My wife has been lampworking glass beads and is starting to sell her wares.  In order to take pictures of her handiwork, I needed a good way to illuminate the small glass artwork.  There are many plans for simple lightboxes based on cardboard boxes on the web, but I just can’t bring myself to build any tool that I’m going to use for more than a few minutes out of cardboard.  So I built one out of 1/2″ PVC pipe and some stretchy white nearly swimsuit material.  The whole thing breaks down and stows into a canvas bag that I sewed for the purpose.  The box is sized to accept 22″ wide posterboard without cutting to act as a seamless background.  I light the box with a pair of 100 watt daylight compact fluorescent bulbs in desk lamps.   The total cost of the light box is about $12.