DIY Smash Cake Setup

I thought I would share some tips on my Son's 1st Birthday smash cake photo shoot, since the good ole' internets is exactly where I went when researching ideas for this. We did the shoot at home, so the first order of business was to find a "blank canvas" with lots of space. I would say ideally you want to be on the floor so you don't have to worry about your little one falling. Luckily, we have a lot of neutral walls so that was pretty easy. Even though we used photography lights, having natural light is a plus.

Next you have to decide what kind of background you want: banners, bunting, balloons, etc.... If you don't like the color of your wall, don't get discouraged. You can easily change it by hanging up a large sheet of paper, fabric, or even use removable wallpaper (which is what I used for my faux floor, but I'll get to that in a minute). I wanted bunting so I made my own from the large amount of scrapbook paper I have and some string. Just remember when deciding on your background, you don't want it too busy so that it distracts from the subject = your beautiful baby!

The floor in the area I choose was carpet, which, #1 was not the look I wanted and #2 I of course did not want ruined. I created a faux wood floor section by covering the wood insert of our Thomas the Train table with removable wood grain wallpaper. The insert has 2 sides/scenes, so no worry of wrecking it completely should the wallpaper NOT come off like it said it would. The wallpaper DID come off like it said it would. However if you plan to play around with more photo shoots, having a prop like this will come in handy. You could even invest in making a better one with real wood or scout out some super sale flooring at your local home store. We put a sheet under it to further protect the carpet, in case the birthday boy wanted to take off during the event. 

One of my dear friends - Casey - gave me this light setup quite some time ago to use for blogging. I am ashamed to say that this was the first time I got it out to see what it was all about. So awesome! My super duper friend Kristen took the pictures! If you remember anything about my previous posts, you know that Kristen and I are on the same page when it comes to details and the final result. So, I could not have done this without my friends help!

Other tips to consider...... If you want to use a cake pedestal, make sure it is one that you won't worry about breaking should the baby tip it over. I used a wood one. Try to stick to a simple color scheme - my main colors were blue and green. The theme of Carson's party was dinosaurs, so I made all of them paper hats! I even found dinosaur diapers - from the same company that made the peacock diapers!

I spent very little on this DIY, as most of the things I already had on hand. The things I bought were the diapers (which he needs anyway), removable wallpaper, Happy Birthday cake decoration, and of course the ingredients to make the cake itself. I LOVE how this all turned out! It was exactly what I had pictured! This is just a small sampling of the pictures!