New Items in our Shop

Hello!

A note on starting a blog: I imagine this is what ham radio operators feel like, when they get on their headsets and start speaking their name into the void, wondering if there's anyone out there on their frequency. I feel a little foolish, but I'll keep blogging anyway in case there's someone reading.

I've had a productive weekend. First of all, I listed two new items in our shop: my framed ephemera collage, which I've named Turn of the Century, and a neat upcycled journal featuring an owl.



It's so neat to create something by hand, take a photo of it, and instantly share it online! I mean, I'm 23 and fairly used to modern technology, but there's just something so gratifying and awesome about seeing your own work on a computer screen minutes after you've completed it. It makes you realize the crazy-cool times we live in.

I also used my recent photography experience and newfound wisdom to take, edit and post better pictures of the ephemera packs I have for sale:





Also, Sonja Joyce is now on Twitter! Not really sure what to post there yet, but it seems like a fun way to connect with our fellow artists, crafters, and Etsy shops. Feel free to follow us @SonjaJoyce!

Thanks and happy crafting!
-Hannah

Crafty Photo Shoot!

Okay, so I lied when I said I would post pictures yesterday. But I have some today! My mom and I ended up spending the afternoon having a jewelry photo shoot, taking pictures of her fabulous beaded bracelets and necklaces so we could list them on our Etsy shop. We quickly figured out that it's harder than it looks to take good photos of our crafts! But we got creative and did the best we could with our little digital camera and limited editing skills. Here are a few examples of what we came up with:




I found a good article at PhotoJojo about taking better pictures for craft sites like ours, and it had some good tips about interesting backgrounds (good thing I have a ton of vintage books lying around) and natural lighting. I'm still working on the color balance though-- I'll have to call my sister, the photojournalism grad student and all-around photo-editing expert.

So now we have a grand total of four items listed on our shop... not bad! I've also been printing notecards up a storm, and I plan to have a couple sets of those posted within the next few days.

Here's a picture of that collage I made using old photographs, book pages, postcards, and other ephemera:


I love the pictures of this woman (presumably one of our Danish ancestors) because they're some of the few portraits I have from that era where the subject actually looks like she's having fun. I've put the collage into this wonderful old antique frame, and I'll be listing that on Etsy soon as well.

Stay tuned and thanks for reading!
-Hannah

First Post!

Even though this blog doesn't have any readers yet, having been created... oh, about three minutes ago, I figure it has to have a first post, or it'll never have any readers.

My two sisters and I, along with our mother, have recently decided to start an Etsy shop to share our handmade creations with the world.

This blog is where we, the four ladies of Sonja Joyce, will be posting photos and entries about our adventures in crafting as we dabble in media as diverse as yarn, beads, old photographs, fabric, hemp, paper ephemera, beeswax, and embroidery floss.

Adventure #1: I spent most of my afternoon sitting on our living room floor, entranced by the collection of materials we salvaged from our grandmother's house on our recent trip to Mississippi. A big cardboard box filled with crumbling books in Danish, sepia-toned portraits of ancestors from the 1900s, postcards covered in gorgeous, illegible calligraphy, and
even a Western Union telegram from my grandpa in Australia, the day World War II ended: "Coming home darling."

Sorting through dusty old papers may not sound like an adventure to you, but if you're an ephemera junkie like me, then you'll know what I'm talking about. It was like walking through an antique store where all the remnants of the past spell out part of your own history, and it was so interesting.

I've set aside some of the more sentimental items for posterity-- like the telegram-- but since I was the last stop on this box's journey to the trash, I feel little remorse about my plans (already in motion) to upcycle these discards into glorious works of art and crafting supplies for myself and others. Tomorrow I'll post pictures of the framed photograph collage and owl journal that I made today.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading!
-Hannah