Monday 22 February 2010

Homemade photo lightbox fun

I made it my task this weekend to try and get my yarn stash sorted out. I have bits and pieces all over the house, squirreled away under beds, in cupboards, in bags and in drawers. When I joined Ravelry I made a half-hearted attempt to get it all listed on my stash page. I didn't realise then how useful it is to have a reminder of what I actually own on the screen in front of me. Especially when I'm browsing yarn shops!

So where to put it all was the first problem. I have some under-bed storage boxes but they really don't hold much at all. For cheapness I found these Frakta zipped trunk bags in Ikea for a bargainous £1.99. I took Boy for a late evening trip and he talked me into buying chips and cake even though we'd already eaten dinner. Not that I needed much persuasion.
Not surprisingly my yarn stash doesn't fit in just one. I bought 3 to be on the safe side but I think 2 will do it. As for taking pics of it all I knew it would be a huge job but I find the 'no featured photo' stash page blankness depressing and couldn't just leave it. My photography skills aren't up to much but I do try. I've always fancied a DSLR but at the moment just have a basic point and shoot with a long zoom. Zooming is good for people with messy houses! Also my house is always so dark it an be hard to get any sort of focus on small objects. I just tended to zoom in as far as possible from a distance and then crop out any background. I've always admired the photo's on Eskimimi's blog and project page, they are so clean and simple and the colours are so vibrant. Mine will never be in that league but I thought I'd have a go at making a lightbox to try and show things off a bit better.

I found this web page that shows how to make one for practically no cost. I couldn't wait to get started and had the house to myself for once so no interruptions. I have numerous cardboard boxes lying around the place so it wasn't hard to sacrifice one and used some Lidl greaseproof paper which is handily white and not brown like they usually are to stick to the sides and top of the box. A few bits of sticky tape and a piece of white card and I was done. Really quick and easy, took me around 10 minutes to make and just using things I already had. I have a couple of marble lamps I bought for £1 still waiting for me to supply them with shades that I used to light the outside of the box. The lamps were a bit too tall so I had to place the lightbox on a huge packet of Cheerios to get it to the right height.

So now my pics have gone from this
 
to this 
 
And this
 

to this


Not bad for something free! My kids came home and of course wondered what on earth I was doing, it must have looked like some sort of yarn shrine. They are already used to seeing me taking pictures of inanimate objects. Girl decided it was a stage and put her toys in to play. Not quite sure what sort of story involves a winged purple pony and a dinosaur skeleton.
Plus they saw ALL my stash and think they are storing it up for next time I tell they they have too many toys.......
(I do have some under the heading of 'What was I thinking?' that I will be donating to the school!)

Hope everyone in blogland is well. I have been trying to comment more on other peoples but sometimes keeping up with my Google Reader is a job in itself.

TTYL

4 comments:

Sarah said...

I like the effect, even makes My Little Pony look artistic. Mr T-Rex definitely adds gravitas to the composition!

Claire said...

Mr T-Rex has teh deadness! She broke him about half an hour after the pic was taken.

Moi said...

Your photos look great, I am terrible at photo taking, I can't even be arsed to try most of the time!

Renaissance said...

Thanks for the link to the light box,