DIY Wood Photo Background

For a while now I've been wanting some kind of a new background to use for taking photos of my baby clothing.  I really like the look of a wood backdrop, but I also wanted something lightweight and relatively inexpensive.  I've seen a few made with peel and stick flooring, but I couldn't find any good colors at my local store and overall it was more expensive than I was expecting. 

 As I was wandering around the hardware store, something I actually really love doing, I came across a package of pine wainsot.  It was $12 for the package, and the finished dimensions are approximately 3 x 3.5 feet.  Perfect!

 The pieces are tongue and groove and are meant to be nailed into place.  I just put a little wood glue on the tongue part and put it all together on the floor. 

 I decided to keep a few pieces separate.  I put the weights on so that they would dry flat (they tended to pop up).

 After the glue dried, I painted both boards white with paint I had on hand.

 To give it a bit of a weathered look, I also added a little dark stain while the white paint was still wet.  After that all dried, I put a coat of clear finish on (that ended up turning a bit yellow for some reason).

 Here are the paints I used.  All of these were sitting on a shelf in my basement.  I think anything will really work if you are looking for a weathered look. Before I found the dark stain, I was considering using my kids tempera paints.  And in this picture, you can see how I used my 2 separate pieces.  The large piece is the background and the smaller board is on the floor.

 
I also made some really easy and cheap reflectors using foam board and clear tape from the dollar store.  I taped the boards a little offset from each other so I could fold them up for storage.

I'm really happy with how all my new photo props turned out.  Here are some of the first pictures I took with my new gear.  This cute outfit is headed to Texas for a new little Texas Rangers fan.  And you can see, I've finally perfected my heat transfer vinyl technique.  If you missed my last post, go check it out for my heat transfer vinyl fail and what I did to get it right!