Make your very own viewfinder

Finding inspiration in lockdown can be tough. We’ve come up with a simple exercise to guide you through making a basic cardboard viewfinder. The viewfinder will allow you to focus on small section of what you can see. This could be some flowers, out of your window, or a close-up of a someone’s face.

You will need:

- Paper or cardboard (A3 or A4 will work)

- A pencil or pen

- Scissors

- Ruler

- Tape or glue (optional, but you’ll see why this can be handy at the end)

Step 1:

Fold your paper horizontally in half. Ensure that the fold is clean by pushing all the way along it.

Step 2:

From each edge of the paper, make a mark that’s exactly 2 inches. These will eventually become the edges of the viewfinder.

Start in the middle of the paper along the fold, measure 2 inches with your ruler, and mark with your pencil.

We’re now going to repeat this step for each side, starting on the left hand side. Then along the bottom and finally the right hand side, see pictures.

Step 3:

This step is all about defining the shape of the viewfinder by joining all the marks that we’ve made so far with a ruler. Simply join up the marks, until you end with a rectangle shape in the middle of your paper.

Step 4:

Fold the paper in half again, but this time the opposite way to when we started, so that you can see the lines on the outside of the paper.

Step 5:

Now we have our paper folded over, with lines to clearly follow – we need to carefully cut along the lines of our rectangle, creating a rectangluar cut out.

Step 6:

Open the paper back up, and there you have it! We can now use the tape to wrap around the parts of the paper we folded, this will strengthen the paper so you can hold it up and draw what you see.

Step 7:

Open the paper back up, and there you have it! We can now use the tape to wrap around the parts of the paper we folded, this will strengthen the paper so you can hold it up and draw what you see.

Final Step:

Draw what you see in your viewfinder!

You can keep reusing your viewfinder for different areas of your home and garden.

Send us photos of your creations!