I’ve been so sentimental watching my baby planners celebrate their first birthdays lately.  I wish they could all stay babies forever!  Although I suppose that is what makes these sessions so special.  I love being able to watch my favorite babies, like gorgeous little G, turn into toddlers <3  Baby G had a session fit for a princess.  When mom said she wanted a cake smash with some sparkle, I knew I FINALLY had the perfect excuse to buy the sequined backdrop I have been eying!  I just love the way it all turned out.  Enjoy your sneak peek!

I am so excited to finally share this preview with you.  It’s been a long time coming.  I first met them back when baby S was born.  They were traveling to the studio from Connecticut again for a first birthday session when we had to reschedule to do a large storm.  We crossed our fingers there would still be foliage on the trees during the first week of November as that was the main theme of our shoot.  Then, Hurricane Sandy hit just days before their new session date.  Thankfully, we were able to still have a great session together.  Flash forward one week to the day their preview is due, and we get slammed with a Nor’easter and have no power to get the preview up. Well, we’re finally back up and running and I hope this preview was worth the wait.  We have so many adorable photos of the boys, I actually couldn’t decide, so I went with some of the fun family shots instead.  Thanks mom and dad for visiting us again and for the fun day.  Enjoy your sneak peek!

Happy Birthday D and M!  I had so much fun celebrating with these two last week.  Mom had the most adorable outfits for their traditional portraits at the start of the session.  Kind of made me wish I had a little boy to dress this holiday season!  D and M were full of smiles, just like at their 6 month session.  We created a fun wintery set for holiday cards (with our new studio mascot Snowy the Snowman), and then let the boys dig into their cakes.  I love photographing twin cake smashes because it cracks me up to watch their unique reactions to the cake, and to each other.  That second cake smash photo is my favorite… priceless!  Enjoy your sneak peek!

I LOVE this baby girl.  Today was actually my fourth shoot with her family, but last week, they came in for a cake smash just for A!  She is so sweet and her big blue eyes melt me.  She’s one of those babies you just want to put the camera down and hug in the middle of the shoot.  She had fun crawling around the studio last week and loved digging into that cake.  This was one of my favorite cake smash themes to date.  The adorable elephant Sweet Indulgence adorned the cake with was just the right amount of playful in a timeless baby girl set!  Enjoy your sneak peek!

Little K came to visit us for his first birthday, and he was so fun to hang out with! He has such a spunky little personality, and it definitely shows in his portraits.    He LOVES trucks and cars, so we brought out our antique car for him to play with, and I don’t think there was an inch of the studio he didn’t cover with it.

He also loves puppies! We got him into his adorable puppy Halloween costume for a few shots, then HIS puppy, Dutch, made an appearance in the cake smash! Too cute!

~ Mariah

If there was a leaderboard for “Best Dressed Baby: Fall 2012″, M would most certainly be on it. I can’t even handle the sportcoat with elbow patches! He looked perfectly dapper for his one-year formal portraits, and effortlessly pulled off a few vintage-inspired fall looks. 

His birthday party theme was Dr. Suess, and we ran with that for our cakesmash! Sweet Indulgence created another perfect Cat in The Hat cake, and we had so much fun making truffula trees in the studio for it. Thing 1 and Thing 2 made another appearance, too. I think it turned out awesome, and M seemed to agree!

Happy Birthday, M! We can’t wait to meet your new younger sibling soon!

~ Mariah

We first met handsome baby J back in the spring for a little outdoor portrait special we ran.  It was so much fun to have him back again to celebrate his first birthday last week so we could see how much he had grown.  At 1 year old he was crawling all over our studio and loved exploring every toy and prop.  I loved the bright colors mom chose for their family portraits and how she pulled everything together with the pattern of her shirt.  Nice styling!  The birthday outfit she brought J for his cake smash was to die for as well.  Just an all-around-adorable session!  Enjoy your sneak peek!

I hung up the phone with a reporter a few weeks back who was writing a piece on the popularity of cake smashes in portrait photography today and how the trend all began years ago.  I had fun reminiscing with her about the first “Cake Smash” session I did with my daughter Giuliana when she was 10 months old.  I simply thought a giant cupcake would be cute and wanted to snap a few photos of her tasting it for the first time.  I plopped it on the grass and fired away.  Soon after, Heidi Hope clients began clamoring for Cake Smash sessions and our Cake Smashes went from a simple giant cupcake to an all-out-stylized set.  Teaming up with Sweet Indulgence, we started getting creative!  First, just a few balloons and bunting, now each cake smash session is an original production.  Our Cake Smash sessions here at the studio are widely followed and I have LOVED seeing all of the sets we’ve created inspiring others around the world.

I got to thinking.  I would love to start a monthly feature on the blog where we showcase all of the amazing work out there.  So let’s do it!

Have you been inspired by one of our sets?  You could be featured on our blog and have your work seen by our hundreds of thousands of viewers and thousands of facebook fans!  I would love to see the amazing work you’re doing, and hear about how we inspired you!  From newborn, to cake smash, to senior portraits, your entry could be anything!  Please see our entry requirements below and submit you photos to inspiredbyheidihope@gmail.com.

Our favorite photographer each month will be featured in their own blog post, and our runners up will also be showcased on the blog and our facebook page!  If you are our monthly favorite, you will receive a gorgeous Heidi Hope Blossom Band and a 30 minute Skype session with me (Heidi), where you can ask me anything about business, photoshop, photography, whatever!!

How to enter:

Please email inspiredbyheidihope@gmail.com with:

Your name

Your studio name (if you have one, you don’t have to be PRO to enter!)

Up to 5 images inspired by a Heidi Hope Photography Set (at least 1000px wide, watermarked please)

A brief description of your images

Talk about a gerber baby!  I’m finally getting caught up from traveling over Labor Day and I’ve been dying to share this preview with you.  C was such a gorgeous baby girl.  I have to include one of the hat photos in this sneak peek because mom and I worked so hard at getting C to keep it on her head long enough to snap a photo.  We tried every trick in the book and FINALLY got something just before we called it quits for our cakesmash.  This is one of my favorite cake smashes to date.  I always love when mom picks a different color scheme to mix things up.  And what is cuter than little bunnies?!  So sweet!  Enjoy your sneak peek.

I constantly find myself wondering where a year could have gone when the sweet sleepy newborns I remember show up back at the studio as little people.  I last saw adorable M as a newborn and she returned to celebrate her first birthday.  She has the most stunning eyes (which of course I didn’t have the chance to see at our last visit).  They are a marbled greyish-blue that almost look violet at times.  Gorgeous!  And don’t forget her long black lashes and contagious giggle.  She had so much fun at her birthday session, as I think you can tell!  I had just as much fun capturing it all on camera and loved catching up with mom and dad too.  Enjoy your sneak peek!