one blog is enough

My website AZHarmonyBoards.com has the capability to have a blog. I’d been going back and forth with starting it up or continuing to pretend the option does not exist. I’m working hard to be consistent here, committing to posting every M-W-F. There are things I’d like to share about Harmony Boards but maintaining two pages is more than I care to take on. So how about I share Harmony Board stuff here?

What I’d like to share today is the process of posting a time-lapse video on social media. For years I’ve seen cool time-lapse videos of all sorts of activities. Cooking is the one that naturally draws my attention and interest. I am completely mesmerized watching the motions and process sped up. I wanted to do the same, do a time-lapse video of me making a Harmony Board. The question was, “How do I set up the camera at the right height and angle over my workspace?”

I suppose I could have searched for a YouTube video, but that didn’t cross my mind until AFTER I figured it out for myself.

Here is how I went about creating mine: I stood on a step stool over the board on my kitchen counter. I measured how high the phone/camera would have to be to take it all in. Then I walked around my house trying to find items that I could use to prop up and hold the phone at that height. It was frustrating, I tried out several household items, but none of them were getting the job done. Then I remembered that I had two tall stands that Tram and I had each purchased several years ago at Pottery Barn. They were store display props. I’ve seen Tram use hers as a part of a drink station at her parties. Mine was holding items in my Miscellany Shed. I’ve also used them for entertaining. I went out to the shed with a measuring tape to see if they were tall enough, they were not, so I grabbed several wine boxes while I was out there and brought them all inside.

Next, I needed cross bars to support and hold the phone, centered over the activity. I purchased a circular saw last summer to cut the Harmony Boards. As a result, I have several wood scraps that are used as fillers in my car to keep the boards in place during delivery.

I grabbed the two longest wood pieces and balanced them on top of and between the Pottery Barn stands. I did a few test runs and it worked! I posted my first time-lapse last week. I don’t love my kitchen counters, they are too dark, busy, and distracting. So before I filmed another video, I went to the scrapbook section of Hobby Lobby and bought sheets of paper that look like white marble and more sheets that look like white shiplap. In the photo above you can see my phone case balancing on the wood rails to show you the placement (since the actual phone was in my hand being used to take the photo). It’s a tricky maneuver, balancing the phone so that the rails don’t block the camera lens opening. I kept my fingers crossed that I wouldn’t bump something and cause the phone to fall into the food while filming.

I lined up the marble-like papers on the counter. Set the empty Harmony Board on top, did a test video, and loved the look. Next, I made a “sample” Harmony Board off to the side.

Once it was done, I set the sample board on a stand next to the kitchen counter, stood on the stool to turn the camera on the time-lapse feature, moved the stool out of the way, and went to work.

Here is the finished board on the counter and the empty sample board that I was pulling from off to the side. Below you will find the time-lapse video I posted Tuesday with the hashtag #timelapsetuesday. *There is music that accompanies the video, so turn up the volume if you’d like.

The other thing I learned after doing the first video, besides that I don’t like the way my counters look, was that at the end of making the board, I needed to let the camera continue to run for more than a minute so that the finished board could be seen for longer than a millisecond. If you watch it again, when I put those last flowers on in the right upper corner, the rest of the video is a 3 second shot of the finished board. It may only last 3 seconds but it took 90 seconds to film. Cool!

If you enjoyed this and would like to see more on #timelapsetuesday and more Harmony Boards in general, please go to the Harmony Boards page on Instagram and give it a follow. Here is a quick link for you: harmony_boards.