Shot Stick

For my fiance's 35th Birthday I wanted to make a shot stick. Something he could always have to remember his birthday and friends. The idea of a shot stick is when your friends are done taking a shot with you for the first time they sign the stick with a permanent marker. This way a piece of them and your memories together always stays with you.

Making Memories:

Step one: buy the size board you want. If you want a four shot board we used six feet and it worked perfectly. You may also use a ski or other type object if you prefer. 

Step two: cut and sand your board. Clean board. 

Step three: decorate! This is where it gets fun. I wanted to take our shot board one step further and includes all the people I love on it. I decided I would make two boards at the same time. One for us to use at the birthday part and one to have a drawing and give away to one of our friends. 

Decorating my board: 

I made a collage of my friends and family and printed them out on a regular inkjet printer. Just regular ole printer paper. Then cut out the pictures. 

Next we are going to use our special magic fairy dust to transfer the pictures onto the clean board. 

Take a paint brush and paint and slather on a layer of the Liquitex a little bigger then the size of each picture. (Don't want to coat the whole board) . You want it to be thick enough to transfer the picture and hold picture in place but not so thick it leaves bubbles. After you coat a nice layer then place the picture (picture side facing gel/board) onto the Liquitex. press it down gently and make sure you get out the bubbles. Scrape/wipe excess Liquitex away when picture is firmly on board.

The photos will start showing through the back of the paper. After about eight hours it is time to wash of the paper. Take the board, get a wet wash cloth, and gently scrub the picture. The paper will start to flake off. Wash away all of the paper layer until just the board/transfer remain. 

Once you have a clean board with awesome photos transferred on, it is time to seal it. 

Grab your Mod Podge and slather it on the board. Get a nice even layer. Don't worry too much about brush strokes, it will dry clear. After the Podge dried I taped off each picture so it was completely covered in tape and spray painted the board. I did the top of the board dark blue and the bottom w/ pictures copper.


Second board:
For the give away board I simply spray painted it Copper and used stencils.

Then bust out your favorite glue (I love Gorilla Glue) and glue on the shot glasses you picked out.

I simply stand in front of the end of the board and place the shot directly in the center. You don't want to put it directly at the end or the people on the end won't have places to grip the board. Once the glue is dry and the shot glasses are secure, all you need to do is grab your friends, a sharpie, your drink of choice and make some memories.

Also if your friends are as silly as mine there is a really cute app I downloaded on my IPad called IncrediBooth. It lets you take photo booth pictures. I made everyone at the party step into my photo booth.

Don't forget to have your camera ready for some of the most awesome sour faces you have ever seen your friends and family make....