DIY Cake Smash Photoshoot

Cake smashes are so much fun to shoot and are photos that you will want to have for a lifetime! If you can’t hire a photographer, no problem, you can easily DIY a cake smash photoshoot!

DIY Cake Smash text overlaid on a picture of a clear bowl holding strawberries and blueberries with whipped cream on a white cake stand with pink flowers on the ground.

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I have no idea how I am just sharing this with you! My little girl is almost 2, about a year ago we did her first birthday cake smash. You might remember I did one for Bugs for his first birthday too.

For Bugs I did a lumberjack cake smash because we chose a lumberjack theme for his first birthday party. For Little Miss we chose to have a joint first and third bday for her and Bugs.

We chose a mermaid and pirate party, but I didn’t want that to be the cake smash. I found this cute galvanized oval tub at Walmart and figured a bath photoshoot would be so cute!

aerial shot of a galvanized container with water and broken lemon slices inside. Eaten strawberry tops are scattered on white paper on the floor.

I really wanted to be able to get photos of both Bugs and Little Miss for my gallery wall so I decided to set up a mini photo set in my house for the cake smash!

First, I had to decide what theme to have for our photoshoot. This was really hard for me because I wanted this photoshoot to serve multiple purposes.

I decided to go for a clean and airy look. On one of my many Marshall’s trips, I found this adorable white outfit at for Little Miss to wear and then found an outfit in Bugs closet to match.

I wanted some flowers for the backdrop, and found these eucalyptus stems. They ended up being cheaper and easier to hang than a bunch of flowers. I also wanted white flooring, so I bought a white wood backdrop to place on the floor.

Behind the scenes image showing eucalyptus leaves hanging on a wall with a galvanized tup in the center on white paper

To set up the photoshoot area, I found a nice size wall next to a big open window in our house. I moved all the junk out from that space. Basically a table and removing a picture frame from the wall.

I laid out the cute wood paper and hung the eucalyptus up with blue tape against a white wall at our house. Then shopped my house for other things that I already had.

The wood box I already had, and the little pennants. I did pictures of the kids by themselves first with some cute balloons we had. Then let Little Miss go free on the ‘cake’.

Eucalyptus leaves hanging in the background, a wooden box with flowers inside and a number one on top. A clear bowl holding blueberries and strawberries with whipped cream on a cake plate.

Little Miss is allergic to dairy, and at the time I hadn’t found a dairy free cake yet. So we had to do an alternative cake smash. I decided to do berries with coconut whipped cream.

She hated it, which sometimes happens! It was no big deal though, I was prepared for that. Bugs loved the berries though, so they didn’t go to waste!

A little girl's hands being put into the clear bowl with strawberries and blueberries and whipped cream sitting on a cake plate

But Little Miss loves the bath! So we got her undressed and plopped her into the tub. We filled it with warm water from our shower and with cut up lemons.

The kids had a blast playing with the water and eating the lemons. It was such a fun time! I think I’m going to make it a yearly tradition to set up a fun family photo shoot for the kids.

Little girl holding up a lemon slice in front of her face sitting in a galvanized tub with eucalyptus hanging in the background

Then after the photoshoot was over, I used the galvanized tub in the garden!