How To Make An Epic Photo Backdrop With Pink Foam Board

I've been holding out on you, piglets and pooh bears.

After a too-long hiatus in our hobby of throwing ridiculously elaborate parties, John and I've taken on planning not one but TWO parties over the next two months: a birthday party for me (WOOT), and a baby shower for a friend.

The shower is for the sister of one of my oldest and dearest friends, so she's basically family. When she became pregnant with her first child, she said if she could ever have a baby shower, she'd want John and I to plan it.

So of COURSE we're doing this party.

The mom-to-be has had a rough time the last several years, and now a high-risk pregnancy with multiple hospital visits already, so I've decided her shower is going to be an Event. (It's the one thing I can control, you know?) Besides, after our initial consult she told us to "surprise her," so I get to go hog wild. And it's Winnie-the-Pooh themed. Whee!

(Let's spare a moment of pity for John, who I've had running ragged on the build end, ha.)

Our biggest build for the party is the photo backdrop, so I want to show y'all how we did it, what we used, and give you some guidelines for making your own.

After many hours of research, rage-quitting, rage-re-starting, and banging my head against the virtual Pinterest Board wall, I threw enough ideas John's way for him to cobble together this mock-up in Photoshop:

Ideally you want your backdrop to be a focal point on its own while still leaving room for people to stand or sit in front of it. In our case the mom-to-be's chair will be in front while she opens presents, then the chair can be taken away afterward for group photos. (Check Pinterest if you need ideas; you'll find way too many.)

Most party backdrops are made with curtains on stands or fake greenery panels, but I'm here to sing the praises of pink foam board insulation, my crafty friends. Pink foam is feather-light, not-too-pricey, and easy to cut, sand, & paint. In our case it also helped that we had a whole bunch of scraps already in the garage.

We started with the smaller 3D elements. First we projected:

Traced:

...cut with a jigsaw, and sanded the edges to round them slightly:

Next I painted them with craft paint:

And finally I added the details and outline. The sanded edges gave me a good guide for this:

Ta-daaa!

(I made this sound fast, but really I worked on it over 3 nights.)

We repeated that for the balloon and second Pooh cut-out:

This is for the dessert table, I'll show you that display at the end.

We also cut and painted the cloud layers.

This backdrop is so large it won't fit through doorways (because of course it is), so we hinged it with tape to fold into one 4x8 panel:


I know this looks huge, but that's only because it is.

Testing out placement of Pooh and the clouds:


The clouds and Pooh will be held away from the backer with foam spacers, to give a more 3D effect.

Painting was next. The matte navy we chose looks velvety smooth from a distance, I love it:


You can still see the lines of the tape hinges, but we'll be partially hiding those behind clouds and Pooh bear.

Oh, and fun fact: we also used the thinner blue insulation board for some of the clouds - and left those unpainted, because the shade of baby blue was perfect as-is.



At this point we paused for a site visit, and brought back a photo of the room where most of the shower will be hosted. The room has teal curtains, which is why I chose the color scheme of navy, baby blue, and teal.

John worked a little more Photoshop magic to help me visualize it all in place:

That's his digital mock-up...

...and this is where we're at in real life:

The 3D layers are attached with Velcro, so we can take them off to fold up the background.

All that's missing is Pooh's balloon string (made of painted wire) and this balloon garland we'll be adding at 10 and 4 on the circle border:


Teal & Tiffany Balloon Garland

It's hard to tell with the lousy lighting in that photo, but the 3D elements cast shadows that look pretty nifty IRL. I'd love to make another version on a white background with color-changing LED strips behind the clouds, because I bet that would look AMAZING. Someone, please, steal this idea and send me pictures.


Of course I'll share final photos after the shower, but to tide you over 'til then here come more of our party projects:

This is another sheet of pink foam, painted the same color, that will be the display over the food table.

Once again I had John photograph the space at the host's house and photoshop a mockup for me, since my brain doesn't visualize well:

I love comparing the mock-up to reality, so let's skip ahead to where we are now:

Our flowers are different since we made enormous ones, but the general idea is there. I like how the pre-scored lines in the foam board look like a subtle shiplap pattern.

The one thing I wanted to make from the very beginning were these giant paper flowers:

I definitely have a love/hate relationship with them now; love how they look, haaaaaaate trying to space those petals evenly. Dang.

There are dozens of tutorials out there for giant paper flowers, so much as I love you, you can't make me write another one. I recommend watching a bunch and then making it up as you go along, because, in all honesty, these aren't as hard as they look. They're just mildly infuriating for perfectionists like me.

It was around this point that we realized maybe we didn't need 10-15 flowers. Heh.

The flower petals themselves are easy enough to cut by hand, but I do recommend a Cricut or other cutting machine if you want more complicated flower centers like these:

Despite the struggle making them I love these paper flowers. For less than 20 sheets of colored paper each, you get a HUGE impact:

I especially like how they look from the side.

You can probably tell we're scrambling to make room in our little house for these big pieces - and in fact we're delivering them to the party house this week, though the baby shower is still a few weeks away. It'll be nice to get our making space back, since we have another party to build for, too. Aw yeah. (More on that another time - though you eagle eyes may notice a not-so-hidden hint at the theme.)

I still have more fun baby shower things to show you, but for now let's stick to the pink foam builds and end with my Hundred Acre Wood sign:

Wood-graining pink foam is SO FUN, gang, highly recommend. All you need is a toothpick or something pointy.

I base-coated these in a medium brown craft paint, let it dry, then added a quick streaky blend of light tan and the same medium brown. I love this part, and apparently had so much fun I forgot to take a process pic, oops. Here's the end result, though:

The wording is black Dollar Tree vinyl cut on our Cricut, and each foam board is hot-glued to a real wooden stake from the garage.

The pot is also from Dollar Tree, and here's a clever way to add weight so your sign won't tip over:

After hot-gluing the stake in place we filled the pot with Dollar Tree rocks. Then John slid a circle of pink foam down the stake and hot-glued it in place:

Now we have a weighted sign post, and no worry of rocks falling out if it ever does tip over.

To finish it off I painted the foam black, covered it in Dollar Tree moss, and added silk flowers.

Since this was made with scraps from other projects, our only cost was the pot and stones. Not bad for a $3 DIY, right?

I know this was more of a work-in-progress post than a grand reveal, but I hope it gives you some inspiration for your own future parties! Stay tuned for finished beauty shots of everything installed later. I'll also be sharing the adorable Pooh favor boxes John designed from scratch, our oh-so-pretty party favors, and the custom floral crowns I've been making for all the guests. (If you follow my Stories you already got a peek at those. INSIDER PERKS.)

Now I need your help, bots: tell me, what's your favorite non-traditional baby shower game? And by "non-traditional" I mean I don't want to melt chocolate bars into diapers, please. So far I've decided on "name that tune" where you play 5 second snippets of songs that have the word "baby" in the title, and then a silly version of "Would You Rather" where guests have to guess what the mom-to-be's answers will be. I'd like at least one more game, though, so any suggestions?

*****

Oh, and siince this is a pink foam appreciation post, I have to show y'all my DIY Hobbit door wreaths again. Have to.

Dollar Tree DIY: Hobbit Door Wreaths

These are so fun to make, and a perfect use for leftover foam scraps! I love that I'm still seeing new photos on FoE of y'all making these with your friends and craft groups. This is definitely one of my most popular DIYs, so give it a look if you missed it before.

Or if you want more, you can check my Crafts Page to browse ALL my tutorials. Last I checked there were well over 150 DIYs there, from paper craft to jewelry-making to free templates to make your own Knights Who Say 'Ni' helmet. You know. For reasons. Important, shrubbery-gathering reasons.

Love y'all, happy Friday!