Hello!  As you may know, I do a weekly live video every Wednesday evening at 7:30pm (GMT) which streams live to Facebook and YouTube simultaneously.  The video is usually crafting, often a new kit, and I’ll do unboxing videos of new Stampin’ Up! goodies too.  It’s really fun to chat with you, and my lovely viewers often give invaluable suggestions and feedback during the design process.

This week is a little different.  I am travelling with work and so I often try and record a video in advance.  This time I decided to show you behind the scenes, and film my video set-up. This blog post goes alongside the video, so maybe watch that first!

Before the craft room renovation, I would do my lives from the table in the centre of my room (mostly because the background was colourful shelves with my cardstock and ink pads!).  I would move my laptop from my desk in the corner over to the table, making sure the cables were plugged in.  I had 2 lights on stands that I would position on either side, and I had an arm that screwed to the side of the table and would hold my camera.

All in all, set-up was difficult.  Assuming that the table was clear and tidy to start with (which lets be honest, it almost never was!), it took me a while to get everything into place, plugged in, and working properly.  Then after my live I had to put it all away again.  Sometimes I could leave it out for the next week, but if I had a class at the weekend, or a team gathering, everything had to be moved out of the way.  It was a hassle.

When I was planning my new craft room, I knew I needed something better.  I had a vision of a desk with a camera and lights that could be pulled out for use, then swung away afterwards, all neat and tidy.  I knew I wanted two computer monitors and I would have both my personal and work laptop (for my “proper” job!) on the desk, and I wanted to be able to switch screens as needed.

My amazing husband found me the KVM (Wavlink KVM, find it here This clever piece of kit lets me switch the monitors between my work laptop during the day, and my personal laptop when I’ve finished work.  It also allows me to have the TV on the other side of my craft room connected via an HDMI cable, so I can share videos and online instructions on the TV during classes or team gatherings.

The hub on top of the KVM is a USB hub, which basically gives me extra USB ports on my laptop.  I have used coloured washi tape to identify which cables connect to each item, lights, camera etc.

The lights and the camera are attached to the wall behind the screens using products from Elgato.  I have 3 wall mounts that each connect to their own flex arm.  I looked long and hard to find a set-up that would fit the space I had, and this company was the only one I could find that fit my needs.  They’re not cheap (and sadly I couldn’t get an affiliate link!) but they are flexible and very good quality, and I’m happy with my choice.

My camera is a Logitech Webcam that I’ve had for 5+ years, so no link there I’m afraid.  The lights at the side are also Elgato, as I wanted something small but powerful that I could have powered by a USB cable rather than needing to charge.

Finally my geeky hubby Tom got me the Elgato Mini Stream Deck for my birthday.  This is a very customisable gadget that lets me switch between camera views, turns my lights on and off (as well as adjusting brightness etc).  There’s loads more you can add to it, so I’ll play around and no doubt add some more features to it in due course.

I cannot describe just how happy I am with my set-up.  I’m the first to agree that it is far fancier than needed, and you can absolutely get by with much less than this.  But I wanted something that would suit my specific needs and would store away afterwards, and that’s what I’ve got.