DIY: I made a lightbox!

I am so proud of myself! I finally made my lightbox! I've been wanting one of these for a couple of years now for taking still-life photos for the blog. I thought about DIYing one for a while, then thought about buying one. I even pinned one to my Christmas list from Amazon, but my sister wound up getting one for herself and said it was a piece of crap, so I canned that idea. I finally decided that if I want to keep up with the blog this time around, I need to actually follow through with things I want for the blog.

So last night I took a trip into Peterborough and rounded up the things I would need, based on this tutorial from Never Homemaker.

From Home Depot:
Extra large moving box - $4.47
Packing tape (needed this anyways for our upcoming move) - $2.24
3 - 8.5" clamp lights - $16.97 each - $50.91
3 pk of Daylight bulbs - $9.98

From Michaels:
White craft paper - $7.49
Tissue paper - $3.99

Total - $79.08 plus 13% tax = $89.36

I couldn't believe how expensive the clamp lights were when the tutorial said that they could make the whole lightbox for less than $35. But I guess we can always use the clamp lights for other things too, especially if Tim needs them in the shop or for reno projects.

I came pretty close when following the tutorial I linked above. Assemble the Home Depot box, tape one end securely shut. Cut the flaps off of the other end. Use a ruler to mark out a square on three adjacent sides that is 2" from each edge. Cut out your squares with an X-acto knife. I cut a long slice in the top of the lightbox against the back so that I can put wrapping paper or fabric through the top without having to tape it to the box. I also cut holes on the top in the middle of each side and hung wire so that I can hang small things that I want to photograph upright. We'll see whether these are worthwhile additions or not. I added a permanent white backdrop by trimming the white craft paper from Michaels to the width of the box and then taping it across the whole bottom and back. Then tape the tissue paper squares (which are conveniently 20x20" against the 22x22" Home Depot box) on the three cutout squares.

Lightbox! I'm pretty proud of it. Tim was playing with it and took a couple of shots which are infinitely better than lighting pretty much anywhere else in the house, so at this point I would call it a success!

DIY: Making a Home for the Airplants - Part 1

My mother-in-law is one of the most thoughtful people I know. I've had airplants pinned to my Pinterest wishlist forever. She asked around at a plant show and found a vendor selling them, then bought me an assortment of eight of them as an Easter present! They're SO adorable! Plus they're supposed to be resilient, which is perfect for me and my black thumb. Tim loves them as well, but mostly because he's a science geek and the idea that they get their nutrients to grow from the air and rain rather than soil makes them cooler to him than regular plants.

Up until now we've had half of them jammed into a teardrop terrarium that Tim bought last summer (it's still available at Chapters-Indigo here for $39.50) and the other half in a glass bowl our friend Tia made for us as part of our wedding gift. I want to make planters of some kind for most of them, but a couple of them are going to find a permanent home in the teardrop terrarium. I just had to make it a little more hospitable!

A little airplant terrarium inspiration! Scroll over the image for links!

I thought I already had white sand in my craft supplies but couldn't find it anywhere. However, I did have a collection of pretty rocks and gems (or minerals? I should ask my father-in-law, who is a bit of an amateur geologist). I used to buy a bag of the little rocks every time we took a family trip to the Barrie 400 market when I was a kid. I had originally wanted to put the white sand in the bottom of the terrarium, then a layer of soil, then put an airplant or two and some moss on top of the soil. But after reading a couple of air plant care articles (this one and this one were particularly thorough), I learned that having anything that holds moisture - like moss - around the base of your airplant is very, very bad. They need to dry completely between waterings or they might rot. I shouldn't be sad - not having to go out and collect moss made this project so much easier.

I wound up picking up white sand ($4.99) and black river rocks ($3.49) at Michael's for a total of $9.58. Then basically I just filled the bottom of the teardrop planter with the white sand, then put a layer of black river rocks on top. I picked out a couple of rocks from my rock collection and put those in. On top of that went a couple of the airplants and a little jade turtle that my sister brought back from Africa for me. Ta-da! Airplant terrarium! Much prettier than just having a jumble of airplants all in a tangle.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with the rest of them. I have a couple of ideas in mind!