Cake Smash ideas for your little ones first birthday!

Cake smash sessions are a fun and memorable way to celebrate a child’s first birthday. Here are over 50 different theme ideas to give you some ideas. Some I have done before, and many are new or themes I’d like to try to create!

Here are some creative theme ideas for a cake smash session:

Classic White: Use traditional white birthday balloons and a naked, white cake.
Fairy Tale: Inspired by favourite storybooks or fairy tales, such as “Cinderella,” “Peter Pan,” or “Alice in Wonderland,” “Beauty and the Beast.”
Woodland Creatures: Incorporate forest animals like foxes, deer, and owls, with earthy tones and rustic decorations.
Under the Sea: Featuring mermaids, sea creatures, and ocean-themed props in shades of blue and green.
Safari Adventure: Decorate with jungle animals like lions, elephants, and giraffes, using green foliage and animal print accents.
Wild Flowers: Simple coloured props with a wild flower look in the background.
Barnyard Bash: Farm animals like cows, pigs, and chickens with hay bales, barn props, and red-and-white checkered patterns.
Tea Party: A whimsical tea party setup with tiny teacups, pastel colours, and floral decorations.
Superhero: Use elements from popular superheroes, with capes, masks, and a bold cutouts.
Boho Chic: Incorporate bohemian elements like feathers, dreamcatchers, and earthy colours for a stylish, relaxed vibe.
Circus: Bright circus colours, fun props, and animal figures, with a striped tent backdrop. Or we can make it girly with some pastel pinks and softer blue and teal colours.
Garden Party: Floral decorations, butterflies, and a garden-like setting with lots of greenery and blooms.
Vintage Airplane: Airplane props, clouds, and a vintage travel theme with maps and globes.
Winter Wonderland: Snowflakes, white and blue decor, and frosty elements for a winter birthday celebration.
Favourite TV Show/Character: Themes based on popular children’s shows or characters like “Sesame Street,” “Mickey Mouse,” or “Peppa Pig.”
Rainbow: Bright, colourful rainbow decorations with a rainbow themed background.
Outer Space: Space rockets, planets, and stars with a dark sky backdrop and twinkling lights.
Beach Bash: Beach balls, sandcastles, and tropical elements for a sunny, beach-inspired theme.
Sports: Themes based on a favourite sport, such as football, soccer, or baseball.
Fairy Garden: Enchanted forest with fairies, mushrooms, and a magical garden setting.
Vintage Cartoons: Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, Tale Spin, Tom and Jerry, Franklin, Little Bear, Curious George or maybe cookie monster or the sesame street gang.
Camping: Some woods in the background, little bits of wood, lanterns, pinecones and some cute jeans with a bare belly.
Teddy Bear: Could be a teddy bear party, little picnic or a balloon garland with shades of browns.
Unicorn: Soft pastel colours would be beautiful with a unicorn cut out and some white fluffy clouds with twinkle lights.
Disney: Disney themed Mickey and Minnie, or the Castle, princesses… so many ideas I can help come up with and create for you!
Sunflowers: Sunflowers, mustard colours, greenery and with some white or wood crates in the background.
Halloween: Make it spooky or make it fun, I’m happy to create something new and different for you!
Mountains: With mountains that are premade for the background, I could add in little animals, or scenery depending on what kind of look your interested in.
Sweet Treats: Ice Cream, Cotton Candy, Donuts, make it a fun theme for your background or even add something different for your little one to eat instead of cake.
Music: Although I have done this theme before with more Rock n’ Roll theme, twice actually I’d love to try it again. We can plan different types of music or perhaps an instrument favourite of yours or something the parents play.
Board Game: Have a favourite family game? Maybe we can create something fun with a custom backdrop with printing cut outs of larger game prices.
Colour Balloon Garland: Maybe you’d like to see something plain or monotone or pastels like a balloon garland. We can plan a colour that will look good printed in a large format canvas for your little one’s room.
Fruit Fun: Strawberries, kiwi, lemons, oranges, blueberries, watermelon or maybe peaches. Lets create something unique together with your child’s favourite fruit with a custom fun background.
Favourite Movie/Tv Show: Toy story, Trolls, Minions, Mario, Bluey, Encanto, Bambi, Lion King, Winnie the Pooh, Cars, share with me your ideas and I’ll design something bright and colourful.
Butterflies: Make it colourful, or monotone with butterflies, balloons and a light up “one.”
First Trip Around The Sun: I have done this before but would love to do it again with different colours, let me know your favourite colours and I’ll create something different.
Hot Air Balloon: Cut outs of beautiful hot air balloons, with white stuffing across the bottom to give a feeling of clouds.
Dinosaurs: Dinosaur cut outs and with greenery and rocks creating a unique background for your little Dino lover!
Daddy’s/Mommy’s Profession: Artist, officer, firefighter, teacher, doctor, engineer, hairdresser, farmer, truck driver, cook, mechanic, let me know what do you and maybe we can create something fun from your profession.
Surf’s Up: Surfboards, sands and palm trees could be a fun theme for your water loving baby!
Monster Trucks: Some big wheelin’ trucks could make a fun background along with racing flags and dirt!
Gardening: Garden shed, garden tools, some little clay pots could be perfect for those outdoor lovers.
Seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter can be a theme all on their own!
O-fish-ally: Fishing themed props, fishing nets, fishing bobbers and maybe a forest in the background.
BBQ: Try different types of food, make a fun theme with BBQ tools, sauces and roasted vegetables.
Cheerios: Cheerios might be a fun theme and a perfect snack for those little ones with parents that aren’t ready to give those sweet cakes to their babies.
Pirates: A fun treasure map background, a pirate ship cut out and some treasure along the bottom.
Rodeo: Little hay stacks, horse cut outs, ropes and little cowboy hates would be a fun theme for those country lovin’ folks.
Desert Cactus: Cactus and greenery along with some boho coloured props.
Construction: Yellow construction equipment with “dirt” on the cake with crushed up oreos used.
Barbie: Make it fun with a bright coloured pink barbie themed backdrop.
Tiffany: Nice teal colours, bags and white tissue paper, and boxes with jewelry in the background to make a fun birthday theme.
Jungle Fun: Can be planned with lots of greens, or maybe a little more girly if needed with a neutral background. Little cut out animals would make this set complete.
Strawberry Sundays: A fun set with cut outs including a icecream sunday truck and icecream sundays in the background.
Grome Fun: Grome cut outs could be a fun unique set and could be a girly set, or boyish set.
Robots: A robot theme will be fun and can be created with different colour themes, choose something that might match your little ones room.
Butterflies: Let me create a beautiful butterfly theme with a magical touch of the twinkle lights.
Drive In: What a fun set will be a drive in cutout creating a big screen design in the background of your child’s photos. The screen could have a solid colour, or photo or even writing to celebrate your baby’s first birthday.
Rock N’ Rock: Records, guitars maybe some starts and fun cut outs to make a perfect set.

These themes can be customized to fit the child’s personality and interests, making the cake smash session a unique and delightful experience. Here are a few of the past cake smash sessions to give you an idea what to expect.

Currently Backdrops

If you haven’t thought about booking a cake smash and your little ones birthday is coming up quickly or past already, ask about my current backdrops! These can be set up and planned within a few days, and are a perfect way to get some adorable themed photos without the longer time frames it takes me to customize and create the other sets.

Some examples of current backdrops we have in studio: