Nightmare before Christmas before Labor Day

So yes, yes, Matt and I made up (It's kind of the best part, right?...ahem), and he and the girls are off having lunch at China Buffet right now--it's a place into which I will not step, but I did ask Matt to steal me home an eggroll, so do with that what you will. We've cleaned out the car, and put laundry on the line, and built some rickety shelves in the playroom (because that's just exactly where you want your shelves to be rickety), and I've done a rough draft of this semester's syllabus, updating all the grammar assignments from my concise and readable Longman to the newly required Wadsworth (the university gets a cut from this one, I think), and the girls have painted, and we've all cleaned more than I, personally, feel like cleaning (Our house doesn't look like this person's house or anything, but my parents' house kind of does), and I finally finished sewing (and resewing) my most awesomest Nightmare before Christmas mini T-shirt quilt.

I really, really, really, really love it. It's not one of the T-shirt quilts I'm going to keep, though, so it's currently living here on etsy for a while, until it goes off to live in its new forever-home.
I bought the rest of the bolt of this skulls netting on clearance at Joann's a few months ago, and although this is its debut, I basically plan to sew skulls netting every single place in which a person could possibly sew netting. Shower curtain liner? That's not too weird.
And the lovebirds, from that Nightmare before Christmas T-shirt I bought at a garage sale the day of The Pretentious Wedding:
There's nothing more beautiful than the love of the undead--it's unending, you see.
You know, photographing for etsy is a real art--some product photos on that site look like museum gallery photos, and some, on the other hand, are blurry and gross. I think product photos are very important--they're the only way your web shoppers are going to know what your product looks like, and your artistic style. The best photographers make me not only want to buy their stuff, but also to basically be just like them and be as cool and awesome and tidy and bright as they make their stuff look.
When I photo for etsy or for my craft fair photo album, I make a few standard photos. I take basic front and back photos of my product in an attractive location that allows me to get a straight-on shot. This is desperately hard for quilts, so often I have to fudge there, but smaller stuff is easier. I take a couple of detail shots, to show off the quality of my sewing or soldering, and to give a clear idea of the condition and/or unique characteristics of my vintage or recycled materials. And I always try to include one shot that has personality, with my kids doing something cute with the product, or the product hanging out in a weird location, or even a quirky angle to the product--something that makes my product stand out and reflects my overall artistic style. You can take photos of whatever you want to show off, though. Some people take a photo of their packaging, if it's really cool. Some people include a photo of the whole product line, maybe to encourage customers to buy more than one.
You also want to crop nicely, because etsy photos, in particular, thumbnail as square. So, if you don't crop to a square, or at least don't center your product in your shot, your product might not actually appear in its own thumbnail. You also want to crop things like this--
--to, you know, take the pajama-clad legs wearing her husband's socks out of the frame. Or you might want to take a look at this photo----then go and get the lint brush out and then take another:
Nice, huh?

P.S. Interested in more of my geeky fanart? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page!