Fun Photo Prop!

While reading one of my favorite blogs, Offbeat Bride, I saw this awesome craft that I HAD to make as a prop for my upcoming engagement pictures. I will show you a picture of the outcome of the project then explain how it all went down:

It turned out absolutely perfect and just as I had hoped, but it definitely took a little creativity, as I did not have access to all the neat things that Whitney from Offbeat Bride had when making hers.

Here’s What You Need:
- Foam Poster Board (Mine was 1/2″ thick)
- A Pencil
- Utility Knives (I used a box cutter & a small Xacto knife)
- A *new* black Sharpie
- A decent amount of time

Step One: The Design

While others have used methods involving projectors and transparencies, I simply didn’t have the access to one, so I made up my own plan. I chose my word and opened up a new Microsoft Word document. When inserting “Word Art” you have the option of changing the font. I found a cute cursive font, made each letter take up an entire page, and I printed them out.

Step Two: The Transfer

How to go about moving the letters from the paper to the board was a decision that took a little brainstorming. At first, I planned on cutting out each letter and tracing it on to the board, but my terrible scissor skills made me resist this thought.

I decided to place the paper on top of the board in the exact place I wanted the letter, and pressing down hard on the pencil, I followed the lines so that an imprint of the letter would appear on the board after removing the Word document. After this is done, lightly trace the letter with your pencil. Try your hardest to resist erasing- it leaves terrible smudges!

These are the printed out letters. Be sure when tracing that you do not trace the part where the letter should connect with the following letter (the far right vertical line of these two letters)

Step Three: Outlining The Letters

In order to create the black part of the whole project, you need to add some thin lines around the entire word (See top photo about for the the “black part” is).

I decided to not have a real “method” for this and just took my time hand doing it. I took my pencil and lightly drew about a 1/2″ border around the entire thing, including the inside of the “o” and “e”. This part requires a little patience, but it’s totally worth it in the end because this is the part that make the prop so awesome!

Sorry this picture is terrible, but avoiding the glare on white foam board was nearly impossible. This just shows the light border I added around each letter.

Step Four: Cutting It Out

Because I was using out nice, wood dining room table, I decided to use a cutting board designed for crafts before I began the process. I encourage you to do the same in order to protect whatever surface you are cutting on.

Cutting out the project is a tedious task. Using the box cutter for the longer, straight edges and the Xacto blade for the rest, I began to cut out my design. Sound obvious, but be sure to cut OUTSIDE of the border- I almost made a couple mistakes that would have ruined the entire thing.

The foam board tends to bunch up on the inside very often, so you are going to need to repeat your cuts on each line several times. Make sure you’re cutting all the way through the bottom layer.

At this point, I was almost done; just had to do finish a few of the harder spots to cut out. It’s starting to come together! YAY!

Step Five: Coloring Your Border

On the recommendation from Offbeat Bride, I got out my nice paint and a few brushes and planned on painting the boarder. I seriously do not recommend this, even for someone like me who can actually paint in the line.

I found it to look really streaky and it would have taken forever. But to each is own; do what YOU think looks best.

If you go the marker route, as I did, make sure that you’re using a new one. Everyone knows how terrible a dull black Sharpie looks. Maybe even keep an extra one on hand if your word is longer than mine. Now all that’s left is to color in the lines and guess what? You’ve just created an adorable photo prop!

Step Six: Go Out And Play!!

Photos courtesy of our incredible friends and photographers, Cason and Lauren Slaughter, over at C. West Productions. Sorry that I don’t have any color examples; clearly have a love for black and white

Be sure to check out Offbeat Bride’s other methods of creating this prop here before deciding which method works best for your project!

What’s the next project on YOUR list?

Project Live Love

A little over a month ago, I posted about the tornadoes that heavily affected several Metro Atlanta communities. What I mentioned in that post was things that are constantly being created are ways to help. While I wasn’t able to do very much during the tornado situation, I had an opportunity to be a part of something incredible on Saturday: Project Live Love!

Saturday morning, after a large cup of coffee, two of our close friends, my fiance, and I hopped in the car and headed downtown for the event. We pulled in the parking lot a little early, but there were plenty of other people there early and as excited as we were! We got in line to hand in our registration forms and find out which project we would get to be apart of. There were several projects occurring that day, and rather than type them out, I’ll just show you:

We ended up in Group 4 and we were pumped up! We changed into our Live Love t-shirts, had a brief meeting with everyone who was part of the project, then broke up into our individual groups. The 12 of us drove a few minutes down the road to the Atlanta Community Food Bank where we would be sorting, inspecting, and packing food in order to help families in need have food on the table. And what an honor it was to do this!

We watched a short video and learned a lot of things about the food bank. ACFB provides food to over 700 nonprofit agencies in close to 40 Metro Atlanta and North Georgia counties every month. Each year, the ACFB distributes over 20 million… yes, million… pounds of food to help the needy. It is was incredible to see how it all works.

We went into the GIANT warehouse and unpacked pallets and pallets of food, making sure to check that the donated food was unspoiled and not out of date. We worked for a few hours doing this and did not even put a dent in the amount of food that this place had to sort through. ACFB heavily relies on volunteers and I would definitely recommend this organization for anyone looking to give back to their community.

Here is a picture of our awesome group:

For anyone interested in being involved with upcoming LIVE LOVE events, there are a few ways you can help. The next event, which will have similar projects to this past event, will be taking place on January 7th and can be registered for online on their website. Another awesome project they have started is called THREE-OH-WE-GO! and will begin this winter. When the temperature in Atlanta goes below freezing, the Live Love crew will head downtown offering blankets, hot chocolate, and hand warmers to people on the streets. Each year, 20+ people die in Atlanta from sleeping outside in the cold and this year, Live Love wants to make this statistic change by doing love!

Everyday, more and more opportunities to help those in need are being created in our communities! How will YOU help?