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Photoshoot Party -13yr- Bubblegun Bubbles

May 2010

Phoebe in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

For my 13th birthday party I wanted to do something original and special. A friend of mine had recently had her 13th birthday, and gave me the idea of doing a photoshoot party. 

INVITATIONS For my invitations, I printed A4 size lollipops off from the internet, cut them out and stuck them onto cardboard. When I handed them out to my friends, they looked like proper lollipops. I invited six guests to my party, as, if I'd had any more there wouldn't have been enough room on the backdrop for us all to stand to take the photos.  

DECORATIONS For my decorations, I blew up lots of pink balloons, and created a backdrop for the photoshoot. My mum used to be a photographer, and so she had a black photography backdrop, but any big piece of coloured material would work. I held the party outside, and strung fairy lights in all of my trees.

On the big table, I scattered lots of little sequins everywhere (it looked really nice at the time, but be aware that it is a total pain to clear up, and there's still glitter out in my garden today!) I stuck the backdrop up onto the wall using masking tape (a LOT of masking tape!) and borrowed a floodlight from a friend to use as a light for the photos. 

ACTIVITIES The main activity of the party was obviously taking the photos, but while the guests were arriving, I opened up my presents. It's always a good thing to do, as it gives you something to do before everyone has arrived. Once everyone had arrived, we started to take the photos. We took individual shots, ones in little groups and then some all together. In some of the pictures we played with the pink balloons.

My party was from 6pm-9pm, and so it was already dark while the photos were being taken, but it didn't matter because we had a very bright light. I used an SLR camera with a tripod to avoid wobbly photos, and while the pictures where being taken my sister stood above the backdrop on the balcony and used a bubblegun to shoot bubbles down onto us.

It took all of my guests by surprise when a sudden flood of bubbles rained down into their faces, and so we got some really geniune pictures! After taking the photos, we all jumped into the swimming pool, played pool games and chatted. 

DRESS CODE I didn't have an exact theme for my party, but I asked all of my guests to come wearing something formal, so we all dressed up in dresses to look nice for the photos. 

PARTY SNACKS & CAKE For food, I ordered pizza and we had little snacks on the side as well, like sausage rolls and salad. I kept a coolbox of soft drinks by the table filled with ice. Instead of a cake, I had thirteen pink butter-iced fairy cakes with letter candles spelling out 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY' all on a plate in a cluster. All of my friends sung happy birthday, and there were plenty of cakes for everyone. We ate after swimming, and after eating we all danced to music. I plugged my iPod into some speakers and turned the volume up. 

FAVOURS As party favours, I bought everyone a real lollipop, like the ones on the invitations. They were big Swirl Pop vintage lollipops, and I tied little messages onto each one with ribbon with their names on them saying 'Thanks for coming to my party'. I picked a different colour for each of my friends, and used that colour ribbon to tie the messages onto the lollipops.  The pictures turned out really well, and after the party I loaded them all onto Facebook.

The idea of doing a photoshoot party was a big success, and my friends and I all had a great time together!

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