colour on the light table

A couple of weeks ago, I made a super-cheap, super-easy light box for the Hooligans (you can see the simple DIY here).

I was initially inspired by Play at Home Mom’s fabulous light table.  They have so many ideas for creative light-play, and I plan to borrow many of them, but in particular, I love the way they combine colour-play with light-play.  Check out their post “Playing with Light” to see what I mean.

I love the clear, coloured blocks and objects they use, and I was kind of stumped…  I raided the toyroom, our buckets and baskets, and couldn’t find anything that I thought would work in quite the same way.  We have colourful tissue paper, which will be lovely, but I was looking for something with a little more “punch”.

Then, I was cleaning out a cabinet the other night and came across a pile of empty coloured cd cases.

Yesterday, we put them to the test! 

What do you think?

DIY – cheap and easy light box

Yeah, Baby!  

I’ve been positively drooling over the light tables and light boxes that I’ve seen popping up all over blog-world, and I knew if I thought hard enough, I could come up with a simple way to make a light table with stuff I had around the house.

Now, mine isn’t as large as some that I’ve seen, but when I put it together, and turned on the light, I was over the moon!  It totally works.  And because it’s small and light-weight, it’s portable.  I’ve decided to call mine a “light box” Yes indeedy!!  Woohoo!

Here’s how it’s done.  Prepare to be amazed by it’s simplicity!

You can find these LED lights at Walmart, Canadian Tire, and probably most hardware stores.  They run on four AA batteries, and last forever.  We have a bunch of them – we use them when we’re camping.

I found a few of these clear containers at a thrift shop a while back to use for messy play (shaving cream, finger painting etc.).

The moment of truth!  Turn the light on, and pop the lid on the container, and……

VOILA!! A light box!!

It’s awesome!!  Honestly, you wouldn’t believe how excited I was when I turned out the lights, and saw it glowing happily away on the kitchen counter.  Don’t you love it when something comes together this easily?

I didn’t go searching for exciting things to put on it.  I was in the kitchen so I just grabbed a few things that I had near-by.

One of these days I’ll ask my handy hubby to make the “real deal” for me, but for now, this will be just fine.  You can see how the Hooligans play with it here.

Yay, me!  And yay, you too because YOU can totally make one of these!  And if you liked this, you might like our easy DIY drop box too!