Even though there are a lot of great instructables about building laptop stands, they didn't fit quite well with the kind of stand that I wanted. I wanted it to be really lightweight, easy to build and repair, and wanted to see if it was possible to build one for almost no money at all.. so after some thought and a trip to a dollar store here it is the $2 laptop stand..

Step 1: Materials

- You'll need two twisted gauge display easel from a dollar store ($1 each)
- Rubber bands ($0 for me as I had them lying around from some toy packaging)
- Small piece of foam or any other non slippery material, In my case I had two strips of this foam lying around also from some electronic toy packaging. You can buy 4 sheets of thin foam for doing crafts from a dollar store if you don't have anything lying around that would work (and the left overs can be really useful for a lot of other projects).

Step 2: Unfold the Easel Stands

Unfold the two stands as in the pictures.. actually you could call this thing done at this stage and it would have the advantage of allowing you to place the stands apart if you have a big laptop for better stability. The next steps are just making the thing a little nicer so the laptop can be put at any height over the base without slipping.

Step 3: Putting It All Together

Put the two unfolded stands next to each other, then use the elastic bands to attach the anti slip foam to the top and bottom of the stand, not only this will make it hold the laptop better in place it also adds a little more robustness to the structure.

At this point you'll notice that it is possible to fold the stand by the middle as the foam is not really strong, which actually is really practical to allow carry it around by thrown it in the bag with the mouse and power supply and you'll barely notice it takes any space. To add a little bit more rigidity if you want, and make the stand not slip over a smooth surface I added another big rubber band (the green one in the pictures) tying the bottom of the back of the structure.

And that's pretty much it.. a nice ultra-cheap and quick to do laptop stand. It is quite solid, gives a comfortable slope for writing and enough space under the laptop to help it cool down a little bit better, and if it breaks or gets lost it cost next to nothing to build a new one.