Easy DIY Lightbox!

This Lightbox is an amazing tool to add to your photography collection! Use it to take photos of an item, such as a necklace or a book. It can spice up just about any product photo, and it makes your photos just that much more profesional. You can make your light box any size you want—It just depends on what items you want to take a photo of.

You will need:
-A hot glue gun with plenty of hot glue sticks
-Scissors that can cut through cardboard (scissors with rounded ends or pattern scissors don’t really work for this)
-Printer paper
-Paper cutter or a tool that can cut paper very straight

The first step for this super easy Lightbox is to find the right cardboard. You want cardboard that is fairly thin, but still of a good quality and strength. Amazon boxes, Target boxes, and Nordstrom boxes are all good choices. Thick cardboard or double-layered cardboard is not good, such as from an appliance box or a box with a large heavy item in it. You also want to make sure that the cardboard is in good shape and has not been squished or torn.

Next, you want to cut out your pieces. You can make them any size that you want—just size it to the item that you want to photograph. Cut out four pieces of the cardboard that you chose in the first step into a square-ish shape. It’s important that they are all roughly the same size, as they will form a cube-shaped box. This box won’t have a roof or a front, so keep that in mind as you do this project.

Next, assemble your box. Start off with glueing two wall pieces into a right angle. Glue one more piece onto this right angle to make the third wall, then glue on the floor. Try and get the majority of the hot glue on the outside of the cube, as having a bunch of glue on the inside of the cube might create lumps. Remember, your box only has three walls and a floor, and it won’t have a front or a roof. This is so you can put a lamp through the top and take your photo from the front.

Next, cut out your paper lining for the inside of the cube. Figure out how wide you need your paper to be to fit into the box. Since it is a cube, you can use this width for all of the sides. Use a paper cutting machine or a tool that makes the edges straight, as you will want to have very straight edges on your paper. It depends on the size of the box, but for mine I just needed to cut it once lengthwise and it fit into my box. After you have cut your paper, place it into your box to make sure it covers at least two walls. If it doesn’t fit, try it again. I had to do it a few times before I got it right. My paper also got a huge wrinkle in it and I had to start over. Try and keep your paper un-wrinkled as it will show up in your photos.

Next, you want to glue your paper down. Apply hot glue to only one wall first and put your paper on top, pressing it down so the glue adheres. Then, you should have enough paper hanging down to cover the wall below. Apply hot glue to the wall below it and press down to adhere the paper. If your glue gun is small like mine and doesn’t have a huge glue capacity, just put glue around the edges and don’t worry about putting glue in the middle. Paper over all of the cardboard walls with the paper, and make sure to leave a half inch hanging down to cover some of the cracks in the box where the walls meet. I had some light showing through where the walls met, and this extra half inch helped a lot.

Guess what? You’re done now! Congratulations! You just made a super easy DIY Lightbox. To take really cool photos, aim a flashlight or a lamp through the top of the box to illuminate your items. Then, place your items inside and take some amazing photos!