Baby Photo Shoots: Planning

I knew, way back before Jake was born, before we were even thinking about children, that one day I wanted to take weekly pictures of my kids to document their growth. It all started when one of my favorite blogs Young House Love, started taking pictures of their kiddo. I loved the idea and vowed to one day adapt it for my own kids.

So when Jake was born, I started to think about how I wanted to go about our weekly photos. I liked the white bodysuit with the weeks on it, but decided to use the same background every week. Jacob received an amazing handmade quilt from one of our cousins and I thought it would make the perfect backdrop. 

I took his picture for two weeks, and then the 4th of July rolled around. It only seemed natural to throw a little flag in the pictures. I ended up liking it so much that I decided to use props for every holiday. 

One of the things you quickly learn as a new parent is that planning ahead is crucial to all well being. One day while Jacob was napping I planned out all 52 weeks. I looked at where holidays and special trips would fall and started thinking about what props we would use for those. I made a template to keep myself organized.

There's a box for each week and once I take the picture I replace the box with it.

Each number is colored the color it should be on his onesie - all aqua to match the quilt with the exception of the holidays. I think this will help the holidays stand out when the pictures are all collaged together. Under each holiday number I wrote in what props we would use to keep ourselves organized. 

To keep myself sane, and because I would surely forget a week or two before, I bought ahead the props I wouldn't already have on hand, or that I knew I wouldn't be able to easily find. As they came in I kept them all together in a plastic tub that I could easily pull out when I needed to find a prop. Most of the props came from Ebay and were fairly cheap.

yes, that is a cupid costume on top... it was .99!

I also ended up unintentionally starting another photo project on the 4th of July. I had picked out a "My 1st 4th of July" onesie for Jake to wear that day, and had pulled out a red and white swaddle blanket to use since it matched. At some point during the day I started taking his picture to send to relatives and thus a "First Holiday" project was started. 

For this set of photos I decided I would use different holiday themed backgrounds and the "My First (insert holiday here) onesies.

You can tell from this picture that I haven't ordered the birthday fabric yet, or gotten his first disney trip onesie (since I don't know when we'll go and what size to get yet.)

 I also decided to orient these ones horizontally, to keep them fresh from the vertical weekly photos. Just like with the weekly photos, I made myself a template to stay organized and swapped in the photos once they were taken.

Most of my fabric came from etsy, except for the blanket we used on the 4th of July and personalized name fabric I am going to order from Spoonflower for his first birthday. I probably could have saved money searching through clearance racks at Joanne's, but loading up a baby and all his stuff and hoping he wouldn't wake up and start screaming while I searched through fabric just wasn't appealing to me. It was worth the saved stress to just order the fabric. The onesies I would have bought for him anyways.

Once all the pieces came in I tossed them in another bin with the onesies and coordinating fabric stacked together. Both photo boxes live on a shelf in his closet up above some of his clothes so I can easily get the box down when I need it.

I've also been taking Jacob's Monthly pictures (lots of picture taking going on around here) on the 10th of every month. These are pretty straight forward. I put him in a white onesie, stick on the month stickers I got at one of my showers, and plop him in our rocker with his gorilla and name blanket. 

Stay tuned for all the logistical details of how I take the weekly pictures, and how I edit the final product!