{A few weeks ago we hosted a party for Ebby's 13th birthday. With
my mom as my able bodied co-hostess, we threw one pretty rockin' bash.
This week I thought I'd post about a few of the party details. Today it's the Photo Booth, you can read about the Sweets Table here.}
Another party trend I've been noticing around blogland (or is it Blogland?), is the use of makeshift photo booths. My favorite one was at Eunice & Daniel's wedding featured this past Spring in Martha Stewart Weddings magazine. So many inspiring ideas!
While we weren't having a wedding, I still wanted to do a photo booth. My plan was to drape a backdrop (fabric, a sheet, etc.) over the zip line in our backyard, set up a camera on a tripod and have at it. Once again, the rain forced a change of plans. Our new location: my office/mudroom. I couldn't find the fabric I was going to use, so I ended up hanging a crocheted white table cloth over our pantry doors. It wasn't quite as long as I'd have liked, but it was fine. The girls certainly didn't mind. I was only disappointed because I felt the photos would've turned out better outside, in the natural light of our green backyard. Oh well...next time!
A few days before the party I invited my mom over to do some prep work for the photo booth. She made mustaches on a stick and I made a chalkboard talk bubble.
For the mustaches, I first downloaded a template with several great mustache shapes. The one I used was created by photographer & designer Lisa Welge, found on her blog. Instead of using felt, we opted for brown fun foam. My mom traced the shapes with a marker and cut them out. {One note: the side of the fun foam she traced onto had some marker still on it so I used that as the back side, however, on a few of the mustaches marker sort of rubbed off onto the girls' upper lips. A pen probably would've worked a bit better.} I had previously used spray paint to paint some wooden dowels in the party colors so my mom just added stripes to the dowels with acrylic craft paint. When everything was dry I used Fast Dry Tacky glue to attach the foam mustaches to the sticks. I love how they turned out, so fun for photos and a take home party favor!
The chalkboard talk bubble is another idea I've seen on several blogs including Elsie of Red Velvet Art. I whipped ours up in no time with materials I had on hand. Here's what I did:
- Went to the garage.
- Found a leftover piece of thin wood, it was like pegboard without the holes...
- Looked for the jigsaw. Couldn't find it.
- Spotted the sabre saw, decided to use it
- Grabbed a piece of chalk and quickly drew the talk bubble shape on the wood
- Propped the wood on my pair of $1 metal yard sale saw horses and cut around the outline like a crazy woman.
- Used my Mouse sander to smooth out the rough edges.
- Painted with 2 coats of chalkboard paint using a cheap foam brush. Might've even been 3 coats.
- Let the paint cure for a day then primed it for use by rubbing the whole thing with chalk and then erasing it.
- Use & enjoy
Of course we needed a few more props. On party day I gave Ebby a plastic tub and sent her to pick out items from our collection of dress up clothes. Yep, one more reason I still have dress up clothes in our basement, even after the remodel. She got things like necklaces, hats, sunglasses, wands, crowns, and of course a hot pink fluffy boa. I'm not exactly sure where that came from...
When it was time to take the photos at the party the scene was controlled chaos to say the least. The girls had a great time dressing up, writing messages and setting up scenes. I had a great time watching their creativity and craziness in action!
Speaking of creativity and craziness, take a look at a few of the group shots.
Take 1: It's a mustache!
Take 2: It's a uni-brow!
Ah, goofiness on camera. The whole reason we had a photo booth ;-) !
The next & final party post: The Mall Scavenger Hunt
