Friday, July 6, 2012

DIY Photo Booth

Photo booths are so much fun! I recently made my own DIY photo booth for our Strawberry Festival I had at my house. It was pretty easy to do and everyone loved it. You can have a photo booth at your next party without spending a fortune.


This is how I set up our photo booth. First, I bought a shower curtain (from TJ Max for $14). I hung it up on a tension rod in our patio cover. Then I placed our ottoman in front of it for people to sit on. (I ended up covering the ottoman with a purple blanket which you'll see in the photos below) Of course this is just what worked for my house. You can also hang a large piece of fabric, streamers, a unique handwritten art peice, or just have a wall as the backdrop. The nice thing about having so many backdrop options is that when I do this again in the future, it will look totally different - tailored to the party I'm throwing.

For the props, I found some free printables online at this awesome blog - Oh Happy Day. She has lots of different printables on there - hats, masks, mustaches, among many other items. You just need to print and cut them out, then glue them on a posterboard for extra stability. After that, you can hot glue them onto a thin stick (easily found at craft stores). I didn't want to spend too much money, so I found some other inexpensive props such as stwo small chalk boards, a boa, and a green foam guitar that I borrowed from my friend. The good thing about props is that you probably already have some around your house - just look around.

I didn't hire a photographer to take the pictures, but it would've been great to have a volunteer to take them. I think if it was a much larger party, I would've considered paying someone $50 or so to take photos for a few hours. For this party, I just left out my little digital camera and since the party was in small quarters, it was easy to find someone to take a picture. I took a bunch of the pictures to help encourage people to participate. Here are some shots below that I really like. I also used this free photo editor to change some things up a bit.

Me and my hubby




Me and two of my sis-in-laws
Overall, this turned out to be a hit at the party; it just took a little nudging to get people to try it. We will definitely do this again in the future!