DIY Lightbox

I was disappointed with the picture I posted of the soaps I recently made and after some investigation (yay for the internet), I decided to make my own lightbox. There's a tutorial here. I had most of the supplies on hand except some daylight bulbs and I also bought a worklamp. My pictures were yellowish until I figured out to change a setting on the camera to "incandescent." Also, no fancy SLR camera needed. These were taken with my point and shoot:





These toys happened to be in reach. Can you tell I have a boy? I'm still playing around and need to practice and experiment but I was happy with how these turned out for a first try. Here is what the set up looks like in case you are interested:

Craft Quickie Thursday: Personalized Photo Books

Every Thursday we will be featuring crafts that are very quick and easy to do. This week: personalized photo books! Check out your local craft, general or dollar stores for a 4x6 photo book. I was able to find these ones at my local Dollar General store for $1.00 each:



The cover and back can be removed:



I removed the cover and traced and cut out some white cardstock so that they were the same size. Then I decorated. I wanted to show that you can go simple and add a picture (with a glue stick, scrapbooking adhesive, or double-sided tape) and just doodle, draw, and decorate using markers or pencils. If you happen to know Photoshop, I found a tutorial on how to doodle using Photoshop. You can also get a little more fancy with this. I made a second book using scrapbooking paper and some ribbon I had saved from a gift someone had given me.



These make great inexpensive but personalized gifts especially for new parents, grandparents and other releatives. I think they are a fun gift for kids too. They like seeing pictures of the favorite relatives, friends, and things in their lives.

Please be sure to come back each Thursday for other quick and easy craft ideas!

Tags: photo, book, album, gift, crafts