A few new arrivals

Over the last week we have had arrivals from stamp-it and Aussiescrapsouce. These include items such as some of the beautiful crate paper rubons and papers, any one who has used these know of the high quality and beautiful colours, we also have new chipboard letter including a gorgeous sparkly set with more styles due to arrive with in the next week. Our most exciting arrival is of course some of the new stamps from the stampit artoligy range and the 2007 hero arts designs, these are already moving off the shelf so get in quick if you are interested.
Coming soon are several new and updated rubons, some gorgeous paper flowers, these are great as they can be painted, inked, stamped on etc to get just the effect you want and we have our rep coming in from bumblebee crafts Monday so hopefully he will have some delicious new products to show us, I'll keep you updated as they come in.
S.

Lay-by terms, fees and conditions

We happily except lay-bys, the following are our terms

.Minimum 10% deposit at time of setting the lay-by up (with the exception of preordered items, see below)
.Payments to be made monthly
.the term of the lay-by is 3 months (if you are unable to pick the lay-by up within this time frame please contact us for an extension otherwise after a four month period the items will be returned to the shelf with no refund, (we will make every attempt to contact you before this happens )
.Preordered items may be lay-byed but a minimum 40% deposit must be made at the time of lay-by setup.

Thanks, Tan and Sue.

Don't forget tomorrow nights class is cardmaking.

Photo tip-catchlights and focus points.

If you want to bring more oomph into your portrait shots try getting catchlights. This is the reflection of light in the eyes that makes them appear alive. Many artists use catchlights in there portraits to give life to their painting, next time you look at a portrait check out the eyes for catchlights. They can be created using daylight/natural light either directly into the eye or reflected off surfaces such as snow, water, photographers reflectors etc. It can also come from off camera flashes and other manmade lighting sources. I personally like natural light best. A marble is one of the easiest ways of detecting the position to get your best catchlights, make a fist and pop the marble into the little groove in your pointer finger, now simply move your hand and marble around until you get a good reflection, at around the positions, not the time, of 2 or 10 O'clock are best, but any position were you get reflections, are fine. Now that you have the right direction place your model here and take your photo. Whenever shooting people, with the odd exception, always focus on the eyes. If you have an slr type camera you can generally do this by changing your focus points on board the camera or focusing manually. With a point and shoot type camera you can use your central focus. To do this position the little red dot in the centre of your camera on the eyes, half depress your shutter release button to lock it on this position, holding it half way down, then reframe your photo as you wish and fully depress the shutter. This will make sure the eyes are nice and crisp. You can also use this method to get different effects as I did for the photo of S. below holding out the lolly pop. Using a shallow Depth Of Field or the portrait setting on your camera put the focus on the object you want sharp and depending on the capabilities of your camera the other object on different plains should blur either slightly or a lot depending on you settings.

I have included some examples below.

The catchlights are in the right of his eyes

The focus was placed on the lolly pop here, creating a soft blur on everything not in the same plain or level.Again the catchlights are on the right side
Even pets look better with catchlights too.

Calendar tin

This practical little off the page project is ideal for use as a birthday/anniversary book or could even be used as a diary. It can be made in a choice of 3 colours, it would be a good idea to pick out your papers when you book in.

Class requirements- distress ink, glue stick, some really strong adhesive for the ribbon, buttons etc such as pritt power glue and your basic kit.