My $20 Photo Studio: Creative Wall #4

This is step 4. There are five parts to this craft room organization wall project: Make Your Creative Wall Frames; Organize Your Tools; How to Organize Gift Wrap; How to Add Crown Molding to a Craft Wall.

I have been hard at work on the Creative Wall and now have all 3 frames completed.  The only thing I need to add is the crowning touch to the wall.  I will show you that next week.

This 3rd frame on the Creative Wall is my mini photo studio. As a DIY blogger I need to take lots of photos and needed a handy place to quickly take the step-by-step project shots that has a plain background and lots of light.  When my worktable was in the middle of the room and I took photos of projects I made, there was always a distracting background.  Having the worktable against the wall solves this.

The magic of this mini photo studio is the addition of a white roller shade to the top of frame.When I want to take a project shot, all I have to do is roll down the shade – voila a mini photo studio.

When the area is not being used to take photos, I can roll up the shade and use the frame as a pretty place to pin inspiration and memos. 

How To Make a Mini Photo Studio

supplies needed:

• Frame
• Roller Shade
• Outside Mount Roller Shade Brackets
• White gloss spray paint
• Foam block
• Cardboard
• Fabric
• Staple gun
• 1/2-inch heavy duty staples
• Damage Free Picture or Frame Velcro  Hanging Strips

1. To find out how to make the frame and fabric covered insert you can find the steps in this post – Putting The Creative Wall Together.

1.  Spray paint the shade brackets with gloss white paint.

When spray painting small items like brackets, nail heads, etc.  Attach them to a piece of Styrofoam for easy spray painting.  I used the nails the brackets came with to attach them to the foam.  They stay in place making it easy to paint all sides without anything falling over and making a mess.

2.  Measure the width of your frame to determine what length roller shade you will need.  I figured out that I needed to place the shade brackets on the flat part of the frame – and then measured side to side.  Make sure when you go to get the shade cut that you tell the person cutting it that it will be on an “outside mount” as well as how wide you want the actual shade to be. They will figure out the rest.

My helper – Trax is sick and is at the Vet for two nights. Urinary tract infection. Even though he is always in my way – I miss him.

3. Two small nails come with each bracket.  I used them to attach the brackets to each side of the frame.  One side of the shade has a pointed end that goes into the bracket with the hole. The other end has a flat protrusion (see below) that goes into the slot bracket.

4.  I added a saw tooth hanger to the back of the frame to hang and four picture hanging strips. These are needed so that when you roll the shade down, the frame stays in place.  If you have read the other posts about this wall, you know that I designed the wall so that it could be portable, so I can easily take it down if we have to move and I can use it in another house.  If I knew we were staying in this house, I would have drilled holes into each corner and used mounting screws to hold each frame on the wall.

5.  Once the frame was hung on the wall, I removed the label that kept the roller shade rolled up.  I kept it on so the shade would not flap around while I worked on it.

The main reason I placed the photo-taking frame last on the wall is because it is closest to the window and gets plenty of light, especially in the late afternoon.

If I need more light or want to bounce a shadow away, I place a dollar store foam board parallel to the window.  My IKEA light on the worktable holds it up.

Here is one of the photos I took.

Without the light bouncing board.

With the light bouncing foam board.

I don’t have a photo of this yet,  but I can clip a yard of colorful fabric or paper to the shade to create interesting backdrops when needed.

Over the next few days, I will add the crown molding along the top of the frames and then the Creative Wall will be complete.

It has been less than a week since the wall has been up and I am happy to say that it is doing everything I designed it to do.

1. Functional: a place to  – wrap gifts,  make and create things, take photos where there is lots of light.

2. Pretty

3. Place for everything

4. No clutter

I am a happy blogger