A photo shoot

A while ago I had an e-mail asking if I'd like to sign up to try and sell some of my things through a new website - it's launched today and is called WowThankYou (there's a link on the right at the side of the blog if you want to have a look.)
The idea is that it's the place to go if you'd like to buy a hand-made gift for someone. As it was a completely new site there was nothing to see while signing-up which made it hard to judge whether it would suit the kind of things I make, but since I've not yet attempted anything other than my own website I thought I'd try this one, although looking at it today I can't believe anyone will ever find any of my products at all, there are so very many on there. They've also taken mine out of most of the categories I'd put them in - I think they're in an "other" section so I'm not very hopeful! But you never know, there's always a small chance, and in the words of Tesco 'Every little helps'.

So last weekend I spent a LONG time trying to take photos that showed my tea cosies in a nice and hopefully attractive setting.

Of course, we never, never have tea like this, because it requires a tablecloth and some ironing (I don't really iron - I smooth clothes out hopefully on a radiator, which sadly doesn't work for everything). Usually I take a Simpsons mug of tea up to son no. 1 in his dreadfully messy room where he is surgically attached to his computer, and the rest of us wander round with mugs - but I love the idea of this kind of a tea, it is how I'd like my life to look, and I have to say after doing the photos I plan to try and make it a reality occasionally from now on.

I wanted to set up a small table in the sunshine in the garden, but the weather was awful so I had to stay inside. I bought tulips specially in the market for a pound a bunch, and went to the charity shop to find a proper tea-cup and saucer, and plate (70p for the lot!). I made a victoria sponge cake and asked my mum if she had any silver teaspoons (she's got everything in that house). I sent son no. 2 down the road to buy a croissant for an 'Easter breakfast' (he got to eat it when we'd finished), bought some Easter eggs and got my Easter chickens out, which I thought made everything look suitably Easter-y:

though when I looked on the Easter section today they weren't there which is a shame. You might recognise the actual tea cosies as they're both ones that Archie has been helping with!

Even though it was a LOT of work I really quite enjoyed it, and it's made me want to update all the pictures on my own site and re-design it - I think this will take so many hours I probably won't manage, but I'll try. All I did when I started and before I had a better camera was to put everything on the kitchen table, and nothing looks interesting flat on a table, felt has such a beautiful texture it deserves something better!

Even though I'm not sure about the new website suiting me, nothing's ever wasted - this has made me think yet again about how to display things better, and perhaps has taken me a step closer to trying something like Etsy. At the very least I got a tidied-up kitchen and some pretty flowers which are still on the window-sill, and we all had lots of cake!!