Fear of the Dark - Building Your Own Light Tent

A key tactic to selling on eBay is having professional looking pictures. No one wants to look at a dark and dingy item with your dirty clothes laying on the floor. A quick fix for this is to buy or build your own light box or tent.

I built one myself for under 10 dollars which is a lot better than buying a kit in store by following this tutorial.

The following tutorial on constructing an Inexpensive Light Tent was Submitted by Jeffrey Bail over at the digital photography school Forums.

Materials Needed:

1.) A Box – It could be any size you want as long as you can light it! I prefer it to be as square as can be. You can find boxes anywhere for free. I got mine from work in which they throw out anyway. You can also find boxes in the back of strip malls, grocery stores, appliance stores or basically any place that makes or sells products. Thicker the better! (Free)
2.) Fabric ‘ This again could be any type. In my box I used white muslin fabric that is found at your local arts and craft store. Buy enough to cover the entire box. ($4.00 US or $1.99 a yard) People suggested other fabrics like White Nylon and white fleece. If your extremely cheap and have some white under shirts laying around. Cut up the sides to where you have two halves of the shirt. If you use multiple shirts, be sure that the color matches or your end result may not turn out as you like it
3.) Tape ‘ I use tape to secure the fabric to the sides of the box. Reason being is that In-case you want to try out different fabrics. I use regular masking tape. ($1.00 US A Roll)
4.) Glue ‘ You can use a “Glue Stick” ($1.00 US a Stick) or spray adhesive ($5.00 US per Can) to stick the lining in the box.

5.) White Bristol board ‘ This will line the inside of the box and will also serve as your back round (.50 a sheet X2). I would suggest to buy 2 or 3 sheets as you will be cutting up two to line your box (Could be more depending on the size of your box) and one for the back round. Bristol board is a heavyweight paper (.006″ Thick) that is used in drawing/art. The name came from where it was originated, Bristol England. If you wanted a different back round you can also pick up different colors.
6.) Lights ‘ You will need to light this box and this could be the most expensive part of the box unless you already have the lights. In my opinion lighting is the most important part of this box. Without it you will not get the picture you desire. I went to my local hardware store and picked up some “Daylight” Bulbs. Using regular light bulbs will cast a yellow light and should be avoided. I purchased “n:vision” 90 watt equivalent compact florescent bulbs ($7.00 US). Basically any “Full Spectrum” light bulbs will do.
Also suggest a lighting fixture. If you have a one of those desk work lamps, It will work fine. If you don’t I suggest getting a “Clamp On Work Light”. At my local home depot they only had two kinds, A smaller reflector dish (5″) for $5.99 (US) or the 10.5″ reflector for $11.99 (US).
7.) Miscellaneous Tools ‘ Tape ruler, Ruler or any straight edge, scissors and knife

Now that you have the Materials I will show you out to make a light tent step by step. When your done you can take nice clean and crisp product shots.

Step By Step Process:

A) Take your box with a tape ruler and marker and measure in 2″ from the side of the box marking multiple points with your marker. When your done you will see your border, connect the points using your straight edge to where you should have a nice looking square/rectangle in the middle of the box with a 2″ border around it. Leave the top and bottom of the box alone as you will not need to mark it

B) Cut out the boxes you’ve drawn. Repeat that to the sides of the box where you have drawn the boxes. When you’re done, cut off the top of the box or remove the flaps on the top of the box. LEAVE THE BOTTOM INTACT!
C) Now take your Bristol board and make lines with your marker for every two inches 16 times. Then proceed to cut out 16 strips with your scissors.
D) Glue the paper strips into the box. Make sure the side with marker goes against the cardboard so it can not be seen.

E) Take another piece of Bristol board and cut is so the width is the same as the inside of the box and the length is much longer then the box.
F) Place the long piece of Bristol board into the box to where the piece curves to the bottom. Avoid creasing as it will show up in your photo. Cut off excess paper that is sticking out the top.

G) Cut your fabric to where it will cover the holes. Then cut a big piece to where it will cover the top of the box.
H) Tape the fabric to cover the holes in the box except the one that is facing your background. Then tape the top piece on.

YOU’RE DONE!
Now all you got to do is light the top of the box and start snapping away!

There are many variations you can do to get the photo you want. If you’re having a shadow problem I suggest lighting the other sides of the box. If you’re getting vignetting I suggest a lens hood or moving the lens more into the box. Photoshop could be a handy tool also! Since my lens and camera are not the cleanest I tend photoshop the dust that is sitting on or in my camera. I also adjust the levels so it’s brighter.

Camera sticking into the box

The Light box in action

Another Result of the above light box

This will make your ordinary pictures become comparable to professional stock images. Pretty cool eh?
I don't even use a legit camera, just my iPhone 5 and the images turn out great!

A Selection Unnatural

After observing and learning for a couple of months I figured it was time to hit up the local thrift store and see if I could do what so many others have done.

Armed with my smartphone, ebay app and amazon app I felt like I could take on the thrifting world. Boy, was I wrong. As I said in the previous post, expect to make errors. My first attempt was nothing but errors. Luckily my brother found one item that made it all worth it, but more on that later.

Entering the store with my little brother (who immediately wants to run to the toy section) I came up with a simple game plan. Start at one corner, work around the perimeter of the store while going up and down any aisles that were not clothing or books. End the visit with the glass display cases of  'rare' items. In the beginning I decided to stay away from books and clothing simply because there is too much information you must know to profit from them. Yes, I could scan every single book and type in every single clothing brand with one of my apps but time is money and the hour or two spent in those sections would be used more productively elsewhere.

I also skipped over the bags of miscellaneous housewares and electronics believing that their low cost meant that they were all crap items. This would be error #1.

Obliging my brother, I headed to the toy section where he found a couple of nerf guns that he wanted to take home. I skipped over toys believing they were broken and dirty. This would be error #2.

I also skipped the board games, believing that they surely could not have all the pieces. This would be error #3.

Instead, I got absorbed in the stuffed animal section. I never read or learned anything about stuffed animals, I believed I may of stumbled into a secret world of plush wealth. Searching a couple on ebay showed that they sold for much higher than the 4.99 price tags. I bought a bunch. This would be error #4

At the time I thought I struck gold, 6 months later and I still have half of that first haul. Lesson learned.

Above I mentioned how my brother found one item that made the trip worth it, lucky little brat found a TI-83 graphing calculator, brand new in package. Store was wanting 12 bucks, I sold it for 75 within 2 days. That calculator covered the whole bill of 64 dollars that day and I believe if it were not for that one calculator, I would of thrown in the towel and ripped the stupid plush animals to pieces.

Never past one of these by!

Knowledge...Nothing Else Matters

Before diving into this game thinking that you will quit your job, and sail the world on your diamond plated yacht, you have to realize that there is a lot to learn. In fact, the wealth of knowledge is never ending. Every single day I am learning something new, and a lot of what you learn is simply through trial and error. Yes, that's right, error. I have made many mistakes, I don't get angry or upset by them, I use them to learn. I make sure to never repeat the same mistake and thus I become better at what I do.

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work"

--Thomas Edison

Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is a successful flipping business. Before I purchased my first item I had spent 3 months trawling the flipping community, absorbing as much info as possible. It takes time, and it takes quite a bit of reading between the lines. If you have an item making a lot of ROI (return on investment) would you be willing to share it? Of course not. You learn what makes money when people decide to share their hauls, or brag about big wins. Lots of time they reveal just enough information that you use to piece together and find out what is worth picking up. Spend enough time reading about an others experience and soon enough you will know what to look for. 

All of my knowledge and information comes from two places.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Flipping
https://www.facebook.com/groups/thriftinglounge

Start with those two wells of knowledge and go from there. The flipping community is larger than you would think and there is plenty of other sites to learn from, not to mention very informative youtube channels.

Thrifting Is My Business... And Business Is Good!

"One mans trash is another mans treasure"

I can't count the amount of times my mother would say this to me as a child. You see, I had a problem. I lived by the motto 'finders, keepers' and thus I would always bring home junk... yes, junk. I was a kid, I didn't care if it was busted or dirty, if it was outside and abandoned, it was free game.
I thought the items were cool but my parents did not and so half of the time they would simply toss them back out to the curb. Oh well, I was a kid, they would buy me something 'new' and 'clean' and I was a happy camper again.

By 'new' and 'clean' I pretty much mean used and not filthy. My parents were much smarter than I was, arguably smarter than my friends and their parents as well, they would always drag me into thrift stores. Being young and not knowing any better I saw nothing strange about this, but I quickly learned that kids can be cruel and so I made damn sure that none of my schoolyard buddies knew where my clothes and toys came from.

Being introduced to second hand shops at such an early age allowed me to never feel uncomfortable or 'dirty' about them. Most of these stores carry a certain stigma that they are for the poor and are full of gross, unwanted items. Thinking back about it, one of the reasons that my family was not 'poor' was probably due to them utilizing these thrift stores.

For the longest time I still kept my love of thrifting a secret, was I ashamed or embarrassed? You betcha! I was young, those were very trying times. The high school crowd is a tough one if anything about you is 'different'. Growing up is a strange thing, gradually I realized that there was no shame in pursuing a hobby or passion, if others want to judge me, they can fuck right off!

It wasn't until very recently that I realized I could turn my love of digging and searching through unwanted items into something much more. I have to admit, if it wasn't for shows like Storage Wars, Auction Hunters, Thrift Hunters and to an extent Pawn Stars, I would never of thought to expand my passion into a business.

Remember folks, reality tv is never 'real' the producers have to spice things up for ratings but there is real money out there just waiting to be salvaged from that local thrift store. Now I'm not heading into this looking to quit my job and retire, but looking at it as a hobby. A hobby that makes money, how could you complain about that!

Since I was introduced at such a young age, I decided to drag my little bro around to various thrift stores. The kid loves it. I don't know how the schoolyard crowd is nowadays, so he may get some flack for it but you know what, those kids can fuck right off too! Wish I had learned that at his age.

and that right there is how TreasuresTnT was born.
                                                                             -Tim and Tyler