ON3 Photography GRAND OPENING!!

 

My friend Laura asked me to help plan the grand opening of her photo studio & I'm here to say: I think I just attended my favorite party EVER! The event was last night & I'm only just starting to recover. haha!

It's really fun to see the ideas in your head come to reality. But it's even more fun when they're more awesome than you even originally thought!!

First of all, Mr. WhiMSy love stepped up & helped with a project I was hoping to get my hands on, but I had so many other little things to do that I didn't have time. He created a balloon arch for attaching to the outside awning of the building. Might be one of my favorite parts of the party. 

I found the instructions HERE. We didn't use the circular template---just eyeballed the size. And we didn't use the liquid high float since we built the arch the afternoon of the party & didn't need it to be "floating" for very long.

 The decorations were VERY minimal. The building itself is so absolutely beautiful--& 106 years old! I did make some garland that I strung in a few spots, but it was nothing major. It was made by using my 1" punch-- & attacking a vintage book & a 12"x12" sheet of glittery green paper. I hot glued both to each other on a string of invisible sewing thread.

Guests entered drawings at a chance to win some fabulous prizes!

Well over 100 people arrived throughout the night & mingled, while munching on tasty eats that were cleverly set up in various spots around the photo studio. Guests also sampled wine purchased from 17 Ranch Winery, a local winery in Lewellen, Nebraska.

Entertainment was provided by the 3LV's. (3 Legendary Vatos) The setting was so perfect. It didn't feel like I was in smalltown Bridgeport. I was in some artsy district in some populous downtown city.

 Mr. WhiMSy love enjoyed a seat close to the music & found his happy place.

Laura even hung the Crafty Night banner! Right next to the meatballs. haha! ON3 Photography hosts Crafty Night on the 2nd Tuesday of every month from 6-8 p.m. YAY!

My first thought, when asked to help with the grand opening, was immediately to set up a photo booth of some sort. I used Laura's Fuji Instax Mini & gathered props for a Polaroid Photo Booth. It was a hit!! My friend Randy & I made the chalkboard speech bubble. (I painted it. He did the hard part. haha!)

 Once again, I was "Polaroid Girl" & snapped pics all night long. It was a blast!!

My favorite part was seeing hesitant people, quite unwilling to get silly, FINALLY step up &

have their polaroid taken. You could tell they felt like they had just stepped out of their comfort zone---but ended up having FUN!

Zoey had never seen a polaroid picture develop before. I mean, how cool is that? I got to be there for her first polaroid picture developing! She's looking at it backwards in the photo--but I helped her out. haha!

Guests went home with goodie bags made by ME!! Well, the first 100 guests did. And, let me just tell you something: 100 of stuff is a lot.

Here's what was inside the goodie bags.

And now, I'll break-it-down...

The bags were machine stitched with brown kraft paper & embellished with a sticker detailing the business logo & information. (Stickers designed by Laura.)

I made camera-shaped chocolates using a mixture of almond bark & chocolate wafers. The camera mold was purchased on amazon.com.

I purchased these camera charms from CLBEADS & paired them with key rings in an antique brass finish from Tantalizing Stitches.

The tags were found at an office supply store. I stamped them with a cheese stamp from Cupcake Tree using canary yellow ink. The speech bubble stamp was bought from paper.fruit.hair. I used a black pen to trace around the cheese & write in the word "cheese!". I finished off the tag by stamping the edge with the business website. (Stamp ordered from discountrubberstamps.com)

 

 Susan helped me screenprint all the cameras onto pieces of felt. Remember THIS tutorial?? These iron-patches took a very long time. 100 of anything can be quite daunting...

  And finally, tucked inside the gift bags was a business magnet.

After the party was over, then the AFTER-PARTY began. Really it was just those of us left that put the whole thing together. Demoted to status of "clean-up crew". We procrastinated the cleaning part & did some dancing instead. Well, some of us danced. While others giggled at those of us dancing. And there were jumpy photos of course...(Sarah's dirty feet made us chuckle lots.)

And then we relaxed on the couch to laugh & reminisce about the amazing night just had.

Sarah, Susan, Laura, Nikki

I'm still giddy just thinking about what an amazingly fun night it was! I am pretty sure I over-used the words "fun" & "amazing" & "perfect". But, that's what it was.

I think we should do this every week. HAHA!

To view the rest of the pictures from the night, click HERE.

♥