Life as a LEO Wife

Last week I shared many free printables with you so that you could throw an epic Christmas family movie night watching Elf. To have a memorable night that becomes a family tradition year after year, you need activities to go along with the movie. One fun thing we did was create a DIY Christmas photobooth. In this post I’m going to show you how easy it is to do, and I’m going to share six pages of free printable photobooth props!

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Hang a Backdrop

The first step to setting up a great looking photobooth is hanging a Christmas-y backdrop. I used a Christmas blanket that we got last year. It is white with red snowflakes and “FaLaLa” (I know it’s missing a few la’s lol) all over it. You can use a blanket, a sheet, a Christmas fabric tablecloth, a red or green plastic tablecloth, a white, red, or green sheet, etc. Dollar Tree has several plastic Christmas print tablecloths along with the solid red and green. I’m sure you have many things on hand at home to use as a backdrop.

Ways to Hang the Backdrop for the DIY Christmas Photobooth

I have a photo backdrop stand that I set up and clipped the blanket to it. Most of you probably don’t have one of those, but that’s ok. I have a few solutions for you! In the photo below you can see that I set our photobooth props on the chair to the right. For more formal settings, I set up an adorable table with signs, but we had a night packed with fun and activities, so just placing them in the chair worked fine.

Tape

You can tape it to the wall or on to a door way that you won’t be using during the party.

Nails

To avoid putting new holes in the wall, find a place where you have two frames that are far enough apart to stretch the backdrop out and take the wall art down. If you’re using plastic tablecloths, press the nails through it. Using fabric? Wrap the corners of the fabric around the nail and tape it there. You could also push the nail through the fabric if you’re using something you don’t mind creating a small hole in. If you don’t have a place where you have two nails at the right height and distance apart, you can put new holes in the wall if you don’t mind doing so. I would not want to do that though. I need more holes in my walls like I need more holes in my head!

Command Hooks

A great alternative to putting new holes in the wall is using removable hooks. Place the hooks as far apart as the backdrop is wide. Again if you’re using plastic tablecloths, just push the hook through the plastic. If you are using fabric, you can tie the ends around the hook. Fabric too thick for that? You can sew a loop of string on each top corner, then hang the fabric by the loop on the hook. You can also do this to hang fabric on a nail if you’re using the nail hanging option. If you’re not a sewer, even by hand, you can use a clothespin to clip the fabric to the hook.

Cabinets

Another option to hang your backdrop is by using cabinets. If you have a large enough place in your kitchen you can open your cabinet doors, place the backdrop over the top of the cabinet door, then shut it so that the backdrop is held up by the door. Then repeat the process on the other side of the blanket or tablecloth. I know people who have cabinets in their living or dining areas and that’s the perfect place for this to work because you won’t have the counters to worry about. I do this in my kitchen to decorate for Christmas with wide holiday themed ribbon (8″ wide) on the doors of my cabinets.

Tall Piece of Furniture

One final way that I can think of for you to hang your backdrop is from a bookshelf or china cabinet. Drape the blanket from the top, down the front and place something heavy on top of the furniture, on each side, to hold it in place.

Props for a Fun DIY Christmas Photobooth

Now you need props to use in your photobooth. Here are a few things that you can use, but remember you can use tons of things. You’re only limited by your imagination!

• Santa hats
• Christmas light necklaces (You can find them for sale all over right now, including at Dollar Tree.)
• elf hats
• actual Christmas lights
• candy canes
• ugly Christmas sweaters
• scarves, pipe, & snowman hat
• reindeer antlers
• Rudolph nose (Dollar Tree)
• mistletoe
• Christmas tree topper
• ornaments
• garland
• Christmas cups & mugs
• signs
• my free printable props!

You can wrap yourselves in the garland and lights to become a Christmas tree, or use the scarf and hat to make everyone a snowman. There are tons of things like that you can do to have fun in a Christmas photobooth.

Download Free Printable Props

I have created six pages of free printable props for you to use in your DIY Christmas photobooth. They were made to go along with our Elf family movie night. One of our activities was supposed to be having a good, long time taking lots of pics, but we ended up playing one of our other games so long that we didn’t spend a ton of time in the photobooth. It was a blast though, and I have some pictures that I will treasure for a lifetime. The kids will only be 10 once at Christmas!

To print these props, you need to first download them. Click the button below each picture that you want to use. I’ve created these as PNG files so that they don’t become pixelated no matter how large you make them. When you open the file and print it, you’ll need to check your print settings. Choose your paper size as 8.5×11 then choose borderless printing. If it looks like your computer is cutting some of the pictures off, you can choose “shrink to fit.” If you need to, you can choose 8×10 in the “photo size” drop down box.

Note about the downloads:

Decorate the Photobooth

There are so many ways you can decorate a DIY Christmas photobooth. Since we were using ours for a family movie night with this kids, I placed a cedar chest in front of the blanket backdrop. Then I draped a white blanket over it. I sat a tabletop Christmas tree on one end of it. It’s a farmhouse tree that sits in a cute milk bucket. I kept it simple because the blanket that I used isn’t very wide. In fact it’s just wide enough to put the cedar chest in front of.

If you are using a wider sheet or tablecloth, you can put as little or as much decor in the photobooth as you want. You can put in a 3-4′ tree, hang ornaments or snowflakes with fishing line from the ceiling, or even string up some Christmas lights and run them up and down the length of the backdrop. I think if you’re using this for a Christmas party, lights are a must!

Have fun with your DIY Christmas photobooth!

Now it’s time to have a blast with your photobooth! We plan to have a little more fun over this Christmas break with a few more DIY Christmas photobooths. I’ll add more pictures because I plan to hang some Christmas lights on the next one.

Here are a few of the pictures we took in our photobooth. Please ignore my surgical port scars! I have one in now, but I have three scars where the first one was put in, then removed, and another where the current one was put in. I had my first one for nine years, and you who have had them or have experience with them know that’s quite an accomplishment lol! We had a redo night, and the kiddos just weren’t into posing, so unfortunately, you’ll see me in a lot of these. If you can believe it, both of them are 10. He’s a normal sized 10 year old (wears a size 10), and she’s bigger than me! So I made them a comment bubble with the scene from Elf where Buddy says, “He’s an angry elf!”

More Christmas!

I hope that you have enjoyed this tutorial and the free printables! I would love for you to tag me on social media when you use them and make your own DIY Christmas photobooth. You can follow me using the buttons in the sidebar. Make sure you stick around and check out all of the other great Christmas posts I have here on the site. If you like doing Christmas activities with your family, you might like this post about camping under the Christmas tree!

You might also like these free printable posts: letter to Santa wish list (4 options to choose from), letter from Santa with random acts of kindness to deliver daily, this Christmas wish list (4 options to choose from) that friends and family can fill out to let you know what they want for Christmas, and these Santa Baby printables that you can use with your spouse to let them know what you want and find out what they want for Christmas!