Behind the Scenes: Photography Backdrops

I was originally planning on sharing my Bead Soup Reveal today.  However, since that has been postponed a week, I thought I would share something else I've been working on!  :)

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Anyone who has visited my store has probably noticed that I use books as my photo backgrounds.  

Books, after all, tie into my store's story-theme...  And the words provide a nice frame of reference for the size of the pieces.

Recently, though, I've been wanting to feature something a bit more personal.  

And so, I did this:
  

Hairsticks made with red resin roses.

See that?

Not only are those new hairsticks (to be posted to my store whenever I have a story to go with them)...  but I also created that background.

Those squiggles?  

That's actually Ishuan, one of the languages I've created.

(Granted, it's a computer-printout of my language, and not handwritten...  As a result, the letters are not connected, cursive-style, like they should be.  Still, I'm playing around, and figured it would suffice.  Besides, I get to show off the fact that I have created an actual font to go along with Ishuan, because I'm just that nerdy.)

Now, I didn't just print out a page and then use it as a background.  

...I never do things that simply.

And so the journey began, ingloriously, like this:

My apologies for the poor lighting in my kitchen.

That, my friends, is a piece of paper soaking in a bath of tea.

Why am I soaking a piece of paper in a bath of tea?

To age it, of course!  The computer paper was originally extremely white... and, to work with my lighting situation, I wanted to make it off-white.  Not too dark, but not blinding.  (Hence why the tea-bath is not incredibly dark.)

The result?

A nice stack of off-white, tea-dyed paper:

Behold!  'Tis a stack of off-white, tea-dyed paper!

Unfortunately, it's been tricky taking photos recently, but I did manage to do this one sample photo shoot--the one featured here.

Another shot of the roses.

See how the paper doesn't look as dark as it does in the other picture?  

That's why I wanted off-white...  Because with pure white, the juxtaposition between the text and the paper is just too jarring.  Off-white makes the background more, well, background-ish.

Close-up!

Now, I'm not quite ready to debut this on my store...  there are few more wrinkles that I need to iron out.

(No, literally... the water-wrinkled paper, while it looks cool, needs  to be flattened out so as to be less obtrusive.  Also, I want to do pages from my Landus Fantasticus novel itself, not just Ishuan.)

Still, since it's something I've been playing with, I figured I should mention it here.  After all, it's fun to see things behind-the-scenes!

...And because it's always fun to show off little glimpses of my nerdish insanity.  :)

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For those who are insanely curious as to what the text says...  it's actually the longest continuous piece that I've written in Ishuan: my wedding vows.

Yes, I wrote my wedding vows in Ishuan, and then translated them into English.  

And I also read them in both languages at the wedding.

...I told you I was a nerd.