Make a simple and cheap tracing light box!

It doesn’t look like anything special, but it works amzingly well!

I started out with a shoebox, and a plastic box frame I picked up at Goodwill for 1 or 2 bucks. I put the frame on top of the shoebox and traced around it. I used a craft knife to cut it out. I am really terrible at being precise with the craft knife, so it ended up being a little too large of a hole in some places, and the lines were crooked. Ideally, I would do it again, but this actually turned out pretty well, because I just went crazy with super glue along all sides of the frame on the underside of the lid, and it’s in there pretty securely now.

That is a lot of superglue right there

As you can see here, it doesn't line up at all! But so far the superglue is holding up!

This is a simple flourescent light I picked up at Goodwill for 2 bucks!

Place a sheet of tracing paper on top to diffuse the light

And turn on the light, voila! Simple lightbox!

It’s really great for viewing slides

And for tracing embroidery patterns! Here is my next project. I figured I would make something for myself, since I hardly ever do. One of my favorite Hunter S. Thompson quotes.

It’s from Part 1, Chapter 12 of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride… and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well…maybe chalk it off to forced consciousness expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.”

And here it is all ready to be stitched up, after I traced it with a transfer pen, which rubs off easily if any is still visible after it’s all done.

And by the way, that is the Treefrog font I used to make it.

All in all, this cost about $4, or $14, if you consider the shoes that came in the box. I already had tracing paper, but a pack of tracing paper can’t be much more than a few dollars as well.