DIY Cake Smash - The do's and don'ts

I think that a cake smash is the perfect way to celebrate and photograph a baby who is about to turn one. On the days leading up to Noah's 1st birthday we decided to take on our very own DIY cake smash. What I thought would be a very stressful and messy catastrophe ended up being a truly enjoyable and memorable experience. We managed to capture a dozen images that I absolutely love and will treasure forever.

I've had a few people ask for tips and advice as they wanted to do their own cake smash too so I thought I would share my do's and don'ts. 

DO

• Decide in advance where you are going to take the photo's. The ideal spot would be an area that is large and flat and one that gets a lot of natural light. You can buy backdrops but I had Noah sit in front of a neutral wall on laminate flooring.

• Be prepared. Have your babies outfit and smash cake ready the day before. I like babies simply in their nappies or a fancy cloth nappy for a cake smash. I would of liked to of made Noah a matching party hat if I had of had the time. 

• Set your camera and test the lighting right before you sit your baby in front of that cake. Take a few test shots because you don't want to start clicking away and then realise you have missed those vital first shots because your images are way too dark or out of focus. 

• Take photo's of the cake on it's own before your baby gets in on the action.

• Make sure your baby is in a good mood and well rested because you don't want any tears and tantrums in those photo's. Have fun with it. If you are having fun your baby will have fun too. 

• If your baby becomes bored have someone wave some toys about to make them laugh or distract them. 

• Don't stop taking photo's. I literally did not stop clicking because I didn't want to miss one movement or one expression. Everything happens so quickly that is better to take too many than not enough.

• Have dozens of towels, wet wipes and cloths ready because it will get really messy. As soon as the shoot was over we wrapped Noah up in a towel and took him straight for a shower because there is only so much mess that wipes can handle.  

DON'T

• Don't do it on your own. You need someone there to help as you don't want to keep having to rearrange the baby and the cake when handling the camera. 

• Don't put too much pressure on yourself or the baby, you will become stressed out and they will pick up on it.  

• Don't over do the background and the props. For me this looks too busy and takes the focus away from the baby and the cake. 

• Don't be afraid of the mess, embrace it! 

Have you had a DIY cake smash? Do you have any do's and don'ts that you would like to share? 

  

Noah's Cake Smash

With just days to go before Noah's 1st birthday I wanted to do something a little bit different to celebrate the lead up to his big day. As a lover of all things American I just had to embrace their new age tradition of a cake smash!

Initially I was going to pay for a cake smash photoshoot elsewhere but decided to dust of my DSLR, try to remember what I learnt at college and do it myself! I was a little apprehensive on the lead up to it because I worried about not getting a single shot but I shouldn't of worried. I had also planned to bake the cake myself but time ended up getting the better of me so we picked up a gorgeous ice cream sundae cake from our local ASDA. It was actually perfect for the shoot because it matched his baba and boo cloth nappy with it's little checkerboard cake base. 

I decided to have the cake smash after Noah's mid morning nap, just before lunch. I knew he is usually the perkiest at that time and thankfully he was in a good mood when he woke up! 

We changed him into his cloth nappy and placed him in front of the cake. His first reaction was to smirk. He must of be thinking "is this for me?! Really?!" 

He had lots of fun with the cake and found the whole experience hilarious. He would delicately take little pieces off the top to eat and would put his hands in all the icing. He sat there a good 15 minutes having a good play while I clicked away with the camera! The only time he moved was to crawl off at the end when he was getting a little bored but other than that he was good as gold, almost too good!   

I'm really pleased with our cake smash. Baby was happy, Daddy was happy and Mummy was happy. We all had fun, lots of laughs and created lovely memories too. 

And the icing on the cake is now we have dozens of beautiful photo's to look back on, photo's that commemorate his first birthday, photo's I will treasure forever. 

Here are some of our cake smash pictures, enjoy!