New clothing release at LA Crafts!

LA Crafts have just released their new summer clothing line, for boys (yes boys!) and girls.

Here are a few to wet your whistle…

View Full Album

To check our the rest of the collection head on over to the LA Crafts store at Oz Handmade.

1/2 price advertising offer available ONLY TODAY!

 

For today only you can receive 50% the 6 monthly 125 banner subscription on the Oz Handmade home page.

That’s a saving of $62.50!

If your interested email advertising@ozhandmade.com.

Offer will expire 12am midnight tonight (3/10/10).

What’s going on at Oz Handmade?

We have a few things on at the moment, We’ve had a number of new stores sign up bringing the total so far up to 82 (18 to go!) one of which wasted no time at all opening its virtual doors.

Chamberlain Creations creates the cutest wall murals, name plaques, and much more. Be sure to stop by the store, there will be hopefully more to come soon.

Other stores who have opened recently are…

In a Yellow Wood – If you after something a little different from your store bought greeting cards you should check IAYW out.

Little Snuggle Monkey – LSM makes cute comforters/toys for the little ones in your life.

Upcoming sales/releases.

La Crafts is about to release their new clothing line on Oz Handmade! How exciting is that! The release will be on the 4th so check back for all that is new over at La Crafts. Of course regular stock is available now at La Crafts so why not pop over and check it out.

Promotions

Don’t forget we have the “FREE RENT FOR A MONTH” promotion running at the moment. If you or know someone who has thought about opening a store with Oz Handmade now is the time. When we reach 100 stores 5 stores will be chosen at random to receive 1 months free rent! Check out this post for all the information.

Advertising Opportunities with Oz Handmade

Did you know we offer many different advertising packages at Oz Handmade? One of which doesn’t cost you a cent!

If you would like more info on advertising with us please email advertising@ozhandmade.com.

 

We seem to be experiencing some technical difficulties…

 

It looks like the site has gone down. There was talk about it going down for server maintenance but not sure if this is related. Will update when everything is back on board.

Sorry about the inconvenience.

Gem

And the winner is…..

 

I have just drawn the winner of the Baby Laila Taggy Blanket give away!

The winner is…….

Congrats to Katesearles! If you could email your contact details to gem@ozhandmade.com and I will pop it in the mail for you!

Congrats again!

Gem xoxo

Another promotion!

Wow two promotions in as many days!
This giveaway promotion is going to be a bit different!
When we reach 100 stores signed up to Oz Handmade I am going to give a random 5 stores (chosen from all of the current and newly opened stores) free rent for 1 month!
Currently we are at 77 stores, so we need to get 23 store signed up, that’s nothing!
The only stipulations I have are as follows:

• Your store must be open to be in the running (Part time stores count as open).
• Store that close WILL NOT affect the count.

If you’ve been thinking of opening a store or know someone who has now is the time to do it!
This competition will run as long as it takes for us to get 23 stores!
I look forward to welcoming many new stores!

Gem xo

Spring has sprung, time to start blogging again!

Well hello there, its been a while hasn’t it!
As you may notice there have been a few changes of late. The new look Oz Handmade was launched a few weeks ago! I love how it turned out. Andrea from Andrea Betty designs did an amazing job!
I have also tried to make the blog relate to the site. Am still not 100% happy with it but its always a work in progress!
Now to kick off the new season, website, blog etc I am going to do a giveaway!

Oz Handmade along with Baby Laila are going to giveaway a gorgeous pink daisy taggy blanket! Baby Laila’s blanket’s are valued at $20 and would be perfect for your new baby girl or a baby shower gift for an expectant Mum or Dad!

To be in the running all you have to do is reply to this post in the comments below and tell me who you would give this gorgeous gift to? Are you expecting or have a new little person in your life or would you give it to an expectant friend.
This giveaway is open until Sunday 19th September and will be drawn at 9pm. 
The giveaway has been extended until 9pm tonight! (20/9/10)
Winners will be notified by email and will be announced here on the blog as well as the Oz Handmade fan page.
The winner will be chosen by random using a random number generator.
I look forward to seeing your entries.
Good luck!

If you would like to check out Baby laila’s range of gorgeous handmade items for the little ones in your world go to their store, www.ozhandmade.com/store/babylaila
Thank you to Beck for kindly offering this item for a giveaway!

Design Oz Handmade’s Logo Competition

Due to difficulty I am having with designing a logo I am asking for your help!

So I am going to open it up to you guys, design us a logo!

Here are the details:

• Competition starts at midnight and will run for the next two weeks. (12.00am 25th June – 11.59pm 9th July )
• It needs to be in JPEG (for web) and high res PDF (for print)
• Be 300 pixels per inch (ppi)
• Use the words Oz Handmade (that’s a given ;) )
• Use these colours and these colours only!

• Print version to be in CMKY
• Web version in RGB
• No Copy written images are to be use.
• Oz Handmade reserves the right to have full ownership of the logo and can use it as we see fit.
• The logo must be original design.
• The logo is to be used on the web as well as in print for advertising, business cards etc.
• All submissions are to be received by 11.59pm Friday 9th July by email. Please email all submissions to gem@ozhandmade.com, a folder will be started by me on our FB page displaying all the entries.
• Please DO NOT post your entries on the FB page.
• I would prefer nothing too colloquial Australian. Don't let the word Oz box you into just an Australian theme.
• The judges decision is FINAL.

The winner will receive…

3 months FREE 125 x 125 advertising space on the Oz Handmade home page (valued at $75) as well as 3 months FREE 125 x125 advertising space on our blog (valued at $60) so an all over prize value of $135!

If you have any questions feel free to email at gem@ozhandmade.com.

Have fun, I look forward to seeing your designs!

 

And the winner is….

The winner of the Funky  Friends Factory Tilly The Turtle pattern is…….

The Winner is Tash!

Tash if you could contact me via email (gem@ozhandmade.com) with your postal address and I will pop ‘Tilly’ in the mail ASAP!

Congrats!

xg

 

Giveaway – Funky Friends Factory pattern

I thought I would do a bit of a giveaway.

To be in the running for a ‘Tilly the Turtle” pattern all you have to do is comment below and a random winner will be picked and announced on Wednesday night.

Don’t forget you can see the other Funky Friends Factory patterns in the Oz Handmade store at Oz handmade.

Good Luck!

How to take a product photo, made easy.

   

The adage, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ is never more appropriate when talking about online commerce.

The best thing you can do for your product (after making it of course ;)) is to take a professional looking, well produced photo.

I know, I hear you, “I can’t afford to get professional shots of my stock” “I don’t have a expensive DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera like the pro’s use.” “I don’t have room or the money for a professional product lighting/studio set up.”

Well guess what? You don’t need to!

By using items from around your home or inexpensive items you can find at stationary or craft stores and a simple point and shoot digital camera you can create professional looking photo’s of your products.

The basics you will need to take a professional product photo.

• Digital Camera
• Tripod
• Black and white card
• Desk Lamps with high watt globes.
• Access to natural light (if possible)
• Light box/tent or similar set up
• A computer and image editing program.

Digital Camera

Any digital point and shoot camera is fine, the mega pixels amount doesn’t really matter as the images don’t need to be print quality as they will only be used on the internet. A handy thing to have on your camera, (most already do) is a tripod jack, this is located on the underside of the camera.

Photo: www.digitalcamerainfo.com	Photo: www.imaging-resources.com

Locate your flash and turn it off, the best light you can use for taking photo’s would be natural light, but even if you are using lamp light your flash still needs to be turned of as to not cause cast shadows or dark spots.

The best way to know if your flash is off look for this symbol      . If you do not see this symbol refer to your camera instructions for how to turn it off.

Now locate your macro option. Macro means close up. Look for this symbol .

Ensure your lens is clean, smudge and lint free.

Tripod

You don’t need an expensive tripod for taking product shots. There are a few different types of tripods that would be perfect for this.

Tabletop Tripod

 

Telescopic Tripod

 

Flexible tripod	Some of the different ways to pose the flexible tripod

 

Light box/tent or similar set up

Professional light boxes can be expensive but you can by them cheaper on eBay, but the alternative is making your own light box or light set up.

Here are some link to easy DIY Light Boxes.

How to make an inexpensive light tent - www.digital-photography-school.com

Homemade light box for product photography  - www.studiolighting.net

DIY light box tutorial - www.instatuts.com

Easy white box light for product photography - www.jasontomczak.com

www.jasontomczak.com	www.jasontomczak.com

To find more tutorial simply Google ‘DIY  light box/tent’.

Background/Back drop

Any colour can be used but white looks the most professional and can be easily worked with later in the editing process. It also depends on what your photographing. The background is there to make the item being photographed stand out, it is plain as to not distract from the product. A large sheet of card stock is perfect for a back ground, it can be curved to give a seamless backdrop.

Desk lamps/lighting.

Lighting is very important when it comes to shooting a professional looking product photo. Any desk lamp is fine but you will need a high watt light bulb. The more light the better. Play around with what amount of light is best for what your shooting.

If you are able to get good natural light where your shooting that can look great too, but the good thing with setting up your own lighting is that you can have control (you don’t have to worry about any pesky clouds).

Computer and Image editing software.

Some of you may be familiar with Adobe Photoshop which is a great way to spruce up your images before posting, but it can be VERY expensive.

Did you know there are free and easy ways to edit your photo’s?

There are programs like Gimp with is a downloadable image editing program based on Photoshop or if you were wanting to try out Photoshop before buying, you can download a 30 day trial from the Adobe website. Picasa is also an easy program to not only help organise your photo’s but also do basic photo editing (all you will need for editing your product photo’s.

An alternative to downloading is using a photo editing website such Picnik, there is no registration required, while you can pay a inexpensive yearly fee to have access to the premium version it isn’t necessary for what we are doing.

The best thing to do to bring out the best out of your photo’s is to play around with the light and contrast. These can made a dull photo pop. Its best to play around and see what looks good.

In conclusion…

The beauty of a digital camera is that you can take heaps of pictures and if you don’t like any of them just press the delete and take some more. Take lots of pictures of your products from all different angels, you might find it presents better looking at it from a different way. Make sure your product is clean and looks presentable, remove any stray threads or fluff/lint and display the item attractively.

Make sure the background is appropriate to the item (If you have a light product a darker background would look better and vice-a-versa with a darker product.)

Use your tripod! The tripod can be an invaluable tool, especially if you get hand shake etc. To make sure there is no chance of camera shake utilise your self timer or if you have one a camera remote. If you don’t have a tripod or don’t want to invest in one there are many simple and creative ways to create your own tripod, Google ‘DIY tripod’ or ‘Make your own tripod’.

Spend time getting the best out of your products, think of product photo’s this way, customers are ‘feeling with their eyes’ so you have to get as much of the product across in a single photo. It might sounds impossible but I can assure you it isn’t if you follow the above tips.

I hope this post has been useful to you. If you have any other helpful tips for taking your product photo’s at home feel free to leave a comment and I will add them to future blog posts.

New to Oz Handmade

Oz Handmade is excited to announce our latest addition.

We are now accepting crafting items such as patterns, hand printed material etc.

Oz Handmade now has now got a select few Funky Friends Factory patterns in stock.

If you haven’t heard of Pauline and her Funky Friends you will now :D Pauline designs and creates all the patterns herself. I had the please of meeting Pauline at the Melbourne Stitches and craft show at the beginning of the month and was blown away by her gorgeous creations.

Now in stock:

                    Heather Hippo                     

Tilly Tortoise

Dilby Duckling

Lamkins

Gertie Gecko

Be quick to pick up your gorgeous pattern, we only have a few in stock! All patterns are $12.20 (+p&h).

x g

Oz Handmade Explained, Part 2

Why sell online?

There are many benefits of selling with Oz Handmade.

• You can sell your items from the comfort of your home, no more getting up at the crack of dawn or battling the elements.
• You set your own hours, you can list items at 3am if you want to!
• No running around or spending your hard earned $$ on setting up your stall, no tables to rent no tent to put up!
• If life gets to hectic and you feel you need to take a break from the selling that’s not a problem, simply put your store on vacation mode and you won’t accrue any fee’s, when your ready to get back on board, simply enable your page and let me know and I can post it on our FB page and our blog.
• No hidden fee’s or expense, You are NOT charged commission on items sold nor are there any uploading or listing fee’s
• A once a month, low cost fee payable via paypal or direct debit.
• There are NO contracts to sign or minimum sign up period.
• You can have as little or as much stock as you desire.
• There is no need for credit cards.
• Oz Handmade currently has over 1000 fans on our facebook page and the site receives over 2000 hits per day to the site.
• If you don’t have the time to put into running a whole store Oz Handmade also has a wholesale option, contact us to find out more.

Over the next few coming weeks you will be seeing a lot of changes at Oz Handmade and here on the blog, we are having a complete makeover! New logo, new colours, a whole new look!

Here’s a sneaky peaky of the new colours for the site, what do you think? I love it!

There will also be some new and exciting opportunities for both Oz Handmade and our store owners but they are all hush hush at the moment, of course I will update you when the time comes, but in the mean time watch out for updates and sneak peaks of the new look site and for our grand reopening (date to be announced!).

Exciting New Store Special

Have you heard of The Contemporary Handmade Alliance (Facebook page)? Tania, (owner and creator of Chicken Inc. Creative) has created CHA to assist those of us who are needing some guidance when it comes to turning your hobby into a business, CHA is a great community of like minded crafters sharing tips and tricks about getting started in the industry!

Oz Handmade is honoured to be a sponsor of this great organisation and to celebrate our partnership we are going to be doing an exciting special for NEW STORES. The announcement will be made tonight so be sure to stop by their Facebook page for more information.

If you wish to open a store with Oz Handmade or have any questions feel free to contact me via email, gem@ozhandmade.com any time.

Thanks for reading!

x g

 

Oz Handmade explained, part 1.

Over two parts I am going to explain a little bit about who Oz Handmade is and what we do.

Oz Handmade is basically and online craft market, but instead of sitting at a traditional market freezing off your behind or getting 3rd degree burns from sitting in the Aussie sun you can run your market store form the comfort of your own home, 24/7! (You don’t even have to get out of your PJ’s ;))

Oz Handmade was stared in April of 2009 by Michelle Lowe, I took over the day to day running of the site in November 2009 and will officially own the business next month, woohoo!!!! (Can you tell I’m excited?)

The online market was created to support our clever Aussie crafters wanting to make the leap from crafting for friends and family to actually making some extra cash (to buy more craft supplies of course, lol). We are proud to be 100% Oz owned and made, our stores only sell within Australia so we can support our precious economy. Another benefit of only selling within Australian is the cost of postage is kept to a minimal, no overseas postage/insurance to worry about!

At Oz Handmade we DON’T charge commission on items sold nor are there any uploading or listing fee’s! You only pay a a low fee once a month.

To be continued tomorrow and stay tuned for a special offer!

And the winner is…….

I have finally had the time to draw the winner of the gorgeous quilt which was kindly donated by Paradise Quilters.

And the winner is…



CONGRATULATIONS! I will be contacting you via email shortly!

Long time no see!

Technorati Tags: Stitches and Craft Show,Makeover,New look.

It has been a while since we’ve seen one an other hasn’t it! Well we shouldn’t let it happen again!

ALOT has been happening at Oz Handmade since we last spoke. We’ve had quite a number of new store’s open their virtual doors since last we met, We had a booth at the Melbourne Stitches & Craft show earlier this month, it was a great experience, I love love love the people I shared the incubator with. A few of my neighbours were Nic from Yardage Designs, Jodie from Ric Rac and Pauline from Funky Friends Factory! I had an absolute blast meeting like minded crafty people as well as getting the word out about our awesome site Oz Handmade! We sold a fair bit of stock as well as handing out over 300 brochures! I have already had a few people email me enquiring about opening a store!

Here are some pics from the 5 days of the show!

I’m going to put lots more pics up on IHC so will add the link when they’re up.

Onto more exciting news!

Oz Handmade is getting a makeover! As you can see by the blog we are going through a bit of a transition, we are changing everything, logo, the looks and feel of the site.

I’ll keep you posted on any new things that happen along the way, I can’t wait, I’m soooooo excited!

FREE Singlet offer @ Pattikat Designs!

Just a quick one to let you all know that Pattikat Designs is offering a FREE Singlet with every pettiskirt purchase! Hurry, stocks won’t last!

Check out Pattikat Designs over at Oz Handmade today!

Offer valid for two weeks.

Pick Of The Mid Week (Sunday)

Today’s Pick Of The Mid Week is….

and their…..

Hand Crocheted Dish Cloths

These 100% Cotton hand crocheted dish cloths are the perfect addition to anyone’s kitchen clean up routine. They have been created specifically for scrubbing dishes and perfect for those non stick pots and pans and are cold water washed ready for your use.

If you’re sick of throwing your money away on paper towel and sponges, these cloths are they way to go. Try these eco friends cloths today!

     

Welcome Paradise Quilters!

sOz Handmade would like to welcome a new store to our site.

Paradise Quilters has opened its doors.

Paradise Quilters offers the best of handmade quilts. Currently in stock are a lovely collection of children's quilts perfect for any nursery as well as some beautiful lap/handing quilts.

Be sure to check out more of their beautiful quilts over at their Oz Handmade store, Paradise Quilters

                   
                        Blue Lagoon                                                         Hand Appliquéd Butterfly Quilt

Pick of the mid week - Minkie Baby and their Limit edition Denim MCN's

It’s Wednesday and that means its pick of the mid week!
Today’s pick is….

and their  

Limited Edition AIO Denim MCN’s

These special addition nappies are very limited there are only 3 left so be quick before they are all gone!
Minkie Baby offers both the softest and cutes minky MCN’s as well as extra specials like today’s mid weeks pick!.
Some of the items avaliable at Minkie Baby

• AIO Minkie/Fleece/Flannel MCN’s
• MCN Booster
• Re-usable Breast Pads
• Special Limited edition MCN’s

Leigh also owns Leigh Davenport Design where she show cases unique handmade jewellery. Check out LDD here.