Kelly - re: the fuzziness....if you're using a Sony camera, you'lll find that the blurriness can be eliminated by activating the close-up button - the little 'tulip' symbol on the back/touch menu. This will help to reset the aperture for closeup work. I've done a lot of close-up photos with it on and almost never use anything other than the 'auto' mode.
Also - you seem to have a slight disortion - sort of like a fisheye thang going on too - which should be solved by changing to the closeup mode.
if you do edit the photos, make sure not to mess with the proportions, as this will squish the photo vertically/horizontally too.
IMHO this is the problem - the photo doesn't appear to have that tell-tale 'pixellated' look you get when messing about with resolution/file sizes. I use PhotoShop a lot, and find I get the best results by simply cropping the photo and reducing the dpi to 72 (standard for web photos), keeping the 'constrain' links on to stop squishyness.
As for tripods/camera shake - this can be a real problem for very closeup stuff. I keep meaning to buy a tripod (one day....
), but if I'm doing something at home I normally try and rest the camera on something. Strangely, I have had good success with resting the camera on top of a full kitchen roll! Its soft enough to dampen shake, yet stable enough to rest the camera on. You still need to hold the camera, but it helps having a platform.
Yeah, cheap, I know, just make sure not to photo the bottom of the roll (or crop the roll bottom out in PhotoShop/software of choice)!
Other than that, you stuff looks lovely! You've got a nice even light without shadows/specularity problems - although, I'd try and make the background a little bigger so that you have more room to manouver when cropping the final photo. Personally, I like an off-white/cream/beige background as it seems less stark, and helps to highlight the more subtle colours - although that's just my personal choice, and there's nothing wrong with white!