How To Write a Craft Tutorial for Your Blog: Photos & Illustrations, part two

Eek, it's been a while since the last post in this series, hasn't it? Top tip: if you're writing a series of blog posts, get them written in advance so this doesn't happen to you :)

So... here's part two of my guide to taking photos (and drawing illustrations) for your tutorials. You've decided what to make, you've taken lots of notes and you've made the project and taken all the step by step photos. What's next?

Taking the Main Project Photos

When you've finished making your project, it's time to take some more photos. These are the photos that will "sell" your tutorial and make people who read your blog think "oooh, I want to make that!" and (if you're sharing a tutorial on your blog to get some extra traffic) these are the photos that will help get your tutorial pinned on Pinterest, liked on Facebook and featured on blogs.

You need at least one clear photo of the item you've made so people can see what the tutorial is for and how the finished item will look. You can keep this simple or spend a bit more time and take a styled photo with some nice props, or show your item being used.

Here are some examples of different photos I've used for my tutorials...

Felt flower headband, ribbon scrap card, felt & fabric coffee cosy, and brooch gift toppers

1. I photographed this flower headband on a clear, white background (a piece of paper).

2. As this card was white, I used a large piece of coloured paper (curved upwards behind the card) as a backdrop.

3. This coffee cosy was tricky to photograph because the cosy wraps around the cafetiere. I took photos from a few different angles and also photographed the cosy on its own, lying on a white piece of paper. I took this picture before I'd bought some large pieces of paper for using as backdrops and had to tape together several smaller pieces of paper, which was rather awkward!

4. I took photos of these parcels all together, and also photographed each one individually. The main photo looks great with them all together (although you can see where the small bits of paper I used as a background are overlapping!) and then the individual photos shows them close up so people can get a clearer view of each one.

Candy cane ornaments

5. The green background for these ornaments (a piece of sugar paper / construction paper) helps the white stand out clearly and also looks very festive with the red and white.

Butterfly napkin rings and other tea party accessories

6. For this tutorial, I set up a faux tea party with vintage china, some flowers, pretty napkins and some yummy cakes (again, can you spot those small pieces of paper overlapping? I should have bought a large piece of paper or card to use as a backdrop years ago!).

I also took separate photos of each paper crafting project - the napkin rings, the butterfly in the vase of flowers and the little food labels.

A jumper decorated with buttons, a pompom hair tie, a flower headband and felt scrap bracelets

7. These four projects all benefited from being modelled! As well as showing your project in use, pictures like this are great for showing the scale of a design. If you don't want to take a self portrait, bribe a friend or relative with some cake :)

A mini felt bumblebee, leaf, ladybird and daisy

8. Photographing these small felt projects in the palm of my hand was an easy way to show how cute and mini they are!

Envelope advent garland and Faux Argyle cushion

 
9. I was worried about how to photograph this advent garland because it was so long, but luckily a friend had a lovely fireplace in her living room that she let me use for a mini photoshoot.

10. The cushion also looks great "in situ". As with the advent garland, I took a photo showing the scene with the item in it and a close-up photo focusing on the item itself. If you're taking a photo in a room like this, make sure you tidy up / hoover the carpet / etc before you take the photos to make sure there isn't any mess to spoil your nice picture.

I often use more than one photo of the finished project in my tutorials, one or two in the introduction and then one at the end. You want to show off how great your project is but also include clear pictures of the whole projects so people can see exactly what they're making - for example, do you need to take a photo of your project from the back or at another angle to show off a special feature? Is there a detail that you want to showcase with a close-up photo? If you've made a set of something, photograph them all together in a group shot and also include some photos of the individual design so people can see it in more detail.

Editing The Photos & Adding Watermarks

 

Once you've taken all your photos and uploaded them onto your computer, it's time to edit them. Just like the photo-taking itself, there are a ton of articles online that will give you really detailed info on editing your photos to look their best. I'm just going to talk about the software I use and the steps I go through to prep my tutorial photos.

First I look through all the photos, turn them the right way up and do some simple editing. I used to use some software that came with my old Nikon camera but it isn't compatible with my current laptop, so I've switched to using the basic editing tools in Window Live Photo Gallery which came ready installed on my system. You can of course do much fancier editing in Photoshop or its equivalents (e.g. Pixlr's Editor). 

If I've taken, say, three photos of one project I choose the one I like best and edit that one. I usually brighten the photo a bit - taking care not to brighten it so much that the colours are distorted. This is quite an extreme example that was taken on a dark winter day...

Then I usually crop the image a bit - I don't tend to worry about keeping the aspect ratio the same as I don't mind different sizes and shapes of photos on my blog.

Then I resize the image - I used to upload all my photos to Flickr as a back up and then save the size I wanted from their pre-set range of sizes. Now I just open the images in Irfanview (a great bit of free software) and resize them with that, resizing the smallest side of the image to 650 pixels and saving the smaller version as a new file. Smaller images will take up less space on your blog and be quicker to upload (and I've also learned not to put hi res photos online after having several "borrowed" over the years!). Having all your photos saved to a similar size is also useful for the next step.

Finally, after I've resized each image, I add some text, with my name and my blog address ( © Laura Howard bugsandfishes.blogspot.com). To do this in Irfanview you select the area of the image you want to add the text to, click "Edit", select "Insert text into selection" from the dropdown menu, then add the text you want. It helpfully remembers the last text you added, so you can add it to each photo very quickly - I just sometimes change the text colour depending on whether the text is on a dark or light background.

My tutorial photos end up posted all over the place (often without a live link back to my blog or any credit at all) so this is an important step for me! I know it would still be very easy for a malicious person to nick my image and crop out my blog info if they wanted to, but that sort of thing is going to happen whatever I do. This is just a quick way for me to "tag" my photos in a relatively unobtrusive way so that if, for example, they get Pinned without a link back to my blog, they aren't totally orphaned and people can still find their way back to my blog to find the tutorial.

Drawing Illustrations

Step by step photos are great but (as I discussed briefly in the previous post) there are definitely times when drawing step by step illustrations will work better for you than taking photos. If you're a talented artist and can draw really great, professional looking illustrations lucky you, I am very jealous! Luckily you don't have to be a great artist to draw clear, helpful illustrations. 

These are some quick, simple sketches I drew to illustrate the steps of making a felt ring pillow. I'd made the pillow already and didn't want the fuss of sewing a second one just for the sake of taking some step-by-step pictures. 

Simple illustrations for a felt ring pillow

As you can see, these are not the world's best drawings! But (when combined with the text instructions) they show the steps quite clearly - and the ink lines of stitching are actually clearer than a photograph of small-stitches-of-sewing-thread-on-matching-felt might be.

You can add text to your drawings if you want, but remember to repeat this text in your written instructions for the sake of legibility (and so people who are reading your instructions via Google Translate or other translation software will still be able to follow each step).

Cutting out leaf shapes

Sewing together a lavender sachet

If you don't have a scanner, you can take a photo of your drawings - it doesn't look as good, but it will still get the information across! This is a photo from my very first tutorial :)

How to cut the centre of a felt flower

Draw your illustrations in a soft pencil, draw over them with black ink and erase the pencil lines. Add any text you need, then scan the drawings in. As with the photos, you can crop and resize the images as needed and label them with your blog address, etc, if you want. You can also add colour to your drawings if you want to, but I've found that my scanner picks up colours a little strangely so I tend to stick to simple black and white for my sketches.

How To Write a Craft Tutorial for Your Blog: Photos & Illustrations, part one

My series of posts on writing craft tutorials for your blog continues today with some tips on taking and editing photos. I've split this topic into two blog posts as there's lots to talk about!

How Many Photos?

As well as step-by-step instructions, your tutorial needs some photos. You need some nice photos of the finished project - to show everyone how the finished result turns out and to provide an appealing photo that will catch peoples attention if your project is added to a Pinterest board or featured on a blog.

Photos from my blog, on Pinterest

You also need step by step pictures to show how the project is made. Some tutorials are quick and simple and only need a few clear instructions and some photos of the finished project, but if your project has more than a couple of steps I'd recommend taking some step-by-step photos if you can. I have to admit that I have been lazy in the past and not bothered with step by step pics but if you can make the effort it's definitely worth it!

Tutorials with step by step photos are much easier to follow, and can also be enjoyed by people who don't speak the same language as you - even if Google Translate slightly garbles your instructions, your international readers will still be able to follow the steps. Step by step photos can also make your job as a writer easier as it's much easier to write instructions that accompany a photo than writing text-only instructions and the photos you take will also serve as a good reference for you when you write up your notes. I think it's also much better to end up with some photos you end up not including than it is to realise you missed out a step or that you're struggling to describe it without being able to refer to an accompanying photo

You can take photos for the step-by-step pics, or draw illustrations... or use a mix of both. Sometimes an illustration can be much clearer than a photo, especially when it comes to things like showing a line of black stitching on some black fabric. They can also be great if you've made something that's tricky to photograph or when you've made something in the past and now want to share a how-to for it but don't want to re-make the project itself. (I'll talk about illustrations in more detail later).

Taking The Photos.

I am not at all an expert on photography and don't use any fancy equipment to take my photos - I've got an ordinary, inexpensive digital camera and don't use a lightbox or a tripod or anything like that. For years I actually took all the photos for my blog and online shop with a super cheap digital camera that I bought to be a temporary replacement when my previous camera stopped working the day before a photoshoot! While my photos aren't the best in the world, I think they do the job pretty well.

I take most of my photos on the windowsill in my studio. If I'm photographing something small I usually use a pile of white copier paper as the backdrop. For larger items I have a huge bit of card and a selection of white and pale coloured sheets of paper the same size (if I'm making a project that involves lots of white, I try to use a coloured backdrop). I prop the card up on the windowsill (with my choice of paper on top) and hold up the other side with the back of my office chair. Classy set up, huh? :)

Where I take photos

I then stand on my tip toes or on a little step/stool so I can photograph the project from above. I sometimes curve one side of the large sheet of paper (the edge nearest to me) upwards so it reflects a bit of light back towards the windowsill, or I curve one side upwards so I can photograph items that don't lay flat on the paper.

Your photo "studio" doesn't have to be anything like mine, but I've shared mine to show you how you can take decent photos without a lot of space or fancy equipment.

If you want some more detailed advice for improving your photos, head to Google and search for something like "how to take better product photos" or "how to improve your product photos" - even if you never want to sell anything online, the tips in these kinds of articles will apply to tutorial photos as well as product pics. But since this is a how to guide, here are my three photo taking tips...

1) Use natural light - try and take your photos in good light (near a window is great) but not in direct sunlight (you don't want strong shadows) and turn off your camera's flash. Taking photos gets a bit trickier in the winter months as you can have very dark days and, of course, it gets darker earlier. There are lots of tutorials available online for making DIY light boxes and using daylight bulbs but so far I have managed without one... although in the winter I sometimes have a very late lunch because I need to finish taking my photos while the light is still good!

2) Use the macro setting on your camera - on most cameras this is a button with a picture of a little flower. Remember that you can edit your photos if needed, so if you're making something small and there's lots of empty space around it you can crop that out later. Also make sure to check that there aren't any specks of dust or other small marks that will suddenly look huge in a close-up photo (it is super annoying when you only spot this afterwards!).

3) Custom set the white balance - your camera's manual should tell you how to do this. On my current camera, I have to use it in "program" mode rather than on automatic in order to be able to adjust the white balance, but I leave all the other settings on auto so the camera is still easy to use. Custom setting the white balance will help the colours of your project come out true, and will make sure that white backgrounds don't end up looking blue-ish or yellow-ish. You may need to adjust the white balance several times during a photoshoot as the light changes. Also make sure you're not wearing a colour that will reflect on what you're photographing and affect the colours - for example, swap that bright red sweater for a black one!

Here's an example of how adjusting the white balance can improve a photo. The first photo shows the "before" and the second (which shows the true colours of the felt much better) is the "after".

This violets brooch is a design I used to sell in my shop

Taking Step-By-Step Photos.

First up (if you want to) take a photo of your materials. I don't often do this, but when I'm writing felt tutorials I often include a photo of all the cut out pieces that make up the project.

Pieces ready to sew a raincloud brooch

Then work through the steps of your project, taking a photo (or a few photos from slightly different angles) of each step. You'll also be making notes as you go through this project (see the previous post on taking notes).

Your note-taking will help you decide how best to photograph each step - is there a detail that you need to show? or would it be best to show an overview of the whole piece? For example, in this first photo you can see the whip stitches being used (a closer-in photo would have shown this even more clearly)...

 ... and in the second you can see how the whole project looks at this point.

Adding elastic to a felt crown

Sometimes I take both kinds of shot and decide later which is the most helpful image to include... or I just include them both! This is one of the great things about writing tutorials for blogs instead of books or magazines - you can include as many photos as you need as there's no space limit.

You can take action shots for each step - showing how the project looks as you're part-way through the step.

Example #1. In this photo the sewing is half-finished and the needle is roughly in the correct position for the next stitch.

Sewing on a brooch clasp

Example #2. In this photo, two of the hearts have already been stuck in place and you can see how I've cut and positioned the double-sided tape ready for the final heart to be added.

Sticking embellishments on a gift tag

Or you can take a photo that shows the reader what the project will look like when they have completed the current step.

Adding wings to a felt owl

For simple how tos, often just a couple of photos are needed. This photo from a card tutorial has the glue in shot (so you can see the pieces have been stuck in place with craft glue) and I've not yet erased the pencil writing (so you can see how it's a good idea to write the text in pencil first).  

Making an owl-themed Valentine

For this snowflake gift-wrapping tutorial I just took a photo of the wrapped parcels...

... and then the same parcels but with the paper snowflakes glued on. Simple!

You may want to include materials and tools in the shot as well as the project itself - e.g. the reel of thread you're using, the scissors you just used to cut out some pieces of felt, or the reel of tape you just tore a strip from:

Adding washi tape to a gift tag

You can include your hands in the photos if you want to but for most steps you probably won't need to do this. Hands can end up looking a bit weird in step by step pics and can get in the way of the piece you're making (especially if it's small) and if you don't have a tripod or a friend to help you it can be quite difficult to get a good shot (it is very tricky to take a steady photo with one hand while crafting with the other!) 

Sewing the felt owl together

If you do include your hands in shot, make sure you've moisturised and that your nails look neat - it's amazing how gross dry skin or scruffy nails can look in close-up!

Next time: Photos & Illustrations, part two.

How To Write a Craft Tutorial for Your Blog: Taking Notes

My series of posts on writing craft tutorials continues today.

So, you've decided what you're going to make for your tutorial and (if you need to) you've made a prototype to test out your design. Now it's time to start making!

Taking Notes.

As you make and photograph the project, it's important to take notes as you go along. It's very easy to forget exactly how you did a certain step when you come to write a tutorial, so taking detailed notes will help you write accurate instructions.

When I write my instructions I leave a space at the top of the page to write down all the materials and tools I'm using, and add each one to the list as I use them. Remember to include information like the size and colour of your materials - e.g. write "blue sewing thread" not just "thread", and if you're using a specific type of fabric or glue, or a particular size of bead, etc, then write that down too.

Sewing Threads

Then I write a quick list of the steps my project is going to involve, to help me plan out how many photos I'm going to take - e.g. for a bird brooch: 1. Cut out pieces, 2. Sew wings, 3. Sew eyes & beak, 3. Add stitching or sequins, 4. Add booch clasp, 5. Sew together. 

Then as I make the project (pausing to take photos during or after each step) I write down everything I'm doing as numbered steps, in the order that I do it. If I notice that one step is getting quite long, I might take an extra photo and split it into two steps.

Think About The Details.

As you make the project, think about what you're doing during each step and how you would describe it to someone who can't see what you're doing. Your tutorial will have photos so you can say things like "sew the wings in position using running stitch" or "sew on the eyes with whip stitch in matching sewing thread" and people will be able to see where on the bird the wings and eyes need to be sewn... so the photos do a lot of the work for you. But thinking about how to describe something in words can really help you notice details that you should include in your instructions.

Example #1: when you sew a brooch clasp on the back of a felt brooch, writing "Turn over the back piece of the brooch. Use a double thickness of matching sewing thread to sew on the brooch clasp." makes for better instructions than just "Add the brooch clasp". You know you always turn over the backing piece and always use a double thickness of thread that matches your felt, but the person reading your instructions might not.

Adding a brooch clasp

Example #2: when stuffing something (e.g. a felt owl) don't just write "Sew the owl together, stuff it then sew up the gap." What stitch have you used to sew it together, and what colour thread? What size gap have you left? What kind of stuffing are you using and did you use your fingers to stuff it or did you use a tool like a pencil? Did you stuff it lightly or firmly? (if you stuff it too much, will it distort the shape?) Did you have to take extra care to get the stuffing into the ears?

Sewing up a stuffed felt owl

Also write down any tips or extra information that you'd like to include that people might find helpful. Are you using any special techniques that you need to describe or link to online tutorials for? Could people use a different material for this or did you choose this material for a special reason? Did you make a mistake (or nearly make a mistake) when doing the tutorial that you should warn people about? If you're using glue or paint, how long do you need to leave it to dry? If you're designing a project to make with kids, are there any tricky steps where the adult needs to take charge? Are one of these steps really messy, do people need to wear an apron or gloves? Etc etc.

Something to particularly look out for is: is there a step coming up later that affects what you're doing now? If so, make sure you mention this now and not later! People will follow your instructions step by step - they won't know there's something they need to bear in mind for later unless you tell them.

For example: if you've positioned your embroidered motif in the centre of your fabric because you need extra fabric around the edge for framing the design later.... or if you've stuck a shape onto a card slightly above centre because you need space to write "Happy Birthday!" underneath it later... or if you've taken care not to pull your stitches too tight when sewing something together because you need to flatten out the seam later... say so!

You don't always need to include lots of detail in your instructions (some steps - and some entire projects - will be very simple!) but thinking about the details of how you're making something will help you spot the steps that need a bit of extra info to help people replicate your project.  

Next time: Photos and Illustrations

How To Write a Craft Tutorial for Your Blog: Getting Started

Over the next few weeks I'm going to be sharing some tips for writing craft tutorials. I started writing a blog post with a few quick tips and it turned out that I had so much I wanted to talk about that I've written a whole series of posts instead!

I wrote my first craft tutorial about five years ago - a "how to" for some felt flower hair pins templates. That first tutorial was very basic and didn't have any step by step photos or printable templates for the flowers, but people seemed to like it and I enjoyed writing it so I wrote some more.

Over the years I've gradually improved my tutorial-writing and have shared dozens of free tutorials here on my blog, had projects published in books and magazines and written two craft books... and I've picked up lots of tutorial-writing tips and tricks along the way. If you're just starting out writing tutorials on your blog or you've never tried writing one before I hope you'll find this series helpful. Do let me know if you have any questions :)

Some of my free craft tutorials

 

Why Write A Tutorial?

Posting free tutorials on your blog can be a great way to get some extra blog traffic or to get your blog noticed if you're just starting out - a big chunk of my blog's traffic comes from people searching from tutorials, or following links from Pinterest or from blogs that have featured my projects. It's also also a lovely way to share your crafting with your readers. Instead of just reading about you making something, they can make it too!

Writing a tutorial is also a fun creative challenge that can help you flex your designing and writing muscles, and hearing from someone that they've used your tutorial to make something is a really, really awesome feeling.

Before you Begin.

First of all, you need to decide what your tutorial is going to be for. If you've never written a tutorial before it's probably best to start with a simple project that doesn't involve lots of steps or complicated techniques. You can share some more ambitious projects later if you want to! 

Simple tutorials can actually end up being the most popular - people love beginner-friendly sewing projects or quick, crafty ideas that they can easily try at home. Remember: just because you know how to make something, it doesn't mean that everyone else does or that they would think of the idea.

One of my most popular tutorials at the moment is the felt Christmas tree ornament tutorial I shared last winter - it's a very simple pattern, but lots of fun to make (especially with kids who are just learning to sew). 

Felt Christmas Tree Ornaments

If you make crafty stuff to sell, you might be worried that writing a free tutorial means giving away all your trade secrets but you don't have to share a tutorial for what you sell. You could use an old design you no longer sell any more or an idea you had that didn't make financial sense as a product or that didn't fit in well with the rest of your range. If you discover you enjoy writing tutorials, your free projects can even become a "portfolio" of work you can use to try and get paid work writing craft tutorials.

Tutorial writing can also be a great way to let off some creative steam and make something that's just for fun and not for work - this is something I've always loved about my gift-wrapping tutorials, they're so different to the felt designs I've sold in my shops. Working on fun free tutorials have definitely helped me stay in love with crafting at times when I've felt a bit burned out by making the same thing over and over, or when my work schedule has been full of the boring stuff like doing my accounts.

My first tutorials were "how tos" for making things I was already making for myself and as gifts - felt flowers I wore in my hair for a fancy evening out, lavender sachets I made friends and neighbours, decorations I made to cheer up my flat at Christmas, etc. This was a great way for me to try out writing tutorials, as I was making the projects anyway!

Lavender Sachets

If you don't know what to make, try sparking some inspiration by focusing on an occasion or a season (make a Christmas decoration or something inspired by Autumn leaves), a material (make something from felt, or think of a way to re-use the packaging from something in a crafty way), or something you love that you'd like to celebrate with a pattern (your favourite flower or animal, or your favourite book).

Whatever you decide to make for your tutorial, remember that if you're interested in making it then someone else out there will be interested too. This is the brilliant thing about the internet!

Preparing to Make Your Project.

If you're writing a tutorial about something you've never made before, you might find it helpful to make a prototype. This will help you test that your templates / pattern / techniques all work how you expect they will, so you don't waste time photographing something that doesn't work out or waste the good-for-photo-taking daylight working out how to make the next part of the project.

It also doesn't hurt to have an extra item to use in your photos of the finished project - and if you make the prototype slightly different from the finished item (e.g. using slightly different fabric, or decorating it with beads instead of sequins) it's a great way to show how the project can be customised.

For your tutorial, you will be making / producing:

• A finished item
• A list of the materials and tools you used to make it
• Step by step instructions, plus any special tips for working with the materials
• Photos of the finished item
• Step by step photos, or (if your project is very simple) several photos of the finished item so people can see how it's put together
• And (if needed) a template or pattern that people can print out

Next time: Taking Notes

P.S. You might also like this post about How To Design a Felt Brooch.