Working on lighting in pictures

I am working today on using my new camera and trying to get some good shots of my items. It is hard but I know if I keep working at it then I will get the hang of it. Today the light is very bad too and usually I am working with natural light but today is snowy and cloudy and cold! So my light isn't great, but here are some of the shots I have taken today. Any advice would be helpful!

I tried both flash and no flash.

I lightened it up a bit with Picasa.

My puppy was helping lol