I got a Nikon D3300 on my birthday last week. Well, from my lovely wife who fully supports my new hobby in photography. Our birthdays are close, within a month. We celebrate our birthdays in a unique way. She buy her own birthday present and I buy my own. She pays for my gift and I pay hers.This way we both get what we really want or love. Well, of course with certain budget. We spend no more than $200. When I need nothing, I will just buy a lollipop as my birthday gift :D This method was introduced by me around 5 or 6 years ago because I am terrible in choosing birthday gifts.

This year she was asking me to get an entry level DSLR as my birthday gift. What? I love that much, but that be $400, twice the budget limit. Then we got to break the piggy bank, our extra saving :D

Birthday gift from my wife had been received. One more thing that I needed to do was sending a birthday gift to myself. Yes, from me for me. Was that ridiculous?

http://www.thelawofattraction.org/

So I love myself and made myself a birthday gift that cost $0 because we had spent much on the camera. One week using the camera I found that a camera lens cap holder is one of "must have" accessories for photographers. I have a phone in my front left pocket, keys in front right, wallet in my rear right and miscellaneous stuffs in my rear left (cutter, pens, multi-tools, etc) so sometimes I feel like my pockets are full :D

Commercial lens cap holder around $5 is nifty, yes. But my DIY lens holder has an extra function on it. Just go on reading ;)

Step 1: Pick Up One

Get a collection of plastic container caps and pick one that best fit your camera lens cap. My Nikon D3300 has a 52 mm lens cap and it fits the Usana Supplement container cap. It also fit inside the Play-Doh cap, but I prefer the supplement cap because I want to use the small space inside the cap.

Step 2: Shave the Thread

This step is optional but I shaved the outermost thread so that the threads on lens cap can bite at any position -- flat on the plastic container cap.

Step 3: Cut the Strap Holes

Now we are going to cut two vertical narrow holes on the cap to let the strap goes through.

Put the strap on the cap.
Use a marker to mark four points at the edges of the strap and near the edge of the cap.
Draw two vertical lines based on the four points.
Use a cutter to cut two vertical narrow holes on the lines. In my case I cut 2 mm wide so that my lens cap holder will have a steady position (does not move easily).

Note : Cut slowly, carefully, nicely. Make your zero dollar gift into ten dollars or more. Paint coating is optional. I picked well-painted glossy plastic cap and I didn't need to repaint.

Step 4: Put on the Strap

Remove the strap stoppers at one end.
Let the strap go into one hole from the top side of the plastic container cap. You may find that the thicker part on the strap is hard to go go through the narrow hole, but the plastic cap can be pressed so that you have wider hole, or you can shaved the hole a little wider.
Now let it go through the other hole, back to the top of the plastic cap. Put back all the strap stoppers on their positions.

Step 5: Bonus

This is a bonus which you will not find on nifty commercial lens cap holders. Put an old SD card under your strap as backup. The strap will keep it secure down there and it won't fall out without loosing the strap.

Step 6: Instruction

Print out an instruction card at the size of your plastic cap and just put it there or you can use a little double sided tape to stick. Pick up a gift box of the size. Here I use my handmade one piece - no glue gift box.

I put it in my mail box and came back the next morning. "WOW! My birthday gift from me!" ^^