Contest Winner and Etsy Shop Update

Well I officially held my drawing last night for my little Facebook contest.  34 people entered the contest, and the combined total of entries was 116.  For my first time out, I thought that was a pretty decent reach.  A lot of the contestants were people I know personally, but I did have a handful of entries from people from all over the country.  The winner is actually from New Mexico.  It was really neat to see the reach of the internet play out right in front of me.  I never really thought I'd be able to reach and interact with someone from clear across the country this early in the game.

I've sent a message to the winner letting her know that she's won and asking if I can mention her in my blog.  Since I haven't heard back from her yet, I'm going to withhold her name for now.  I decided on one of the gradient pendants as the prize, but I did tell her if she really had her heart set on something else, I'd consider it.  Naturally, I want her to win something she'll actually wear and enjoy :)

Now that my contest is over, I am doubling down on my efforts to get my Etsy shop up and running.  I've listed an item or two thus far, and over the next few days I plan on adding a good deal more.  I want to spend some quality time taking some new, fresh photographs to really showcase my work.  It was funny, last night when I was going through all the pictures I've already taken, I could really clearly see the progression in my photography skills.  My goodness, I was terrible when I started out.  Check out one of my early pictures:

I guess it's passable, but it's also terribly plain and it doesn't even begin to convey the exciting sparkle of these earrings.  Now check out a more recent picture.  This one was taken with a better camera, in natural afternoon light.

This picture has some depth and the colors are really bright, crisp and clear.  If you look really closely, you can see the reflection of me and my camera on each of the pearls, which I think is pretty funny.  This is one of my favorite pictures because I feel like the lighting really accentuates the design and the photo as a whole conveys the feel of the piece really well.  If I saw this on the home page of Etsy, I would be drawn to it and I'd probably click it just to check it out.  I think that's called "clickability"  and it's a trait I want all my photos to have.

So over the next day or two, I plan on spending a lot of quality time taking new photos of my jewelry.  I think I've got a pretty good feel for what I want my photos to look like, so I don't think it will be too difficult.  And once I've got a good portfolio of images, I think it'll be easier to figure out what I want my shop banner to look like.

If you want to check out my Etsy shop, here is the link Little Hill Jewelry on Etsy  Just keep in mind it's still a work in progress :)

As always, thanks for reading.  Stay tuned...as soon as I have a working number of items in my shop I'm going to post a coupon code for all my blog readers (cuz I know you're out there, some where).

Until next time :)