Sunday, August 31, 2014

An assortment of bird photos.

            I love birds & have some lovely photos of them I'd like to share with you:

Osprey on the nest - Kootenay Lake, BC, Canada
Close up of an osprey in a tree in our yard.
Young ducks & their mom sunning on a log... usually there's turtles here, but not today.
A young flicker that was sleeping under our gas meter... when he realized I was there, he flew away :)




We saw so many blue herons at the seashore... lots of food for them :)

Three young blue herons waiting for dinner, close up.

A close up of a stellar's jay
A stellar's jay posing for me.
The elusive blue jay. I didn't even know we had them in this part of Canada :)





The blue jay posing in our patio.



Backside view of this beautiful blue jay.

A little dipper



A little chickadee

A little nuthatch eating sunflower seeds.

Pileated woodpecker - they're so big!

A big crow 

A raven posing for a photo.

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Let me Do the photo for your charm.

Photo by Ildiko Gagyor Photography 
You're just about to order one of my wedding bouquet charms and are thinking to let me do the photo for you, but it costs $5 more.
Here's what my customers say.

 I increased the price of my add-on "Photo service"-  from $3 to $5.
Yes that's a big increase and here's why:
   It's really EASY to do the photos yourself... (IF you have access to a printer, can resize a photo and have a little patience... ) or you may know someone that could easily do it for you.
My customers agree that it's rewarding and intimate to add your own photo to one of my charms, that's why they are offered as a DIY (do it yourself) ....  but the reality is, not everyone can or wants to do it.  So I started offering to do the photos (a couple of years ago) on my Etsy shop. It was so seldom requested and I enjoyed making them, so $3 was a good price.

It's not hard to add your own photo
   I enjoy making them, although I often get teary or sad knowing that this person's image I am editing, is no longer with their loved ones and sometimes this is the only picture they have. So I do my best to fix what I can.
I rarely know anything about these fine folks, but just looking at their faces & what they are doing gives me a tiny connection as to who they were, and I want this photo & charm to be perfect to honour their memory for years to come!

It often takes a lot of my time to edit photos. The best ones have been scanned, but some  are thumbnails or smartphone photos of photos... (sometimes the original pictures are so old they are yellowed, cracked,  orfuzzy to begin with. )

Not all shoppers are techies, so I try to be as helpful as I can. One lovely mom actually mailed her only treasured pictures to me, so I could scan them, make the charms with the photos, and send her pictures back- with the charms :)  Luckily we had lots of time to do it that way.

I use a clear plastic dome "sticker" to enhance and protect each photo then cut each one to fit snuggly into it's frame.
Anyhow if I want to keep offering the service I should pay myself a bit for doing so.
I think you'll find that for $5 it's still a great deal!


I'd love to add the photo for you.