black eyeliner on the top lid and a blue eyeliner across the bottom lid. I used; Maybelline Unstoppable Eyeliner in Onyx and Marcelle Kohl Eyeliner in Noble Purple (though it doesn't look purple to me!).

My Australia Day eye look!

What do you think?

How have you done your makeup for Australia Day?

Polished London Nail Polish - London Eye

Today I am wearing my Polished London Nail Enamel in London Eye which is a nice and strong orange colour that is not too bright though it is bold.
Here are what they look like on my nails, the left picture is with only one coat of colour whilst picture on the right side is done with three coats of colour;

One Coat of Colour

Three Coats of Colour

Pros

• DBP, Toluene and Formaldehyde free
• Great solid colour after 2-3 coats
• Good staying power and lasts about three-five days before chips appear (but wear and tear does start to show after a couple days)
• Does not peel
• Good drying time

Cons

• You need a bit of practice applying it so that it did not look streaky or gluggy.

Do you wear orange colour nail polish?

Murano Glass Part 2 - My €3 Goldstone beads

I must say that I absolutely love Goldstone. Like the silver bracelet that I mentioned in my second blog entry I was introduced to this 'gemstone' by my grandmother when she bought me a pair of earrings and a ring which featured this ‘gemstone’. Sadly I have only ever seen this product once in Australian stores.

The reason why I put ‘gemstone’ within quotation marks is because though I consider goldstone pieces as precious pieces they are not technically gemstones. That is because gemstones are naturally occurring minerals whilst goldstone is formed by mixing molten glass and copper that is left for a period of time at a particular temperature so that the copper precipitates out of solution before cooling. It is a Venetian glass making technique that is said to have begun in the 17^th Century.

So therefore when I went to Venice and saw goldstone I knew I had to take an original Venetian piece home with me. I ended up choosing three goldstone heart shaped beads with millefiori details, which I have now made some earrings pendants and a necklace pendant out of. 

Goldstone with millefiori flower detail heart beads. Hoops are 9ct rose gold, small beads in the earrings are silver, pendant holder is silver and the rest is 9ct rose gold.