I have been thinking a lot about flat lay photography and building my own flat lay kit since I attended the Bloggers Bash a while ago.  Since that day I have been going through my craft stash and really thinking about things I can use to create flat lay images.  I also visited my local Hobbycraft store and bought a few items after deciding how I would like my flat lay images to look.

Before I went searching and shopping I decided to sit down and think about my blog, what it is about and it’s identity.  I have a theme that runs through my blog of colour, being bright and fun.  I try to theme the days using the colours of the rainbow…

• Monday – Red
• Tuesday – Orange
• Wednesday – Yellow
• Thursday – Green
• Friday – Blue
• Saturday – Indigo/Purple
• Sunday – Violet

and this theme runs through the graphics I create for each blog post.  I knew that I wanted to keep that theme with any flat lay images I would be introducing to the blog and other social media platforms.

Once I had that in mind I then started to think about the kinds of blog posts that I publish, I have several different categories that I post in, from craft things, blog items, personal, fashion, reviews, beauty and food.  While a lot of these posts are not tied to specific days, they are re-occurring posts.  I sat and made a list of items that could be used as photography props for these categories – make-up brushes, stationery, hair clips, anything that I could think of went on the list.

I then narrowed down what I wanted to add to my kit that would be permanent items and separated out those items that were of everyday nature and that I could grab at any point.

I decided that I wanted colourful background papers and had a vast stash from scrapbook and card making projects that I sifted through one afternoon.  I sat and made 7 different piles according to which colours I had assigned to each day.

I had some Project Life cards and some Smash Book pads (which I can only seem to find now on Amazon) and La-De-Da papers that I also separated out and added to the piles.  I really like that these cards and papers have patterns and quotes on them and think they could come in really useful!

I bought some wooden letters from Hobbycraft and spent an evening watching 13 Reasons Why on Netflix and painting them with acrylic paint in their assigned colours.

I also bought a background paper from Amazon which was double-sided,

I ended up with two because the first one came really badly battered, the second one was not much better.  They were really badly packaged, wrapped around a foam strip and then placed in a plastic bag, there was no protection at all.  Lesson learned – cheap is not always good.  I have had them placed under heavy books and some of the creases have become less noticeable.

I added to my kit some foliage and fake grass, all from Hobbycraft, that I can use to add interest to the background of my images.

I have gathered other items to add to my kit from my craft stash and other places.

I have also added a ring light for my phone and a gooseneck stand to help with actually capturing the image.  I got both from Amazon with a gift certificate that I had been given.

Here’s the full kit so far!  I have it all stored in a plastic box that I had laying around, and each day has been separated out into its own zipped folder ready for me to grab when needed.  I have some things lose that can be used for any day of the week!

Do you have a flat lay kit?  What items do you use the most?  I’d love to hear about your kit’s in the comments!