Davis & Scout turn 13! Its hard to believe our kids are now teens but at the same time, its hard to imagine life before these two kids. Clara and Davis are the reason Erin I met. 13 years ago both of us joined a weekly playgroup in our community. We became fast friends and so did our 1 year old babies. The name of our business is attributed to these two kids, Davis and Clara (whose nickname is Scout). They brought Erin and I together and we have become extremely close friends. Davis and Scout have grown up together and are truly great pals too. Erin and I love to see their friendship at play.

Clara is 2 days older than Davis so its a perfect perfect opportunity to celebrate them both with a joint birthday party. With celebrations at a minimum due to covid restrictions, we decided to celebrate them in a big way with our two families together. Erin and I knew we wanted to highlight their special friendship in a way that truly celebrated the two of them as they enter the teen years. After a lot of thought and creative brainstorming, we decided on a black and white 2D party set up that any kid would love to have an opportunity to play in! I loved it because I could live out my youthful fantasy of being caught up in the A-ha music video for “Take on me” and immerse our kids as well! Infact, the idea for this set up was rooted in the classic 80’s video.

Believe it or not, these photos are all in color! We transformed our party space to look as if you walked into drawing. We absolutely love how this turned out.

The 2D black and white effect was much easier to attain than one might expect upon first glance. The key elements to pulling off this look was white walls, hand drawn doodles on paper (that we cut out and placed on the walls), black tape (in varying widths) to frame out the walls, shelves, window, etc. and some extremely bright lights.

We had the white table and simply lined it with thin black tape to give the look as if it were drawn. If you want to achieve this look but don’t have a white table, don’t worry, you can adapt the look with a white or white/black grid tablecloth and cover the legs with white paper or create faux white table legs out of foam board and adhere to the current legs.

All of the structural design work on the walls was achieved by adding black tape. We used gaffers tape (linked below) because it is generally gentle on surfaces. Erin absolutely LOVED working with the tape making designs on the walls and said it might be her new favorite artistic medium. Don’t worry too much about the lines being absolutely perfect, a not so straight line helps set the “hand drawn” effect. Once you have your base structure set, then add in your black and white sketch artwork.

The floor is white photographers paper that we rolled out. The paper comes in rolls 36’ long so if you don’t have a white wall, you can line the wall to set up this look and then roll it out on the floor.

The treat table served cupcakes, black and white lollipops, cake pops, cookies and varying candies in black and white.

The cake pops were absolutely perfect! I thought Rachel at Cake Pops By Rachel was going to think I was absolutely bonkers for my request of cake pops that look like they are 2D. Instead of thinking I was crazy, she was 100% up for the challenge and knocked it out of the park! The cake pops turned out sooo much cuter than I ever could have imagined. Rachel is truly talented and very creative!

Erin made the cardboard cake out of an old hat box we had on hand and covered in sheets of Avery sheet label material. She added hand cut black yardstick fringe, our round Davis & Scout logo and cut out the “13” for the top with her Silhouette Cameo electronic cutter. We printed off some black and white photos that we cartoonized with the app clip2comic of the kids, lined the white frames with the thin black tape and placed them on the table.

The cafe set up is purely a set piece for the party. A fun way to get a photo, by immersing the party goers in a 2D styled cafe. to get this look, we simply painted some old stools we had kicking around the house white and then lined them with thin black tape. My husband made a table out of scraps in the garage and we painted it white adding the black tape outline as well.

I bought a couple of inexpensive white mugs and used a sharpie to add the drawn lines to give the some dimension. For the plate we used the thin black tape. The tea pot was purchased white, I added the polk a dots and outlining with a sharpie. Erin loves a great paper flower bouquet and made this one with her Silhouette cameo cutting machine.

The cafe idea was inspired by a cafe in South Korea called Yeonnamdong 239-20 where the entire restaurant looks like you stepped into a comic book or drawing.

We had a photo booth area also in black and white. We thought it was cute and funny to add the ampersand between Davis & Scout.

In the photo booth area we had some special props, a paper doll dress and plant drawn on a foam board and then cut cut out with a box cutter. For the dress, we attached a white ribbon around the neck to hang as if it was being worn.

I wanted the kids to feel like they are 100% immersed in a drawing so I placed a mirror on the photo booth wall that reflects the black and white decorated wall behind them making a really cool visual effect. This would be fun to do for a photo booth for selfies. Totally Instagram worthy!

These days there’s an app for absolutely everything and we found the perfect one to turn photos into cartoons called clip2comic. We loved this filter app because the kids can play with it to turn their selfies/pictures into cartoons in the backdrop. What’s in for teens is all about what they can share on their social channels, or better yet, print them off right at the party with a Lifeprint printer system so they can take home a hard copy to take home and display in their rooms or wall collages (we know those are all the rage).

We created a frame for photos to give the full effect of being immersed into a comic book. It was made by cutting out a large center square of foam Sturdy board affixed to a wood stand, lined with the black tape and added black dots. The effect turned out really cool!!!

Our friend, Kyla Bell is a talented artist and provided the majority of the black and white sketch work for the walls and the adorable paper doll dress. For weeks leading up to the party, she doodled her heart out for us and we appreciate her hard work and creativity!

To achieve the look on the walls we used black gaffers tape in varying sizes recommended below. The tape is sticky but should not cause any damage to walls or furniture its applied to.

On the floor, we used white backdrop paper rolled out across the floor in 107”X36’ You can purchase the paper in many different sizes that suit your space. If you do not have a white wall, you can use the backdrop paper taped to the wall and across the floor.

To top off the entire look, you will need bright lights. I found 2 lights on Amazon that really helped make the room glow and cut down on shadowing. The best time of day to do this photoshoot/set up is when its dark out or when you can block out most of the sunlight in some way.

And here are some additional Black & White party items that aren’t exactly the ones we used, but we think would be great options to use!