You don’t need an elaborate lighting setup or a designer apartment to take a great picture of your crafty endeavors. To me it’s all about working with what you have. I currently live in an apartment where we chose not to paint any walls in an effort to make moving out one step easier. But when I need to take some product shots of my new wall art pieces I thought hanging them on a painted wall was exactly what the shot called for. So working with what I had, I improvised. Here’s how you can do the same.

I took a 24 x30 piece of foamcore that I had ( I cut them down for packaging flat items) and spray painted it with my favorite shade of apple green. This creates an instant wall in any color of your choosing, and unlike a fabric of paper backdrop it’s sturdy and will never wrinkle. I looked around the apartment and decided that a bench we had would make a great surface on which t place the props, but a small table or book shelf would work great too. For props I decided on some flowers from the little shop down the street and a few of my favorite books.

For the setup, the spot with the most natural light happens to be in our stairwell through the skylight. So I used some 3m Velcro command strips to attach my new “wall” to the actual wall, and setup everything in an eye pleasing manner.  Using another piece of Command strip I hung the framed art to the foamcore. This setup is easy to rearrange and take away or add props as you see fit. Remember it’s all about the final shot, not the surroundings of your setup. So don’t worry if your shooting in your bathroom, outdoors or in your stairwell. Wrk with what you have and get creative!

• Four eggs
• Two cups whole milk ( you can use 2% if you want)
• Two cups flour
• One-half teaspoon salt
• One-sixth teaspoon baking soda

They recommend making the batter a day ahead of time, refrigerating it, and then letting it return to room temperature.
Preheat oven to 450. Break eggs into mixing bowl and whip; add milk and blend. Add remaining ingredients and mix until almost smooth — do not overbeat. Fill greased popover pans, muffin tins or custard cups 3/4 full. Bake for 14 minutes at 450, then reduce heat to 350 and bake 15 minutes more. (DO NOT OPEN OVEN UNTIL BAKING IS COMPLETE!) They’ll be crispy brown on the outside and moist on the inside at this point; remove them from the pans and serve with butter and strawberry preserves. (Jordan Pond House uses Stonewall brand — I looked in the gift shop.)