Monday nights are class night for me this summer. Knowing that I didn't get as much done this weekend as expected, Q gave me a jumpstart on the light box Monday night by taking a cardboard box we had laying around and cutting out the frame for me! He taped it together with the free express mail tape you get from the post office, clever! So yesterday after work I settled down to finish the light box while watching Deadliest Catch... the ONLY tv show I actually watch live from week to week! (It was a sad one).

My ultimate goal for the light box was to make it using stuff that we either already had laying around or was free as I've finally made enough QQ flower sales that I'm out of the red. Enter the post office AGAIN. While mailing a few records at the post office yesterday Q picked up a bunch of those Express Mail tyvek envelopes. Even though there was printing on the outside, the inside was perfect for covering up the frame... also free.

I used a glue stick to put it all together and rummaged around for some lights. I used 2 lamps. One overhead with a 60 watt blub and another small desk lamp at 40 watts. After taking a few photos I found that because the bulbs were not natural light ones, they cast a horrible yellow glow. I should have known better!

Fortunately I have a digital SLR (Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT) so I was able to manually reset the white balance on the camera... a relatively simple prodecure detailed in the user manual thank goodness. This allowed me to take decent photos so I could at least list a few things today. I'm on the fence as to whether I should buy the natural light bulbs at a higher wattage to avoid having to reset white balance and do photoshopping. I would need 2 lamps too as the desk lamps can't handle anything more than 60s.

As for now, the box is built and it works! So far the cost has been free. That makes me happy.

SQ

Reality check. I work fulltime and the weekends are always crazy. Between work, class, Rudy horse, and Mini madness there are not enough daylight hours to take advantage of beautiful natural light. In addition to that, who can depend on the sun to shine on the one afternoon you have free? My solution = fake it! And I found two guides about how to do it :)

I quite like the second guide by MAKE because there is not a lot of cutting and taping and fixing and adhering. I can see both working well. I will hopefully have a chance to put something together this week or weekend so I can actually photograph my items at night when I have time! Maybe Q can help me out.

It would be great to be feautred on the front page of Etsy... although it sometimes feels like you have to have the same cookie cutter photo of the item super zoomed in with a white background and a little bit out of focus for depth. Ah well.