New wine glass design...if only it came with a new camera!

I marched my rear end down to the basement yesterday and finished an order that I got on Christmas day (merry xmas to ME!) and I also whipped up a new design that was Valentine's Day inspired...but not too obvious. I took some pictures and created a new Etsy listing for it, but the photos just don't do it justice! To be honest...it's not my camera's fault...it's the photo editor! It was free for a reason. Lately I can't seem to get my pictures to come out sharp and with a bright white background. It's driving me NUTS! Here's one angle:

Ok, now I'm mad. This picture looks better here in my blog than it does on my Etsy page. It might be a conspiracy! Ian notices it too. He says that if a picture looks clear on your computer, but crappy on a website, then it's the website's photo filter that is the problem. Great. Fan-damn-tastic. Here's another byt with a black background so you can see the white leaves:

I live in a townhouse. With that comes very few windows, therefore, very little natural light. Especially in the winter. I tried to capture a shred of sunlight this morning to see if I could take more pictures of this stemware in natural light. I haven't decided whether to post them or not because the background remains pretty dark. Take a look:

Thoughts?

I don't have any blog followers yet, so I guess this question was directed at me. Sigh...

Christmas in West Virginia

The family and I spent Christmas in West Virginia this year, and as much as we were hoping and praying for snow, the sunshine we got instead was just as lovely. We got up early on Friday morning and drove up to the cabin and got there around 11am. Those were the fastest three days of my life! There were 6 of us...well...6.5 of us if you include Penny. Me, Ian, my Sister Rebecca and her fiance Scott, and my parents. My mom had the place all decorated with white lights. The pictures below show my favorite decoration:

 That shelf holds tons of antique medicine bottles that were found underground on our property! The former owners back in the 60s used to use the backyard as a dump! There trash is certainly our treasure and my mom strung lights all around those bottles on that shelf and it was pure magic in the dark.

I think my favorite part of Christmas weekend was the time that Penny and I spent alone together taking long walks through the woods along ours and our neighbors' properties. I got all bundled up and got a chance to wear my new wellington boots that Ian gave me for Christmas...the muddier the better, bring it on! Even though we didn't have a white Christmas, the morning of was so frosty that it almost seemed like our prayers were answered. The sun glittered off that frost like magic fairy dust:

Penny and I walked all through the fields and through the woods down by the creek that was high and running rapidly! It felt good to get muddy and explore...even on Christmas morning. Here is a picture of penny exploring and a shot of the back of the house from the field:



The weekend can best be wrapped up with a good nap....I'm pretty sure I had one each day. Penny took her share of naps too - preferably in any portion of sunlight that she can get her wee little face into:

Too warm to be winter!

It's getting warmer and warmer by the minute and Christmas is only three days away! 60 degrees and sunny is not appropriate for northern Virginia in December and I am still hoping and praying for SNOW! Or possibly a lightening strike in our backyard.....only because the odds of either of those things happening are about the same.

Here's the crazy part: This is what it looked like on Halloween weekend this year!

6-8 inches of snow in October and 60 degrees and sunshine on Chrismas......totally makes sense. Two years ago we had oodles and oodles of snow on the ground on Christmas and it was the most magical thing EVER:

That's our back deck and the table on the far left has almost 2 feet of snow on it!

Nope...not this year. Not a drop......maybe drops of rain, but definitely no snow. Sigh... Maybe instead I can plant some of these:



A little info about me

Hey crazy kids! Let me take this next post to introduce myself. My name is Rachael Smith and I am desperately clinging to my 20s...what little time I have left of them. I live in a small town in Northern Virginia called Burke. I live in a small townhouse with my husband Ian and our dog Penny. She is a pug and adorable and gets away with most everything.

By day I am a recruiter for a government contracting company and by night I'm a chronic TV watcher...it's bad. Ian and I need a physcial fitness activity that we can do together that doesn't involve sitting and a flat screen. However, most nights I take my TV watching down to the basement where my studio is! I have a great little setup down there that consists of a bad a$$ art table (more details and pics to come on that), lots of shelves for my completed wine glasses and my blank "canvases", and a table I use for wrapping and packaging. In a later post, I will dive into my basement life a bit more and include some pictures - because it is SO riveting....

For now, let me introduce you to my family. Pics below.

My First Blog!

Wow…my very first blog. I started out with all of these ideas of things to write about and of course I’m drawing a huge blank!
I wanted to start this blog so I can have a place to write about my wine glass painting hobby.  According to the state of Virignia, it’s not a business until I reach a certain yearly income and I really don’t see that in my immediate future! Therefore…we’re calling it a hobby.  At this stage in the game, I’m pretty sure I spend more money on glassware, packaging, and paint supplies than the money I receive from my few sales. But that’s OK – painting is an escape from my day job, I have a peaceful spot in my house to be creative, and my husband uses this time to catch up on his Call of Duty game on PS3. Everyone wins!

More notes and pictures to come!