Sunday, April 29, 2012

Something Sunday 17: DIY Camera Case Bag Liner

I am excited to be (finally) posting another tutorial today! I am going to try and share how to make a camera case bag liner today!

Taking pictures has become a bigger hobby of mine recently, and I even acquired a DSLR, which I talked a bit about before. Its been fun to use, but a bit of a pain to bring around because its so big. I wanted to make sure it was easy and safe to bring around so I would actually use it. I found a few cute camera bags online, but they were way out of my price range, so of course, I decided to make it myself!

Now, onto the tutorial:

What you will need:
(note: there is Velcro in the picture, but I didn't end up using any)

To start, I cut out all my pieces of foam, which is just foam from the fabric store, about 3/4'' thick. The dimensions I provide in this tutorial worked well for my camera which is a Canon T3 with the kit lens, nothing too huge. If you have a different size camera, just alter the size of the foam and fabric to work for what you have!

Foam Pieces:
Base - 5'' X 6''
Shape 1 - 6'' X 5''
Shape 2 - 6'' X 6''

I marked my pieces as to not get confused because they are pretty close in size and it was getting hard to keep them straight. I recommend doing the same.


Next I cut my pieces of fabric to cover the foam. The size of the pieces described below is an estimate, if you are off by a half inch (or even a whole one) you should be able to make it work.

Fabric:
Base - 8'' X12''
Shape 1 - 11'' X 14''
Shape 2 - 11 X 15''

Once you have your fabric cut, you want to fold it in half (right sides together) and sew the open side closed. It is important that you fold in so that the top/bottom sides will be closed and the left/right sides will be open. This is where it is handy to have your piece marked so you know which ends are the bottom/top. In the picture below on the right, you can see the green x shows the bottom of the piece. 


Once you have the piece closed, turn it right side out and slide your foam into the tube. Try and make sure it is in the middle of the fabric tube, I didn't measure though, eye-balling was good enough. Once you have he foam in there, fold up the sides like you would a present, and pin. For those of you who aren't good at wrapping gifts, check out this alternate camera bag tutorial for some help here (its about 3/4 of the way down).


Once you have both sides folded and pined, Sew the fold closed using a zipper foot so you can get in close to the edge of the foam.


Once you finish sewing all your foam pieces into there cute cases, its time to assemble the camera case. This part is a little bit tricky and I wish I had more pictures, so bare with me! And please leave a comment if you have any questions.

I pinned the base to each of the shape 1 sides first, and sewed them together (again with the zipper foot). This will leave you with a base and two sides connected. Before I started sewing these, I made sure to mark the base with a red pin so I didn't get confused as to which piece was which (this was super helpful!).

Next pin the shape 2 sides to the shape 1 sides. Pin one side at a time, so that you have 3 sides all sewn together before you pin the final side to the box (just makes it easier to fit under the machine).

Once you are done all of this you should have a box all sewn together but with two un-attached sides at the base.


You still with me? Great!
From here, I flipped the whole thing inside out so that those floppy edges were on the inside of the case. This is just a personal preference thing, and really doesn't change the function of the case, but I thought it looked better.

After I flipped it inside out, I hand stitched the open sides of the base closed so that it would hold the camera a little tighter. I also pinched the shape 1 sides in and hand stitched a little closer so that it would fit tighter around the top. (I would recommend stitching the base closed, but the top was not really needed).


And you're done! A small little camera case that can fit into any mid-sized bag! I'm pretty pleased with it :)


I hope that helps some of you out there tackle the tricky DIY process of camera cases :)

5 comments:

  1. Cute! I need to make one of these for my vintage camera case. It only has foam on the bottom and I keep thinking my camera is going to get hurt in there.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! Let me know if you do make it! I feel a lot better throwing my camera into the foam for sure.

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  2. I simply love this idea!!! and what brilliant instructions too!!! just followed your site as I am always on the look out for sewing blogs! as I too dip in a out of it on my blog!!

    great stuff!!! xxxx rebecca

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Rebecca! Having this little case has helped me actually being my camera out with me a lot! And Thanks for following! :)

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