{how to build your own photo booth}

Before I forget, and the whole birthday whirlwind is long past, here's a little tutorial we put together on building your own photo booth in the back garden. I looked and looked and couldn't find any instructions online, so we made it up as we went along. 

It cost us $4.86 -- most of the materials are normal household things that could be repurposed (and then returned to their old uses afterwards). You need absolutely no sewing or woodworking skills to do this, just the ability to hammer a nail and tie a knot. 

Here's what you'll need:

• one twin-size duvet cover or flat sheet (ours is the IKEA Vitaminer Vimpel)
• at least four clothes pegs
• string and scissors
• hammer and nails
• two long thin pieces of wood, at least 7ft tall (ours are from Lowes, 8ft, $2.43 each)
• a fence 

First, make sure you know the dimensions of your duvet cover or sheet. Either check the info, or measure both the width and height. Ours was 65" by 85".

We laid each of the wooden planks on the ground, measured 85" along, and marked that spot.



On both planks, we hammered a small nail into the wood at the 85" mark, in the centre. This nail goes on the backside of the photo booth, and not visible (except to your neighbours and their golden retriever!)



We placed one of our wooden planks where we wanted it along the fence, (remembering to have the nail we'd just hammered in facing away from us) and measured along 65", and marked where the second plank needed to be. We checked we liked the positioning...

...and then nailed both planks to the fence. Mmm... gives a new meaning to biting your nails!

This is what it looked like with both planks in place. (And with Justin checking his wingspan)

We knotted one end of the roll of string around one of the 85" high nails on the back of a plank...

...and wrapped the string around the outside of the plank (we figured this would allow our duvet cover to cover the planks, somewhat, when hung). We pulled the string taut, and knotted it around the second nail.

Then, we hung the duvet cover -- bending the fabric over the top of the string, and pegging it in place. We only had four pegs, and luckily that turned out to be enough!

At this point, we discovered that we'd built a giant sail. Whenever a gust of wind hit it, the whole thing flapped and blew. Perfect, if we'd been wanting to turn our fence into a raft. (Michael, Walt, Jin and Sawyer would have been proud). Not so perfect if we wanted decent photos.

The solution: one more piece of string, stretched across the front between the planks, about 2/3 of the way up. Our white string was barely noticeable in front of a white part of the duvet cover, and kept things neatly in place.

Justin grabbed Bella, and we had a few little test shots the night before the party to test out the lighting. I'd recommend thinking about where the sun will be at the time of your party, and planning where to put your photo booth accordingly. I chose to set ours up so that people wouldn't have to look directly into the setting sun when having their photos taken, which resulted in plenty of smiles, rather than pained squints. For the actual party, I upped the exposure compensation on the camera slightly to account for the extra shadows and make our whites sparkly.

With a little table nearby for the props we made (another member of our IKEA family, covered with a tablecloth), and a sign encouraging people to help themselves, it was all ready to go. Ten minutes work for under $5, and we were very happy with the results!

P.S. A round of applause for Justin, the handyman and physical labour for this project, who was happy to pose in his pajamas after a long day of work! The creative director behind the camera was not quite so brave...

{diy: soft speech bubbles}

Prepare yourselves -- it's going to be a pretty photo-heavy week here at RedRed. Two new cameras (mine and Tilly's), plus a camera-themed birthday party coming up on Saturday. Phew. We'll need our shutters cleaned at the end of this week.

Today, I was making some of the props for the party. I love the idea of little speech bubbles for guests to hold, and set about making some myself out of poster board.

Have you ever tried cutting poster board? It's tough! You hack through one layer, find the tricky board in the middle, and by the time you're through to the other side, you've run out of blade. I tried scissors, a box cutter, an extra sharp fancy paper knife. What worked best, in the end, was Justin's pocket knife and it's seven inch serrated blade. I was very scared for my cutting mat (and my fingers, too), but luckily both survived unharmed.

The edges, though, looked a little rough. Okay, very rough. Like I'd cut them blindfolded. At night. One-handed. With a blunt chainsaw.

Enter half-a-yard o' cream fleece. I simply lay the poster board bubble on top of the fleece, and drew around it, leaving about an inch of extra fleece all the way around.

Ah, the scent of a hot glue gun hard at work. I put a thin layer of glue all around the edge, and pressed the fleece up (being careful not to put my fingers directly over the hot glue -- it burns even through the fleece).

Then, with a quick trim of the excess fleece from the back, the boards were covered. The fleece did a lovely job of softening the hacked-up edges of the poster board.



A few snips in a bit of felt, and we had our messages. Obviously, 'Cheese!' was needed...



... and when I looked through my stash of rejected letters I'd cut for our 'Stars at Night' hanging, the letters spelled out 'Hooray'! Perfect.

To attach the letters, I simply turned them all upside down and gave them a hearty spray with Krylon adhesive. There's a another nice smell for you. Not.

So, there you go. How to make speech bubbles for your photo booth that don't look like something Edward Scissorhands could have made. I can't wait to put them to use...