Hundred Thousand Fireflies: 2013

Friday, September 13, 2013

You may have noticed that personalized birthday boards are very popular photo props right now, especially for first birthday portraits. Every year I like to interview my children about their favorite things. This usually results in a piece of notebook paper placed in a memory book or lost in a memory box. A birthday board is a great way to display those favorite things. When the time came for Willa Wren's 4 year portraits, I really wanted to create a board, but wasn't sure where to start. Black foam board? Chalk markers? Learn "fancy" writing? Sounded expensive and very time consuming. Then the light bulb went off: I can do this in Photoshop!

Before:

After:

How I created this super easy birthday board:

I bought an inexpensive 16x20 canvas from Hobby Lobby and painted it black with acrylic craft paint. I then took a used chalkboard eraser and rubbed it over the canvas to create a smudged chalk look. I photographed Willa Wren holding the frame with the blank board. All of the text, stamps, and bunting flags were added in Photoshop. Easy as pie!

Here is where I found the fonts:

My Pinterest

Another example from a Senior session: