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I loved Stacey W's One Year Old in a Flash Birthday from the first moment I saw it.  The colors, the festive vibe, the little details... and then I saw the homemade photo booth props and I was in pure heaven.

As you probably know by reading my blog, I love photo booths!

So when I asked Stacey if she would share with our community how she made them, she kindly wrote up this tutorial and gave me permission to repost.

What I think is genius is how Stacey had a professional photographer come to her party to take photos of her guests (using the homemade props) and gave the photos out as favors.

As she said:

My guest list ranged from age 7 months to 68 years... I was looking for a way to engage them all and make it a celebration worth remembering.  Personal photo sessions with a professional photographer not only fit the bill and the theme, but also provided a thoughtful way for me to give guests a really meaningful favor.

For her props, Stacey came up with whimsical mustaches & mouths on sticks, umbrellas to match the color scheme, empty picture frames, and my personal favorite... chalkboard thought bubbles.

So here's how she did it...

MUSTACHE & MOUTH STICKS

I had to reign myself in on this one... there are so many directions you could go with this!

I went with mustaches and mouths, but you could also do eye glasses, eyebrows, maybe even hair styles or hats.

I mentioned in my last post that my Dad does graphic design, well he also happens to be accommodating when it comes to my hair-brained ideas.   He created the mustaches and mouths for me, but you could also use clip art that you find and/or buy on the web, or even just draw  the graphics you want (how hard could it be to draw a mustache?!).

I printed mine on card stock, cut them out, and hotglued them to little wooden dowels that came in packs of 20 at Michaels.  I made enough to use for the photo sessions and extras as the favors for the kids at the party.

For the favors, I punched two holes in the 3" round tags Beyond Designs designed for me and threaded the dowels through.

UMBRELLAS

I bought a pack of 6 child size umbrellas from Oriental Trading & just painted a couple of them with fabric paint... easy peasy and they added a nice pop of color to the white background photography.

EMPTY PICTURE FRAMES

Well that about explains it... I picked up two framed pictures at Goodwill, removed the glass and all the insides and spray painted them in the colors of the party.

CHALKBOARD THOUGHT BUBBLES

We had so much fun with these & they were a relatively quick project to make!  I started with adhesive backed chalkboard vinyl that I ordered from Uppercase Living (that's a link to Gina's UL site... she's a consultant & is really great to work with!) and some mat board.

My Doug drew the thought bubble shapes on the mat board, then we applied the vinyl to the other side & cut them out with a sharp pair of scissors.

Because I used white mat board (I had it on hand from a picture framing project I did forever ago) the white cut edges didn't look great, so I colored the edges with a black sharpie to make them blend in and give it a finished look.

These needed thicker dowels than the mustaches to support their weight, but a few lines of hotglue was still enough to keep them solid... just be sure that you glue several inches of the dowel onto the back of the board so that it doesn't get top heavy and bend.

Now all you need is a fabulous photographer & a little creativity!  This was so much fun, I think mustaches on sticks and chalkboard thought bubbles will make an appearance in all our family portraits!

Stacey, thank you so much for this wonderful tutorial!

If you want to learn more about Stacey and read all about her other creative projects check out her great blog, Elle Belle Creative.  And if you happen to make any photo booth props yourself, please send in photos.  I'd love to post them.

(Do you have a DIY project from one of your parties that you’d like to share?  Please email me at jillian@catchmyparty.com.  I’d love to show it off!)