Shop Update!

Here are a few new brooches I've added since my last shop update post:

Aqua trompe l'oeil bow tie brooch

Pink trompe l'oeil bow tie brooch

I mentioned this fox brooch yesterday. It sold just a couple of days after I listed it. Someone contacted me and asked if I could make another one. I did, and as of right now, it's up for grabs in my shop to anyone who wants it. I don't think I'll be making a lot of foxes, though, because they're very time-consuming. Actually, most of my brooches are time-consuming, but I don't like to do too many repeats before moving on to the next thing.

Red folk art tulip brooch

Pastel mountain range brooch

I have a few more things to add later this week, and then I'll start listing Christmas ornaments.

P.S. For some reason, these photos are showing up darker than they should when I upload them to blogger. They look darker in this post than they do on my computer or on Etsy. I had read that blogger started "auto-enhancing" images if your account was linked to google+, but I'm not even on google+ (that I know of), and these photos don't look smoothed, they just look darker. Has anyone else experienced this? I'm going to do some research and let you know what I find out.

P.P.S. I found the problem! It was totally google+ at fault. But the most annoying thing is that I didn't even have a google+ account. After searching in the blogger forums, there were tons of posts complaining about the same problem from other people who also did not have google+ accounts. Someone wrote, "What a pernicious way to force people to join Google+" and I completely agree! You have to set up a google+ account in order to fix the problem. So anyway, I did set one up quickly, but I don't know that I will actually use it.

I posted a new photo below of what the mountain range should look like so that you can see what I'm talking about, and I left the above photos untouched from when google automatically "enhanced" them, meaning made them darker, changed the tint, and overall made them look crappy. Whoever designed this "upgrade" doesn't know anything about image quality.

If anyone is having the same problem, the solution is to go to google+ from your blogger dashboard (set up an account if you don't already have one). Go to Home < Settings. Scroll down to the Photos section. Check the circle next to "Off" under Auto Enhance. I also checked the box to "Upload my photos at full size," though I don't know if that's necessary; it just seemed like a good idea.

If you click on the links to my shop under each item, you will see a big difference. I think it's particularly noticeable on the tulip brooch. Anyway, hopefully, I've fixed the problem now. :)