Tutorial: $5 Camera Stand for Videos

I have discovered that I really love watching people's art journaling videos, and so I wanted to start making some of my own. There's just something really cool and fascinating about watching a video of a piece of art from blank canvas to a finished state. The problem that I'd been having with making videos is getting the right angle for the shot. I couldn't quite figure out how to have the focus be on the artwork without having it at a weird angle for the viewer. Plus, I didn't want to have to work on it at a weird angle, cuz that would be awkward.

Nick has a giant tripod which I'd been using for my videos, which works well, but I really wanted to be able to focus more on the artwork and less on whether or not I had too much cleavage showing. To be honest, I don't want to be in my videos at all! Well, except for my hands... those clearly need to be involved because I have not yet mastered telekinetic art making.

I knew I needed to have some sort of overhead system, but I wasn't quite sure how to make it work.... until I saw a photo of a makeshift set up on Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's blog:

Photo copyright Julie Fei-Fan Balzer
http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/balzer_designs/2009/07/label.html

I was going to rig up my own system, maybe without the bananas, but then I realized that I could very likely build a satisfactory setup using just a few things from the local hardware store. I found this tutorial which would definitely be way sturdier overall, but I didn't want to work with metal because it would be more expensive and more of a pain to try to drill, etc. It was a huge help to learn that a 1/4 inch bolt was what I'd need to screw my camera onto the stand, just I hadn't quite worked out how I was going to do that.

I did a quick sketch of what I thought would work and then Nick helped me figure out the measurements for the camera height and the width of the stand so that it would fit well on my desk. You could obviously customize this to meet your own needs. First, here's a picture of my stand:

My journal pages are 8 x 10, which means the spread is 10 x 16, just to give you a sense of scale. If you were using a smaller journal, you could get away with a smaller camera stand, I bet. If you need a larger area, you'll need a larger stand. In order to figure out the height, I turned my camera on and held it up over the journal until I got just the right view. [I added 1 extra inch, but if I were to make this again, I'd add an extra two or three, just to enable me to zoom in on a single page if I wanted.]

To build one just like mine, you will need:

1 - 1x2x8 pine board cut into the following lengths: 2x20inches, 2x10inches, 1x24inches + remainder scrap*
1 - 1/4 inch x 1.5 inch bolt (#63332) +
1 - 1/4 inch hex nut (#63301)
2 - 1/4 inch flat washers (#63306)

For these items, my grand total came for $4.21 for this project. (And I bought two extra washers.) If you don't already have 8 screws (1.5 inches or so), you'll need to get those, too. I am assuming you already have a power drill. If not, you might want to borrow one from a friend. You could do the screws by hand, but you will need to be able to drill a 1/4 inch hole in the frame for the bolt.

* I bought my board at Lowe's. They will cut your board for you. The signs always say that you get the first two cuts for free & additional cuts are 25 cents each, but no one has ever charged me extra, no matter how many cuts I've gotten. I do recommend going at a slower time of the day, if at all possible, so you won't have to wait in line.

+ Nick says not to buy galvanized because it's poison. Take your camera with you to test out the bolt to make sure it fits. I'm pretty sure all cameras are going to be pretty standard when it comes to tripod stands, but just in case.

The two 10 inch pieces will be the base of your stand. The two 20 inches pieces are the sides. You want to line up the base pieces so that you'll be screwing through the shorter one inch sides. Attach both bases to the sides using two screws on each then side aside.

Look on the base of your camera to see where the tripod attachment is located. Mine is about 1 inch to the left of the center. Find the center of the 24 inch board then adjust according to the tripod base. Doing this ensures that your camera, when attached, will be positioned in the center. (I.e. for my camera, I'll move the measurement 1 inch left before drilling.

Drill a 1/4 inch hole at the mark you made in the last step. You will drill the whole way through the 1-inch wide part (i.e. in the middle of the 2-inch wide part). Use the scrap piece of wood from the 1x2x8 to protect your work surface.

 Screw the bolt into the hole you just drilled. Add the two washers then tighten with the nut.

Take this piece and position it between the two sides you already created. Use two screws on each side to attach this longer piece at the top of the sides. (Note that it doesn't matter which way the bolt faces at this point.)

 Once your entire stand is screwed together, position it on your work surface so that the part of the bolt that you will be attaching your camera to faces away from you. Screw your camera into place and make any adjustments as needed.  I found that my camera would occasionally slide down, no matter how tight I screwed it in initially, so I use a big push pin to hold it up. My camera is very light weight and this works very well for me. If your camera is heavier, you may need to putter a bit to make the stand work for you.

Here's what my camera sees from its new position on the finished camera stand. Sweet, right?

DIY Makeover: Ugly Office Chair Transformed

The chair I'm currently using at my computer is super comfortable, but, up until yesterday, was super ugly with a faded & stained yellow fabric. The fabric was very similar in texture to burlap (heck, what do I know? Maybe it was burlap?) and thus super uncomfortable to sit on when I'm less than fully dressed. [Nick jokes that I prefer to stay home because I don't have to wear pants here. So true!] I got the chair from a curb alert sometime last summer and have meant to do something about its ugliness every since, but just never got around to it.

Well... as luck would have it, I found an AMAZING zebra print fabric at the recycling center this week. It's white cotton upholstery fabric with black flocked velvet stripes. I paid $10 for a giant roll of it. I bought the fabric thinking of my teen and tween students, because this is some seriously "fresh" fabric that I know they will just love. I made this awesome little purse using only a stapler, some duct tape, a zipper and the fabric:

(Tutorial here)

The more I looked at the fabric, though, the more I thought that I wanted to do something awesome with it for myself. I decided that it was darn well time I covered my desk chair, so even though I have a million and one things to do to get ready for the Providence Arts Festival on September 10, I decided to take an hour to recover my chair.

The project was a little more complex than I'd anticipated, and I actually put the chair back together without the height adjustment lever in place. [Nick fixed it for me later.] I had the darndest time trying to remove the staples on the bottom of the seat, and after a few frustrating minutes, I decided to just staple the new fabric over the old fabric, being careful to avoid the old staples. Still, even with a few hiccups, the chair turned out GREAT!

With just a staple gun, scissors, a socket set (is that what it's called?), and my new fabric, I changed dull and dingy to fresh and fabulous.

Before:

I wasn't using it like this, but I had already taken the top off before I thought to do a before/after shot!

After:

Awesome right? I used this tutorial from Curbly. I definitely recommend you give it a whirl if you want a quick update to your space for very little money. I am seriously considering doing my couch in the zebra print next. Hmm...

DIY @ Home: Crochet Swiffer Cover

Look what I made!

When Nick told me yesterday that he was going to buy Swiffer sheets today, I remembered a tutorial I'd seen for making a crocheted Swiffer cover. I showed him, but he wasn't all that impressed. Plus, both he and I doubted I'd get around to making one any time soon. Well, we were both wrong! I was feeling both lazy and productive (yes, I often have conflicting emotions like these), so I chilled in bed, crocheting and watching Hoarders.

Hoarders is my current Netflix addiction. I have always jokingly thought of myself as a hoarder, since I definitely have those tendencies and they run in the family, but watching the show actually makes me feel a heck of a lot better about my mess. I mean, I might be a craft-addled slob sometimes, but at least I'm not gross. (Okay, I totally used to be gross, years ago, when I was depressed and living on my own. I am not totally ashamed to admit that I have on more than one occasion bribed people with Taco Bell and drugs to wash my dishes. I have also, on multiple occasions, filled up the bathtub in order to wash dishes. Thank goodness I have a dishwasher now!)

Reverse: Improvised for a snug fit

I love crocheting because it lets me feel both lazy and productive. I watched a few episodes of Hoarders and instead of just feeling like I wasted an hour or so of my life, I have an awesome Swiffer cover to show for it. I feel so eco-friendly now! The best part is that the cover didn't cost me any thing, since I already had acrylic yarn in my stash. (Actually: I was lucky I did, since I thought I'd sold / donated all of my acrylic stuff!)

I used this pattern from CraftyStylish as my inspiration. I followed it pretty exactly, only because my second acrylic yarn was thicker than the first, I ended up adding an extra row of single crochet between the bumpy bits. Then, after following the pattern exactly to make the sleeve part, I discovered it didn't fit, so I frogged it & improvised using double crochet, which is stretchier than single crochet. I really love crochet because it's so easy to improvise!

Try as I might, I cannot train my cat to clean.

If you don't crochet, this is a collection of Swiffer cover patterns, so even if you knit, sew, or just like to wear socks, you'll find something that works for you. While I was poking around, I found this pattern for a reusable Swiffer Duster cover. Man, I love crafters!

DIY Decorating: Free Window Treatment Tutorial

Okay, so calling this window treatment idea "free" isn't exactly true: if you don't have the few required items already at home, you'll have to buy a couple things. Even if you have to buy everything you'll need, you can do this project for under $10, probably even under $5! And, since clean up and removal is a cinch, this is a perfect project for renters!

How awesome is this:

I have an enormous gorgeous window in the bathroom of my new apartment. There is a beautiful tree right outside the window, but in addition to the tree, there's a view of the street. Since I don't like people peeping in on me while I'm in the bathroom, I need something covering the window. But I hated to block out the view of the tree in the top half of the window. The apartment came with blinds, which would be a-okay except that my cat, Smudge, has a strange penchant for crawling through the blinds to peer at birds out the window. I've been meaning to do something about this for the two weeks we've been living here, but when I walked into the bathroom to see the blinds looking crazy askew, I knew today was the day. I really don't want to have to replace the blinds before we move out because I was lazy, ya know?

Originally, I figured I'd make a curtain, but then realized the cat would promptly destroy it. So I thought about contact paper or window film. Contact paper isn't exactly designed for windows, but I know it would work... but did I want to deal with cleaning up the adhesive later when I had to remove it? Nah. Window film is specifically designed for windows, but the size of the glass panels in the window are just a little too big for me to get away with using one roll of film. Did I want to spend $40 on window film? Nah.

Then I remembered having once read a blog about using spray starch to add fabric to walls in apartments when you couldn't paint. I figured that if it worked on a wall; it would probably work on a window so I did a little searching and found this entry from all buttoned up. She used cotton fabric soaked in spray starch to cover her window. What really sold me on the idea was that she'd edited the blog a year and a half later to report that the window treatment was still holding firm.

So, then, I thought "Where the heck does one buy spray starch?" since the last thing I ironed was paper that I'd glued together with gel medium. Just as I was about to head to the store, I thought, "Wait a minute? What's in spray starch anyway?" Turns out it's wicked easy to make your own spray starch. You need, literally, corn starch and water.  How awesome would it be if I could make a successful window treatment without even leaving my house or spending a penny? Uh, totally awesome!

I remembered that I'd gotten a bunch of polyester lace for free back when I bought my massive stash of zippers, so I went into the kitchen, where I am temporarily-forever storing my sewing supplies on top of the kitchen cabinets. Luckily, the first box I grabbed was the one with the lace. But I had a problem: I had pink, purple, red, blue, and black lace... but none of those was going to work for my bathroom. I kept digging and then I found it: a large piece of kinda ugly white lace. Perfect!

The first recipe I tried, one for DIY Spray Starch, was an epic FAIL when it came to the windows. {It might work wonderfully for ironing, which is why I still included the link!} Yes, it looked gorgeous; yes, I was able to snap the above photo, but five minutes later, the whole thing fell to a soggy mess on the floor. I reapplied it only to have the same thing happen immediately after. By this time, I was frustrated and also thoroughly committed to making the idea work. I sent Nick to the drug store for a can of spray starch.

While he was gone, I started searching again and came across a post from How About Orange included a recipe very similar to the one I'd used except that it was cooked and thickened. That made so much sense to me! I needed the heat to activate the starch, which is probably why the first recipe would be great for ironing; not so great for plastering shit to your windows. I made a colorless, flavorful gravy using this recipe, very slightly adapted from the original. It worked! It's gorgeous! It's still up after being up overnight.  My boyfriend is so impressed with my crafty ingenuity right now. We'll be returning the can of spray starch to the store.

If you'd like to make your own (almost) free window treatments, you will need:

a ruler
scissors
enough fabric to cover your window glass*
large-ish paintbrush, optional, but nice
corn starch
water
large saucepan
rubbing alcohol or spray glass cleaner

* I suspect that natural fibers like cotton would be best because it will soak up the liquid... but so far so good on the cheapo polyester lace! If you aren't sure, just try it. You can also wash out the starch if it doesn't work and use the fabric for something else. The starch will make your fabric less transparent, so if you want to let in light, get the thinnest, most translucent fabric you can find.

Clean the windows. I used rubbing alcohol all across the glass, but this probably isn't strictly necessary. Just make sure they aren't gross, a'ight?

Place two cups of water to boil. In a separate saucepan, whisk 1/4 cup of cornstarch with 1/2 cup of cold water.  Whisk in the boiling water and bring to a gentle boil until the mixture just starts to thicken. Remove from heat.

Meanwhile, measure the glass in your windows and cut your fabric to fit. You'll see in the picture that mine ended up just a touch too big. I'm going to trim that later, once it's completely dry, and hope everything stays put. It's easier to make the fabric smaller later than to try to add more to it. Err on the side of big.

Add fabric to the saucepan, making sure to coat, and allow to soak / cool until workable. I waited about 15 minutes, but I was really impatient and it was still pretty hot when I started. You might want to do one fabric piece at a time. The recipe I did was enough for two 14 x 36 inch panels, with a little starch to spare. If you have more fabric than this, you could always add up to 2 cups extra water when you are initially cooking the starch mixture.

Place a towel on the window ledge to catch drips.

Pull out the panel, let it drip a bit, but don't wring it out. Apply to the window by starting at the top, smoothing it into place, and working your way to the bottom. Use the paintbrush to paint a layer of starch on top of the fabric panels.

Allow to dry. Leave the towel in place for a long time, because it will continue to drip. I wiped away the starch drips a couple times during the day with some tissues. This cleans up very easily, so don't panic. I was able to clean the windows very easily from the first recipe I tried and don't anticipate any issues with this one either.

Revel in your crafty bad self. Enjoy your new window look!