Tutorial: How to Make a Light Box

When I was little, my mom used to let me play with her Barbie tracing set that she played with when SHE was a little girl.

For a visual: me, as a little girl, with my brother

The Barbie tracing set involved a purple and white box that lit up when you plugged it in. There were a ton of templates of old school Barbies and Kens with outfits and accessories, and you could use them all to trace your own scenes. [Now that I'm thinking about this thing, I hope it still exists somewhere. Mom?]

A little more recently, I was trying to figure out how to trace an embroidery pattern onto dark navy blue fabric, and I remembered the purple and white light box. Since a Barbie tracing set is not something I currently own, I thought I'd try to make a light box with a few standard things lying around the house.

It absolutely ended up working. I could see the embroidery pattern very clearly through the solid navy blue cotton fabric. 

It even lit up a slide I had from an old photography class.

traffic cones are so poignant

How to Make a Light Box

Materials:

shoebox

aluminum foil

wax paper

bright flashlight [make sure the batteries are fresh]

glass from an 8x10 picture frame

small stack of paperbacks

First cut a large rectangle [about 5x7] in the lid of the box and a smaller square in one end. The square should be big enough to just fit the end of your flashlight. Then tear some sheets of foil, crinkle it up and open it back up. Press the wrinkly foil into the inside of the box.

Lay the wax paper over the open hole in the top of the box. Cover with the glass. Rest the end of the flashlight into the square hole in the end of the box. Use the stack of books to prop the other end of the flashlight up so that it points down into the foil.

Turn on the flashlight. Voila! Light box! Trace away.