Valerie Belkind’s Photography

A few weeks ago I was approached by Valerie Belkind, a photographer, who asked me if I was interested in having my jewellery professionally photographed… after checking out her website, there was no doubt I was interested!!!! I really like her composition and style and Friday morning, she came over and chose some of my pieces…. and Saturday night they were already posted on Facebook… She works really fast!!!

Delight is the only way I can describe my reaction once I saw the results!!!

Here are some of her stunning photos featuring my beadwork.

 

 

I absolutely LOVE them!!! How lucky am I that she contacted me!!!!

Visit her website to see more of her fantastic photography: http://www.valeriebelkind.com/

The Next Generation + BAO Item of the Week

I spent the last 2 months together with Ethan! We’ve had a ball!!! We spent most of our time at my parent’s pool which overlooks the sea… it’s a hard life! ;-)

Ethan has mastered his front crawl… and I’m so proud of him!!! I love swimming and the fact that we can now swim together, rather than me following around the pool having mini heart attacks every time he goes underwater, has been an incredible pleasure!!!

He started showing an interest in photography… another of my hobbies…. so I gave him my old digital camera and he takes it with him everywhere!!! The pool, walking the dogs, the supermarket…. everywhere!!!

Then one day… out of the blue… after I received my loom in the mail… he said: “mummy I want to learn how to bead too! I want to make bracelets and then you can sell them on the intranet (internet ;-D) for me and give me the money so I can buy lots of toys!” :-) my heart melted… the next day we went out looking for a kiddie bead loom… it took me a few days to find it… but we eventually did!

here he is, hard at work making his first bracelet which will be a birthday present for his cousin Shani who just turned 4! :-)

How precious is that!!!!! I couldn’t be prouder!!!! :-)

As for me… I’m busy making the next EBW Challenge “Bollywood”….

and last, but not least… here is my BAO Item of the Week:

Cleopatra – Necklace

Purchase and pay for this necklace between now and the 26th August and receive 5% off + free worldwide shipping!

Visit the BAO blog to see all the specials our talented member are offering this week: http://beadartoriginals.blogspot.com/

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend!!! :-)

Thank you all!!!

I haven't felt like doing much this week... apart from working (real job) and looking after my son who is on Hanukah holiday from kindergarten for 10 days....  The 20th anniversary of my cousin's death has affected me a lot more than I expected... more than all the other ones until now... maybe it's because it's such a huge number and I can't quite put my head around it all... I'm not sure... but the one thing I do know for sure is how all your wonderful comments have lifted my spirits... and for that I thank you... so much!!! I really appreciate it... who would have thought that when I started this blog, about a year ago.... it would have been a way for me to meet all of you wonderful people... thank you so much!!!! I'm honoured to know some of you!!!  I hope you all had a wonderful Hanukah and Xmas and wish all of you a very happy, peaceful, fruitful new year filled with only the best!!!!

So no beading to show... all my project are on hold now... between my son being home and work commitments...  there has been no time, nor energy.... but I have spent lots of quality time with my son, and as the weather here finally turned to winter, I took the opportunity to take my little monkey to the beach... I love the beach in the winter especially when the weather is a bit stormy... so armed with my new gorgeous camera and my gorgeous little monkey, we spent a morning at the beach... me taking photos... my son chasing pigeons.... we both had fun... and here are some pictures of that day!!! 

Ani lo wan gow omm!!!!  (translated, I don't want to go home) my son, growing up here in Israel, doesn't speak proper English yet... he speaks Hebrish... which is exactly what it sounds... a mixture of Hebrew and English, basically whenever he misses a word in English he just substitutes it with the Hebrew for it... this makes it quite hard for people to understand him, unless they speak both languages, but it's hilarious!!!
I love these 2 photos - they just make me laugh - he's not usually a stroppy kid, quite the opposite, so his stroppy faces make me laugh! :-)

 

this last one  is one of how he usually looks:

 

I have to learn how to work the timer on the new camera so that before he turns 18 I may have a picture of the 2 of us together!!!! :-)

Wishing everyone a wonderful new year!!!! Stay warm and safe!!!   

So much going on!!!

It has been a while since I sat down and actually wrote.... and so much has been happening!!!  I'm currently working on 6 or 7 pieces at once, something I never do... but I just had all these ideas going through my head and if I don't start on them right away, my head gets cluttered with so many other things that I forget what those ideas were.... I tried sketching them down, but I just end up with lots of scribbles on paper that I don't really remember or understand what I wanted to do with them...  so lots of beading.... but nothing finished :-)  I usually get a lot of beading done on the weekend... but tomorrow morning my son has been invited to a classmate's birthday party....  and he's still too young to be left at the party on his own, so I have to go with him :-( not what I would voluntarily do with my weekend... a morning with 35 under 5s!!!! :-) so maybe next weekend.... and....

 

I just bought a new camera!!!!! I can't tell you how exited I am not to have to use my crappy old one anymore!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm going from a very old Nikon Coolpix 3100 to a GORGEOUS :-) Canon PowerShot SX10 IS.... which means from 3 mega pixels to 10!!!!!  You may think I'm completely nuts.... but I'm crazy about cameras and have been taking photos since I can remember... at 17 I had my own B&W darkroom... and getting a new camera for me is the equivalent of getting a new car for most people... so I'm super-exited!!!! :-)

 

So, this morning I couldn't resist taking pictures of the gorgeous sunrise that was appearing before my very tired eyes (at 5 something am) outside my window - here is the view I'm lucky enough to see every single morning!!! :-) I love the fact that my balcony faces east and that I get to see the sunrise everyday, I'm glad to see the beginning of the day unfold, gives me hope for a better day and beauty to fulfil my soul.

So I've been playing around with my new camera a bit! :-) and today I finally received the instructions in English for it (I still can't work out why they take the English instructions out of the boxes here in Israel, so you always have to contact the company or its agents to get the English ones!!! annoys me a bit... but hey... at least now I got them and can get on with learning more about how to use it more efficiently! :-)  Can't wait to start taking pictures of my beadwork, when I get round to finish it. :-)

And.... The EtsyBeadWeavers' Snow Queen Challenge winner is Karin from gypsyeyesjewelry with her stunning necklace "Queen of the Frozen Tundra".  Congratulations Karin, beautiful piece!

I love how this pieces is designed! I love that the back and front are different! I love the opals and all the different elements included in this gorgeous necklace!!!  and love those earrings too!!!!

Check out all of the entries and thank you to all of you who voted for my Frozen Waters Cuff as it came in 4th place!!!

OK.... that is it for today.... got to go and pick up my cheeky little monkey from kindergarten...  I made him chicken soup today, so I'm sure he's going to be super happy!!!!  as it turned out delicious!!!! :-)

Wishing everyone a super-wonderful weekend!!!! stay warm! :-)

Photo Set Up - and Finally a new piece!!!

I sometimes get asked about my photo set up... and I try to explain it, but as they say a picture is worth 1000 words... so here is my photo set up :-)

As you can see... hardly high tech!!! :-) I use my dining table because it's in the corner of two very well lit windows, so the light coming in is superb... the mosquito net screens provide just the right amount of light diffusion.

I lay my black plastic-like sheet, that I bought from my local art shop (please don't ask me what it's called as I don't know, all I can tell you is that it feels like plastic, it costs around $1.50 and it comes in a few colours)

I lay the plastic sheet over an object (in this case my fruit bowl) just to give the photos some depth. You could also set it up on a chair, but this works for me.

and that is basically it!!! :-)

Things to remember:

• Turn off the automatic flash on your camera.
• Do not go into direct sunlight, take shots in the shade outside on a bright day, or if you are lucky like me, on your dining table, but not in the sun.
• Steady yourself and your camera on a tripod, a table, or as I do, the back of a chair :-)
• I personally like to use very low angles and like to be close up to the item I'm photographing, but just have fun, experiment, move around, move the jewellery, till you get the shots you like. The best thing about digital cameras is that if you take 100 shots and none of them are any good, you can take another 100. No film waste, no paper waste but most of all no time waste, as you can go straight to your computer and check if anything decent came out, and as I said, if not.... take some more :-)

And the reason why I had to take photos this morning.... well, I don't want to speak too soon, but I think my beading rut is about to come to an end. So yesterday I made this pendant for a friend... I hope she'll like it... :-) I've also listed it in my Etsy shop Black & Pearl Pendant and will be making one for me this coming week end, because I absolutely love it and really want one too :-)

Black & Pearl Pendant is the perfect complement to Black and Pearl Bangle

Hopefully this will be the beginning of the end of my beading rut!!!!

and hopefully my friend will love it... or at least like it ;-)

Eye of the Storm

Another early awakening... this time because I was having a dream that someone was knocking at my window.... and I jumped.... out of my skin and out of my bed.... so here I am at 4.15 am.... posting my newest piece... at least the storms have past us and the weather forecasts beautiful spring weather from now on!!! :-) that makes me happy!!! :-D

As I mentioned yesterday, I am so pleased with this piece.... I really, really love it!!!! it just feels so good to finish off a piece and be 100% happy with it.... having said that I am less pleased with my photographing skills.... I must have taken hundreds (literally) of shots yesterday afternoon and the only one I'm happy with is the back view. I had a lot of problems capturing the focal cabochon. unless I got really close up to it, it just lost all its detail, depth, shine and beauty... I even tried to use Photoshop to bring out some of the cabochon's details, but to absolute no avail!!! If the weather permits, and if I'm in the mood, I'll try and take some more later (after the sun come up :-D), but in the mean time, here is my newest piece for the EtsyBeadweavers Stormy Weather Challenge.

Visit their blog and see all the entries for this challenge and vote for your favourite!!!! *Voting starts the 7th of March*.

Eye of the Storm

Read more about this piece in yesterday's post "Stormy Weather".

Israeli Treasury

I've been meaning to make this treasury for a really long time... and finally I managed to grab one!!!

There's an amazing amount of talent in our tiny little country. These are just a few... sadly I was limited to only 12... hopefully I'll be making another one in the near future.... but for now, here it is:

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=28902

Go!... check out these wonderful artists.... leave a message! :-) just remember this treasury will run out on Monday February 18th!!!!

have a wonderful week-end! Shabbat Shalom! :-)