FAQs

What is craftgawker?

craftgawker is a photo gallery that allows you to visually search and discover handmade arts and crafts to inspire your own projects. We publish photography submitted by craft bloggers from around the world. Our editors review submissions daily and choose the highest quality, coolest images to showcase.

We realize once you get hooked on gawking at amazing arts and crafts photos, you'll need to constantly look to get inspired. To accommodate this addiction, we currently publish new images every day excluding Saturdays. Thanks to the thousands of incredible craft bloggers who submit to the site, we have an extensive archive of arts and crafts that you can visually browse and search by category, tags and popularity.

How do I get more information on the photo?

Click on a photo and you will be taken to the submitter's blog post.

How do I share my favorites page with my friends?

To share your favorites, go to the my profile page and check the "allow my favorites to be viewed by the public" option. Once your favorites page is public, your friends can see your page.

Can I get an RSS feed for a category page?

Yes! Just add /feed/ to the end of the URL for that category page. For example...

http://craftgawker.com/post/category/housewares/feed/

Can anyone submit pictures?

Yes. As long as you provide the correct link back to the blog post where you discovered the picture. Additionally, please add "via [blog name]" in the description, if it's not your blog.

What are your submission rules?

  1. Registration is required to post pictures.
  2. Submissions are moderated.
  3. Attribution is MANDATORY! Do not steal other site's pictures!
  4. Do not violate anyone's copyrights! Any post with violations will be removed immediately. Let us know if your photo was mistakenly posted.
  5. for non-english blog posts, add the language of your blog post at the end of the description, e.g. (in polish).
  6. The submitted image or a cropped version of that image must appear in your blog post.
  7. No submissions linking to commerce sites.
  8. No submissions that requires the user to sign up or provide any personal information, in order to download a printable or access a tutorial.
  9. We reserve the right to remove posts at any time.

What's your criteria for accepting submissions?

please review before submitting to the site: To help bloggers get a better understanding of our evaluation process and the criteria to get accepted, the editorial team created this gawkerverse submission guide.

We review each picture to make sure they meet the following criteria...

  1. The photo must be art or craft related.
  2. Post beautifully composed, well-lit, sharp, art or craft related photos.
    • * Good lighting/exposure/color balance
    • * Good presentation/composition/cropping
    • * Good sharpness even after the image is reduced in size
  3. The submitted image or a cropped version of that image must appear in your blog post.
  4. No submissions linking to commerce sites.
  5. The content in your post is relevant and inspirational to our readers. Please refrain from self promotion.
  6. please do not include any text on your photo other than a subtle watermark.

My submissions never appear on the site, why?

We try to select the highest quality images to appear on the site, otherwise no one would gawk at the pictures. Here are some reasons why your photo won't appear on the site...

  1. Image not Found - The submitted image (or cropped version) is not found in your blog post. Users expect to see photo when they click over to your post.
  2. Invalid Link - your submission links to your homepage instead of the individual post permalink/URL. Users want to go directly to the post and not search your homepage or archive for the submitted item.
  3. Cropping - your photo was oddly cropped where the subject focus is cut-off or you have unnecessary white padding or borders around the image. If you notice the site's centered, auto-cropping cuts off your subject, we highly recommend you manually resize, recrop your image to 550x550 pixels to control better control your composition.
  4. Photo Composition - the item was not well presented/composed or your composition is too cluttered or has background/foreground issues.
  5. Lighting - the item was poorly lit.
  6. Exposure - photo overexposure or underexposure.
  7. Proper Attribution - please be responsible and respectful with other people's work. We will NOT accept reposts. Please remember that it's important to drive traffic to the original content creator
  8. Inspiration - the goal of this site is to inspire creativity. We only select items that we feel is good enough to showcase to our users.
  9. Content - We look for content that is relevant to our users.

If your submission is declined, you will receive feedback with the primary reason why we didn't accept your photo.

Why don't you accept submissions from commerce sites?

The reasons why we don't accept from commerce sites is explained in this update.

How long does it take for submissions to appear on the site?

Moderation can take up to 2 days, due to the heavy submission volume. We like to schedule our postings and allow your pictures to appear on the first page as long as possible.

How will I know if my submission is accepted or declined?

If you would like to receive an email that will inform you whether your submission is accepted or declined, check the opt-in box on the My Profile page.

Each new submission will appear on the My Submissions page under "pending review". If a submission is declined, it will appear under "declined" with feedback and/or a reason why it was not accepted. You might also see requests from the editors in the feedback column.

Will you review and select other pictures from my submitted post?

No. We only review what you submit to us and we will not select another picture from your post, even if we think it's a better picture.

Why did my photo get declined even after I fixed your feedback reason?

We provide the primary reason why a submission is declined. Sometimes when you fix/adjust a photo and resubmit, our editors will accept it. Other times, there are multiple issues with a photo and while you fixed one, our editors may decline it for another reason. Additionally, if you resubmit an image, a different editor will most likely review your photo and might have a slightly different opinion on it.

Can you provide more specific feedback on how to get photos accepted?

While we would love to respond to every inquiry with more specific ways to improve your photos, we don't have the resources to provide an in-depth review of your photos. Keep in mind that while we have quality guidelines for our editors, the photo selection process is still a subjective one and we will never agree 100% of the time on accepted or declined photos..

Do you accept round up posts?

No, we will no longer accept a round up post unless an original photo is submitted and also appears in your blog post

Can I submit multiple pictures from the same post?

We encourage you to select the best image from your post and submit only one. If your submission is not accepted and you feel another picture within that post is worthy of consideration, feel free to try again. But please don't submit multiple pictures from the same post within minutes of each other. Let the moderation process happen before you upload another image from the original post/submission.

Do I have to submit a 550 pixels by 550 pixels image?

No, you do not have to submit a 550x550 pixel image. The image can be larger, but we will crop the picture down to size. We recommend you re-size and crop the pictures yourself to have complete control of the composition. Otherwise, our image cropper will crop to the middle 550x550 pixels of the image.

Can I submit pictures smaller than 550 pixels by 550 pixels?

No, the height and the width of your photo must be at least 550 pixels.

Should I tag my submissions?

Tagging your submissions is optional, but we highly recommend it. Tagging your submissions is a great way to get keywords in your post and allow your submissions to be returned in search results more often.

Are pictures from non-blog sites accepted, such as Flickr?

Yes, as long as there is relevant content associated with the image, i.e. no photo only pages.

Why do you limit the submission title to 35 characters?

The title appears when you roll over the picture, in our RSS feed and widget (found on the about and updates pages). We intentionally keep it short so it displays nicely in RSS readers and our widget. For the title, just tell us what it is without any adjectives. Use the description to "sell" your posts with as many adjectives as you would like. We may occasionally edit the title and description to help encourage people to click on your photo.

How do I get published? Is there a secret club I need to join?

Contrary to blogosphere, Twitter, Facebook and even meatspace rumors, there isn't a secret club to join to get published on craftgawker. We do not keep a "good" or "bad" list of submitters or usernames! So changing your username or submitting under a different username, will not positively or negatively impact your chances of being accepted.

The editors reviewing your submissions are professionally trained photographers, who love crafts. Their only bias is towards images that meet our quality standards for lighting, composition, clarity.

So, we don't care if you've been blogging for 1 week or 5 years. We don't care if it's your 1st or 531st submission. Just take a good photo and we'll accept it. But keep in mind that even with set quality standards, image selection will always be a subjective decision, because we are not robots.

How do I change my password or email address?

You can change your password and email address on the my profile page.

How do I change my username?

You can change your username on the my profile page. If you change your username, you'll need to logout and log back into the universal app to save favorites again.

I'm moving my blog to a new domain and my permalinks have changed, can you change my links on craftgawker?

Yes, we can change them for you. However, we highly recommend you redirect your old domain and permalinks to your new domain. If you don't, you'll obviously get an error page and more importantly you'll lose all of your SEO rankings and link juice from search engines and other sites linking to your old domain.

If you are moving from Blogger to a self-hosted WordPress (WordPress.org) environment, check out...

Moving From Blogger To WordPress - Maintaining Permalinks, Traffic & SEO

If you're moving from WordPress.com to a self-hosted WordPress installation, take a look at the PDF on this page...

Moving from WordPress.com to WordPress.org

Now, if you can't figure out how to redirect your permalinks, we will change your links on craftgawker, but keep in mind it's a manual process and may take some time as we get many requests of this kind.

Why do I get an error message when I preview or submit?

If you are submitting a 550x550 pixel image or larger, the file size is under 500 KB and you get an error message, please clear your browser cache and try again. If that doesn't work, please try a different browser, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc.

Why do my images lose color or appear less saturated when I submit?

Depending on your computer display, you may see some color loss and less color saturation when you submit your images. The issue is the color profile of the images. We know for certain that images with a color profile using Adobe RGB (1998) lose their color when submitted. There maybe other color profiles that are affected too. If you see this issue with your photos, we recommend using an sRGB color profile/working space in your image editing software.

How do I advertise on this site?

If you want to advertise on craftgawker, please visit our advertising page for more information.

How do I get a site badge to show off my gallery?

Get a badge here.

As a blogger, can I opt out of allowing someone else to submit my pictures?

yes. drop us a note using the contact form with a subject of "opt out pictures" and let us know your blog url. additionally, if someone else submits your picture and you want it moved under your username, just let us know.