How I learnt crochet

Crochet is something I learnt for my daughter. I started it just like I start learning most of the things - "by accident". I was pregnant with my daughter and I wanted to make something for her. The only thing I was good at back then was cross-stitching. So I was searching for cross-stitching kits on Ebay and then I saw all these knitting and crochet pattern magazines for babies. You know how cute baby knitting and crochet is!

My crochet and knitting books

So I got the magazines and when I opened them I was terrified! Sc, dtr, yo, sl st, hdc, inc.. ! I didn't know where to start! But thank God there's internet and YouTube!  I checked the magazines for the most common sizes of yarn and hooks and asked my husband if he knew any place I could buy those. Yep! I didn't even know about Spotlight or Lincraft! He took me to Spotlight and I bought some random 3ply,4ply and 5ply yarn that was on sale and I was lucky to find a set of Birch's crochet hooks.
Then I got home, turned on YouTube and started crocheting!

this is how I started :) 

And this is my first ever crochet "project". It was such an achievement for me.
 Only now I understand how easy it actually was :D

A butterfly from YouTube (there are heaps on YouTube if you're interested!)

Butterfly hair tie made for my husband's little cousin

I think I started wrong.I bought yarn without having a project in mind. I thought I would just use the yarn to learn all the stitches. That wasn't the smartest to do. I should have picked a project first and then buy everything I needed for the project. Anyway.. after few days of learning stitches and making hearts, flowers and butterflies I realized that I should finally start making something for my daughter. And I went with a blanket! It said "Intermediate" but I took the challenge!

This was my second day!
1/5 of the blanky and few mistakes that I didn't know how to fix so I had to undo half of it!
 stupid me! :))

To be continued when my baby daughter decides to take a nap again.. :)

My light box

So here is my light box. I found many different tutorials for light boxes: some use normal white paper, some use tracing paper, some use white fabrics.. My choice was baking paper :D  I thought it would have the same effect as tracing paper.

 It's not finished yet. I still need to line the inside of the box with white paper. 

And here is what I've discovered by accident!! A perfect white light box! Yay!

Guess what it is? White Ikea shelving unit! Last night my daughter was playing with the dvds (as always :) making a  mess by getting all the dvds out and throwing them around on the floor) and that is when I got the idea!

Not too bad, right?

So I'll be using the Ikea unit for white photos and my light box when I need to take photos on other surfaces. 

Improving my photos

Hi, visitor!
Thank you for dropping by my almost-empty-blog! :)

I can't believe I blog now. I used to think of myself as a non-blogger not because I didn't have one (I did have two blogs a long time ago) but because I'm not a very "blogable" person. I mean, I was never good at writing and expressing myself, I take ages to reply to an email, I'm quite lazy.. But here I am..

What did I do today? What have I learnt?

I have a store on Etsy (hint hint ^.^ Please come visit when you have time. I have many special offers!). I opened it recently and I've been struggling with the photos. I have a normal Canon camera that I really liked because of its small size - very convenient for travelling. But when it came to taking good quality close up pictures of my items - it failed! I've tried everything: outside, inside, changing the settings but the photos didn't come out as good as I wanted them to.

This one was taken inside.

This one was taken outside.

These ones are the best I got. I was quite happy but when they were put next to photos of other Etsyans I was so sad and disappointed. So I decided to do some research and I found some links about light boxes. Like this one: inexpensive light tent and that was my project for today's evening. I decided to make a smaller version with some moderation because I don't need such a big one for my jewelry.

In progress..

I haven't finished it because my daughter woke up from her nap when I was making it. I'll finish it and test it tomorrow. Hope it works! Finger-crossed! Will surely post the results!

Good night my first readers!