DIY Photo Booth For Your NYE Party

I love photo booths. I loved photo booths back in 2011 when I made one for a New Year’s Eve party, I loved them in August when I wrote this décor crush post, I loved them the day I was born, and I love them right now. You can’t tell me you don’t get slightly psyched when you hear that a party you’re going to will have a photo booth. There’s just something about the idea of guaranteed party photos that makes us all a little giddy.

Well, holiday party season is upon us and there’s a good chance that you may be planning your own. If you don’t already have “make photo booth backdrop” on your party prep list, please add it. Better yet, just make one as you’re reading this post, and then you don’t even have to add it to the list! These things are so much fun to make because they allow you to have total creative freedom and you never really know exactly how they’ll turn out until you’re done. You can make yours as simple or intricate as you like, and it absolutely does not have to cost a fortune. Here’s how I made mine!

What you need:

Yarn, twine, string, fabric, or lace (or all of the above)
Fake flowers (from a craft store)
Leafy garland (from a craft store)
Scissors
Thumbtacks or a hammer & nails
A hot glue gun

What you do:

Before you begin, decide where you’d like the photo booth to be. It’s best to have it in the room where most of the action will be happening, but not smack in the middle of the action. Choose a blank wall that allows you to step at least 5 feet away from it (to take the photos!). It’s best to use a portion of the wall that’s also at least 5 feet away from an intersecting wall. Trust me, everyone is going to want to get into this photo booth at once. It’s not entirely necessary to build the photo booth exactly where it’ll be hung at the party – you can totally make it portable – but it’s a lot less of a hassle to do it this way.

1. First take a sturdy piece of twine that’s at least 6 feet long, and secure it horizontally on the wall using thumbtacks or nails, about 7 feet off the ground. This will be the top of your photo booth. If you’re expecting tall guests, you may want to make this a bit higher up. Also, the wider you make it, the better. I used a piece of twine that was about 5 feet long, and I found that my photo booth didn’t work well for getting shots of large groups of people.

2. Cut some string (or yarn or lace or twine or fabric – whatever!) into pieces of varied lengths and tie one end of each piece to the twine that is already hanging horizontally. This creates a general shape for your photo booth. I cut most of my pieces of string to be within one foot of reaching the floor, but made sure to vary the lengths. I love the hand-done feel this helps to create.

3. If you’re using string that’s pretty thin, it makes a cool effect to tie a bunch of strips together (about 10-15) and then drape it however you like! You can either secure it straight to the wall using nails or thumbtacks, or tie it to another piece of string that’s already hanging up.

4. Make a bunch more of these and drape, drape, drape.

I also gave one of these a braid-like effect before draping it.

5. To bring some flowers into the mix, I hot glued a few onto a piece of twine and then hung it vertically.

6. I also hot glued some individual flowers to individual tiny pieces of twine, and then tied them onto the photo booth wherever they seemed like they belonged.

7. As a final step, use your leafy garland to create a frame shape around the perimeter of your photo booth. I draped mine unevenly to keep up with the hand-done vibe.

That’s all it takes! Now just collect some fun props and set up your camera on a tripod and you’re ready to party!

Photos by Brigette and K. Boggs.

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