We were putting things in boxes for the Salvation Army before the holidays when my brother, Rick, commented how this book could make a nice gadget cover. I agreed, and we set it aside. This week I picked up a strip of balsa wood and some elastic from ye olde craft store and voila. I pulled out the pages and sealed the seam with some gaffer tape. Used wood glue to affix the balsa rails to the edges. I pasted a page from the book that I liked into the inside cover just for grins. I found a foam sheet laying around from some Christmas gift and used a glue stick to stick some protective strips on. I don’t love how the foam strips look with the book page. Next time I might just put a full sheet of the foam on the inside cover. I used glue to put in the elastic strip. I considered putting an elastic strip around the outside of the book, like how Moleskines do, but I didn’t want to mess with the color of the book’s cover. Maybe if I were doing this for real I could dye the elastic?

Anyway, thanks to Rick for the idea, and to Blanche Saunders for writing the book — I sacrificed a good read to make this

Hey kids! Did Santa bring you a speedlite for Christmas? Maybe it was a LumoPro or something similar that doesn’t come with its own pouch? Well, don’t let your new flash go unprotected out there. Just swipe some leftover bubblewrap and your trusty roll of two-inch gaffer tape and make your own ghetto-luxe padded pouch!

What you’ll need?

1. 2″ gaffer tape
2. Bubble wrap
3. Your speedlite

 

Cut strips of bubblewrap. You can be a stickler and measure, or just keep your flash handy and eyeball it. You’ll want the front panel to be longer on the bottom (for the bottom of the pouch) and back panel to be longer on the top (for the flap.) Keep the smooth side of the bubblewrap on top since that will be the inside of the pouch. The tricky part is that last bit when you’re taping inside the pouch.

 

I made sure to keep the flash inside the bubblewrap womb to make sure I was never making it too tight. You can test the ingress/egress (sexy!) of the flash as you go along. From there it’s just a matter of taping it up as neatly or as gritty as you want. The beauty of gaffer tape is its “scultpability.” To help around the corners, take a square of gaff and rip it halfway, then make a corner from that. Again, you can be as tidy and exact as you wanna be. I’m from tha streetz, so I like mine a little rough. (Or, I’m just lazy.)

One other tip: If you’re testing your pouch to make sure it’s not too tight, make sure to test inserting the flash both ways as you go along. (Oh, behave!) The flash probably has a chubbier end so it might fit one way, but not the way you want it to.

For the top flap, if you have some adhesive Velcro ™ laying around, great! If not, you can make a strap by folding a piece of gaff in half, tape it on, and just slide the tongue of the flap in that. (Rowr!) Gaffer tape has some friction to it, so this works fine for me. (See first picture on top)

There you have it:  A quick and dirty padded pouch for your speedlite.  It doesn’t feel half bad next to my factory pouches. If you try this, or have better ideas, let me know. And if you dug this, Like us on Facebook!

 

You’ve just finished a roll of Kodak 120 film. You pop open your camera, take out the roll, you reach for the roll of tape on your desk to seal it up while it waits to be processed. Except for me, I’m always out somewhere where there’s no tape dispenser.

I don’t know why Kodak rolls don’t give you a sticker, Fuji rolls finish up with a sticker. That’s cool. Kodak leaves you to fend for yourself.

I knew all this before today. But, when I went out to 7-11, but impulsively jumped on the metro to head downtown instead to shoot, I didn’t have anything resembling foresight. And, of course along the way I finished a roll of Kodak 160NC and took it out of the camera. I didn’t want it rolling around loose in my bag. But, I didn’t have any tape!

Or, did I.

When my wallet was stolen earlier this month, I decided to roll my own gaffer tape wallet. And, so I realized I could take out my wallet, tear off a small strip of the miracle restickable tape.

Done and done.