Is your baby turning ONE? Planning to do a cake smash but have no clue where to start? Or want to do your own cake smash at home without paying tons of dollars for a professional shoot? Let me share my tips and tricks so that you can do this yourself too!
- Plan the theme
- Prep the cake
- Set up the backdrop
- Find natural light
- Keep clothing simple
- Have fun!
- Clean up tips
Plan the theme
First, you’ll want to pick a theme for the cake smash. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy or overly dramatic, but it gives you an idea of what you want to do. Take a look at pinterest for some ideas. For my daughter, I went with a vintage white, gold and pink look and with my son we did a dinosaur “wild one” theme. TIP – KEEP IT SIMPLE!
Keep decor to 2-3 main elements, a hanging sign in the back, some balloons on the side etc but keep the middle empty and open for baby and cake
Prep the cake
There are tons of recipes for low sugar cake smash cakes so go ahead and bake those if you’d like! With my daughter, I got a friend to bake a lovely strawberry cake and then when it was my son’s turn, we totally ran out of time so I grabbed some white box cake mix and we whipped it up the day before. (second child problems.. ) BUT, it turned out great and he enjoyed it so it’s not something I’m going to stress over.
If you don’t have small cake pans, just use whatever you have and then cut it to size. Here’s my two 9″ cake pans. I simply used a bowl as a guide and cut around it to make two smaller cakes which were perfect for his cake smash. BONUS – we got to eat cake that night for dessert and my daughter LOVED it.
I also did not want to put a plate down in front of my son for his cake smash in case it got in the way, so I cut out a cardboard circle, wrapped it with saran wrap and placed the cake on top. It made the perfect base and was un-noticeable in pictures!
Set up the backdrop
TIP – do this while the kids are sleeping or else you’ll never get it set up.
First, find a spot in the house with good lighting. For us, it was the playroom which gets lots of natural light in the morning. I also had an empty spot against the wall which made the perfect area to set up.
I leaned a big canvas onto the wall to help me hold up my sheets. Then I draped a bed sheet over top of it and added on another layer of sheer fabric. You can just use any plain old white bed sheet for your backdrop and hang it onto the wall. This gives a nice clean background for your pictures.
Then, I hung up balloons onto a string and hung it over the canvas. I blew up some regular balloons and added those to the bottom corner. You’ll want to leave a good amount of empty space in the middle to place the cake and your baby! Plus, too much decor will just crowd the picture and will also get messy as your baby crawls around.
Find natural light
Find a spot in your house with some bright natural light – big open windows are great! and try to take the pictures during the daytime when you don’t need to turn on any artificial lighting.
Keep clothing simple
You don’t want to steal the show with a bright graphic shirt – try to keep baby’s clothing to a minimum or find something plain like a plain white onesie. Also, now isn’t the time for layers – more layers means more mess to clean!
Time it right
Are you ready for some messy fun? Try to plan the cake smash around your baby’s routine – we did ours after breakfast so he had something in his tummy before all that sugar, and he wasn’t cranky and needing a nap quite yet. Don’t do it right before naptime or when baby is super hungry and fussy.
Have fun!
I also like to take a few pictures of baby and the backdrop before placing the cake down. Might as well get some nice pictures before baby gets too messy!
Then, place the cake down and let them have fun! Some babies are quite shy around cakes for the first time so you might need to encourage them a bit, show them how to dig their hands in or even rip off a piece for them to try. Others (like my son) dive right in like they’ve done this before and manage to eat half the cake by the time I’m done with pictures.
Clean up tips
The easiest way to clean up is to go straight to the bath after the cake smash. Get baby all rinsed and cleaned up and then go back and tackle the area after they are happy and playing with some toys.
If you used a bedsheet, clean up shouldn’t be too bad. Simply set all the balloons and decor aside, place any leftover cake in the fridge and then dump any large pieces or crumbs into the garbage. The bedsheet gets a quick rinse in the laundry machine and that’s it!
A cake smash is a fun and exciting way to celebrate their milestone. Don’t get too stressed over it and forget to have fun!
