Making it Lovely

Tag: tutorial

  • How To Make A Polka Dot Tray

    How To Make A Polka Dot Tray

    I’ve yet to meet a serving tray I didn’t like.  From small to big, simple and understated to bright and fun, I love the diverse functionality of trays with their ability to be used in a wide range of tasks.  They can be used to serve snacks to the ones you love, or just sit on a table holding treasured possessions — their possibilities are quite endless.  In today’s tutorial, a basic white melamine tray (you can find one at Target for $12.99) is given a fun face lift with office supply stickers in bright neon polka dots and a quick coat of Mod Podge.

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  • Working With Digital Paint Swatches

    Working With Digital Paint Swatches

    Here’s a question from my recent FAQ post. Nicole wrote:

    Maybe this is a silly question, but how did you get the paint colors off the brand’s websites? […] I wanted to email a “true” swatch [to my family] with my photos but couldn’t save a swatch from the Valspar website. Did you get permission from the companies or am I missing something??

    Thanks for asking (and nice name, by the way). All of the big paint companies use flash for their websites, which means you can’t right click to save swatches. You can get around that though by taking a screenshot and grabbing your color from the image created.

    So how do I make the brush strokes and paint blobs for my mood boards? I made my own custom set of Photoshop brushes, but you can use a font like Blobs, Brushstrokes & Balloons or this free ink splat font instead. Just pick your color and then use the brushstroke or blob of your choice. If you’re feeling fancy, you can play around with the layer effects in Photoshop.

    Paint Swatch

  • FAQ: Product Photography (Part Two)

    FAQ: Product Photography (Part Two)

    In part one, I discussed a few different options for product photography. Here, I’ll focus on taking a good photo against a white background. That’s what I’m (fairly) good at, and I think that’s where most people have trouble.

    The Setup

    I use a homemade light box, a tripod, four adjustable lamps from IKEA, and daylight bulbs.

    My Light Box Setup

    Three of the lamps have 100 watt daylight bulbs, which is often enough. If there are harsh shadows, I’ll also turn on the 60 watt lamp to add a little overall illumination. The light box is a clear plastic container with some fabric batting wrapped around it to soften the light. The white background inside is just a piece of poster board.

    Getting the Picture

    As I mentioned in part one, I am not an expert photographer by any means. I am however, quite good at Photoshop.
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