The Home Made Light-box

The Home Made Light-box

I really needed a nice light box to show off my crafts; and what better way to get one than to craft one?

First I bought a bunch of half inch square dowel rods (the ones with the tips that are blue like the color pool cue chalk) and chopped them in half.  I used a crappy little saw that cut them wonky, but they still worked.


Took this picture before I figured out I should turn on the flash.

Then I used some bright pink gaff tape (because I had it laying around, duct tape or whatever will do) to tape the doll rods together and stapled through the tape on one side.



My wonderful sister sent me a box set of Red Green dvds for my birthday, so I had an amazon box.  I cut it into strips and pieces. I stapled the small pieces to the rods on the opposite side to where I had just stapled through the tape.


Chopped up Amazon Box                                    Cardboard stapled to the rods.

The tape and cardboard make the rods much sturdier.

I stapled the  four of the rods together like this to make a square frame and set them down on the white fabric which makes up the box.  I used a textured fabric just because I had it laying around, but any white fabric will do.  One without texture would be more like a store bought light box.



Then I attached the fabric to the rods using the cardboard strips and staples.  I started by putting one staple in the middle of each side and stretching the fabric as I went so it was taught.  This is much like reupholstering a chair or making a painting canvas.  I also pulled the corners tight and just stapled them without the cardboard as there was a lot of extra material there.  I trimmed off the extra material.


Next, I stapled the cardboard all the way around the frame.


This may be more staples than necessary, but better safe than sorry!

Then I attached stick on Velcro all around the frame, half covering the sides, half on the front face of the panel.


Attaching the Velcro.                                          Snipping the corners of the Velcro so they lay nice and flat.


This is the finished panel.


This is the outside view of the light-box, the inside will just be white.

Then, I made more panels.  You need five panels to make a light box (top, bottom and three sides).
I put the soft Velcro all the way around the bottom and top panels.
For the side panels, I put hard Velcro on the tops and bottoms, then hard and soft in the appropriate places so they make a cube when velcroed together; one panel with soft Velcro on both sides and then the other two with hard Velcro on one side each.  This used up the entire 15 foot box of Velcro.


All the panels stacked in a chair.  They store nice and flat.  Mine didn't turn out that square since the crappy little saw fought me and the rods didn't turn out perfect sized, but they still work just fine.

Here is the finished light box in the sun with a hat inside:



Setting it in the sun gives you nice even light for beautiful pictures.  You could use it inside with lamps shining on it, but laying it in the sun is just much easier.

And here's the hat's beautiful pictures:




This the hat I wear for drinking wine, can't you tell?


Here's some pictures I took of my friend's homemade Doctor Who Weeping Angel Christmas Tree Topper!


Original non Photoshopped pictures.

I shot her one stop overexposed and then adjusted the levels in Photoshop so she looks more like the actual angel; which looks like this:

Weeping Angel, beautiful but deadly.


Here is a link to the Craftster blog my friend modified to make her angel:
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=377084.0

Hope this was helpful!

Thanks!
Heather :-)