The next best thing to having a party is loving the photographs of all the guests looking super gorgeous – they’ll bring back fabulous memories for years to come! Help everyone create brilliant images by turning photo time into a fun event. It’s so simple to create the perfect party photo booth - a brilliant idea for birthday parties for girls and boys (of all ages!).

Buy a large new or second-hand frame (rustic looks so cool!) for the party people to hold in front of their faces to literally frame the shot. Provide guests with lots of extras to wind around the frame for funky decorations. Good choices are paper leaves and flowers, balloons, garlands, ribbon and cord. Safety alert - make sure there is a parent on hand to help, you don’t want little ones getting tangled up! Or, if you’re feeling crafty make a choice of frames beforehand from cardboard and paper. Decorate in bright shades or draw or stick on pictures to fit a specific party theme, like a magical unicorn and beautiful castle for a princess party or luminous planets for an out-of-this-world space party. Use paint, tissue paper and stickers for exciting effects. Here are some amazing ideas.

Have a tub of accessories for guests to look through to find brilliant things to transform or add to their look. Good choices are:

 - Hair accessories and hair bands with lots of color and style. We have a fantastic choice of hair clips like gorgeous unicorns, fruity fun, bright poms-poms, charming animal ears, pretty embroidered felt designs, a glittery crown for a royal touch, and a shimmering hair band covered in shining stars. Shop our hair accessories here 

- Party blowers for an ‘in action’ shot of silliness! For extra fun check out our hilarious examples including a sensational snake design with extending fork tongue. 

- Party hats, masks and silly glasses – all excellent ways to transform your guests in seconds. The perfect disguise for any guest who is feeling slightly shy or loves intrigue! For guests who would like to make their own mysterious masks provide a craft table with all the things needed, like paper or printed mask templates, scissors, colored pencils, glitter, stickers, feathers, elastic (and/or thin wooden sticks to make a ‘masquerade ball’ type of mask to hold up to their faces) and sticky tape. Here and here are some brilliant mask step-by-step ideas.

- Dressing up costumes for guests who really want to get into role-playing! Good choices are fairies, superheroes, dinosaurs, and animals. Or, just include items related to your party theme, like knight helmets and armor for a knight party.

- Signs with fun sayings on them like “Don’t be in a party, be the party” and “Fiesta Time!” for guests to hold. You can make these yourself beforehand, or this could be another good craft activity for your guests to do – so provide plenty of paper, pens, stickers and thin wooden sticks to attach to the sign, and sticky tape.

How about prizes for the photographs to really get your guests into the swing of things? Nominate the birthday boy or girl to be the judge – they’ll love the feeling of power! Prizes can be for the funniest photograph, most stylish, most creative, most mysterious, best costume ….and more. It’s a good idea, in the spirit of fairness, to make sure you have enough category choices so everyone wins a prize – no one wants a guest in floods of tears!