DIY Kate Spade Photo Backdrop

"A Photo Backdrop all your friends will love"

I am in full celebration mode after announcing my appearance on NBC's show Making It. I decided to have a viewing party with all of my fam and friends and I knew it wouldn't be a good party without a fun backdrop, so I decided to create this Kate Spade Photo Backdrop.

With me being a DIYer, of course I had to make it myself, so today. I'm sharing all the details on how to re-create this fun backdrop.

Materiels

Backdrop

• 2 - 1/4" sheet of MDF (4x8)
• 9 - 2x4x96"
• Behr Paint (Flat Black)
• Behr Paint (Ultra Pure White)
• Spax Construction Screws
• Frog Tape
• Paint Roller 

Flowers 

• Cardstock Paper
• Cake Rounds

Tools Used

• Drill
• Framing Nailer
• Miter Saw
• Staple Gun
• Hot Glue Gun
• Scissors
• Cricut
• Paint Sprayer

Now let's get into how I made the Kate Spade photo backdrop.

Step 1: Paint the MDF White

To get the backdrop started, I first painted the MDF boards white. I first painted the board Behr Ultra Pure White and I used my paint sprayer to make the process go a little faster.

When I'm using my paint sprayer, I always like to keep a foam brush handy for any spatter, but for the most part this was a petty simple step.

Once the boards were all painted, I let them sit for about 5 hours. Normally, paint drys a little faster than that, but because I knew I would be putting tape on the boards, I wanted to make sure it was really dry.

Step 2: Mark off Lines and Paint

After the boards were all dry, I started marking off the lines with frog tape. Whenever I am wanting straight lines when painting, I always use frog tape. I haven't been able to find a product that gives as straight as a line as it does, so I highly recommend it.

This step will be a lot easier with two people. I marked the size of the line I wanted and then put the tape down accordingly. My strips were about 5" wide.

Once the lines were all taped off, I went around with a paint roller to roll the black on. I used Behr Flat Black for this. The taping is probably the mot tedious of the project, once you get past that, your good to go.

Step 3: Assemble Stand

Once I finished painting those boards, I put them aside to let them dry and begin assembling the backdrop stands.

I used 2x4 boards to create the backdrop stands. I first made a square out of the 2x4s. I wanted to square to be big enough to give good support but didn't want it on the edge. The outer square was made up of two 90" vertical pieces and three 39" horizontal pieces and I attached them together using a framing nailer and nails. 

I then added the back brace piece. I cut an angle on the bottom of the two outer pieces at 30 degrees and then cut the part that attaches to the square based on how I wanted the stand to sit. I used screws to screw the back piece on to the square and then added an extra 2x4 to screw to both the back piece and the square to make sure there was no movement.

Step 4: Attach MDF to Stands

After assembling the stands, I started to attach the MDF boards. I used a staple gun to add the MDF board to the stands. You want to make sure you make both stands first and then add the boards, so you can put the board beside each other to make sure it looks seamless when it comes together.

Also, make sure you paint he stripes in such a way that you have a white strip on the inside of the right board and a black stripe on the inside of the left board so it will look even.

and WAA-LAAH now we have two backdrops! The best part is I paid a little under $120 to get these backdrops done which I'm counting as a win.

With the backdrop complete, now it's time to get into how I made the paper flowers.

Step 5: Creating the Flowers

This was my first time making paper flowers but the process was fairly simple. Although these flowers were easy to make, it was a little time consuming. If you can find help to get this done, I would highly recommend it.

I used this online tutorial to make these flowers and it worked out pretty well for me. To attach the cake boards to the backdrop, I used Command double sided tape. I also used hot glue for some of them, but if you do this you may end up messing up your back drop a bit. I didn't plan on using this again so it was fine for me, but if you do plan to use it again, I would go with the double sided tape.

Step 6: Enjoy

Once the flowers are made, the last step is to set it up at your event and enjoy!

Read all about the party here. If you're wondering why I had two backdrops, here's why! I decided to have the same backdrop for the dessert table. Luckily, I grabbed a quick photo during set up.

Thanks for reading guys, XOXO Ashley