How To Make a Simple Photobooth Backdrop

You will need:

Scrapbooking paper in the color and texture of your choice, a sewing machine, a dowel(mine was a cedar fence board that was cut with a table saw), tape, and a circle paper punch(mine was 2 1/2 inches).

Start punching your circles out. I used 3 different types of gold paper. 2 in which were glitter paper.. I recommend keeping your scrapbooking paper simple. The glitter kept getting stuck in the puncher, and jamming it. It hurt my hands, and I wished that I would have just used the simple shiny gold paper instead for the whole project. The backdrop would have been bigger, but my hands hurt from stamping the thick glitter paper. So there is my 2 cents on paper types. Keep it simple.

Once you are ready to start sewing them together - Make sure that you have quite a bit of thread extended out to begin with. It will be the top of the strand. You will need enough to wrap that thread around the dowel when the strand is completed.

Make sure to have your tension loose, and will you have to pull the paper while sewing to separate the circles. If you don't the thread will cinch together leaving no gap between the circles. 

I made my strands all different lengths. The shortest had 17 dots, and the longest had 24.

 I wrapped the thread around the dowel at least twice. I then taped the thread in place on the top, and on the back. It would be wise to staple gun the tape also. I did not, but made sure to be VERY gentle in transporting, and untangling.

The end result was about 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide. The project took me about 6 hours, but I had a hard time as you know. The time would have been cut in half if I had stuck with a simple flat surfaced paper. So do take that into consideration.

Now that it is completed, Get those photo props ready! I got mine HERE. Enjoy!

Thanksmas 2013

My family came up with a between holidays- holiday quite a few years ago. Everyone has their own family functions on major holidays, so we  created a tradition for the extended family to all get together once a year on Thanksmas. Our Thanksgiving/Christmas. This year it was at my sisters house. She changed things up on us with an ugly sweater contest! Which I won 3rd place. I knew we had to have a photobooth with all of these ugly sweaters around. I sent my sister some photo props, and started sewing up glittered scrapbooking paper for the photo backdrop. I used a 2 1/2 inch circle punch to cut out the circles, and sewed them together to make 3-4 foot strands. I wrapped the thread around the small cedar wood rod I magically had laying around, and taped the thread on the top and back of the rod holding it in place (obviously not a permanent solution). Everything worked out the way I had planned, except some people are missing!
I went home and made a hilarious animated gif of my niece and I dancing the night away. Check that out HERE!

It was a good time as always!

The ugly sweater contest rule was if you don't wear one, then you have to bring a prize. My aunt thought that the prize should be ugly also. This horribly scary Christmas caroler doll was the perfect trophy(photo below on the left). The camper ornament to the right is the ornament I brought for our annual family ornament exchange. It was a hit! 

We are already making plans for next year! Can't wait.. 

♥

Winter Wonderland

Our (pre)winter wonderland lasted about a week. We had record breaking freezing temperatures, so it stuck around a while. Giving us plenty of time to play! We had so much snow for so long, we actually got a little tired of it. 

A bird hit our living room window one of those days (I am a bird expert now). They need a dark quiet place to recover. I closed up one of my large shipping boxes, and tore a large hole in the top. Placed a rag in there(because it was ridiculously cold out, and had been lying in the snow). Leave the box outside in a covered area. When they have recovered, they will fly away. We also had an interesting experience with hummingbirds! We had a thawing system going for the hummingbird feeders. They would freeze solid every couple of hours, and one night Wayne went out to bring it in, and found a hummingbird sleeping on the feeder. Apparently it thought it would die if it lost its only source of food, so it was worth it to sleep there all night. The majority of hummingbirds migrate, but if feeders are left out some will stay through winter. So you have to pay attention to them, or they will die. They are completely dependent on you. We are obviously now up for the job after learning that!

Next blog post: UGLY SWEATER PARTY!

Our First Snow

Today was our first snow in the new house! First house, first tree, now first snow! This was Kola's(our dog) first experience of snow also! I thought she would be a little scared to touch it. Nope! She sprinted through the yard with her mouth open trying to eat all of the flakes falling. She also digs her nose as far down into the snow as she can and pulls all of the snow up to eat. Nothing short of entertaining.
Wayne snowboarded down the yard, and I sat on it and sledded. Kola chased us and barked at the board for taking us for a ride.. She is very protective, and packed full of hilarious personality.
My new saying has been, "It's a Christmas miracle!" for just about anything. Our shower water pipe froze sometime yesterday so we had sponge baths out of a giant canning pot. The prepper in me said, "Thank you for this experience". The little lady in me said, "Holy, really? A shower out of a bucket. NOT a Christmas miracle"
Being our first winter in the new house.. We are happy to experience anything that we might need to know about living here. Now we know we have to keep the water flowing periodically when there is freezing temperatures. This is a learning process, and we ARE taking notes.

Let the Festivities Begin!

I have never seen a Christmas wonderland like this before! Hold onto your knitted socks! We found what has to be the best Christmas Tree Farm in Oregon. Northern Lights Tree Farm is 162 acres and 15 minutes from Eugene. The gift shop has a full cafe, and if you want to cut the tree yourself you get to hop on a hay ride out to the location. All I know is I adore this place, and we will be back!

 

We are very excited about our first Christmas in our new home if you couldn't tell.

♥