Earlier this year I was hired to do a first birthday cake smash session.  The mom had mentioned that her little boy loved dinosaurs and she wanted a dinosaur cake smash.  I didn't want to do the typical dinosaur cake smash and wanted to create something epic. Something that had not been done before!  With Jurassic World coming out I knew exactly what we had to do.... A JURASSIC PARK CAKE SMASH!  As soon as I had the theme picked out ideas started coming like crazy. 

I contacted my favorite backdrop company Lacey and Lee Co and asked the owner if she could design a Jurassic Gates backdrop.  I had looked everywhere at so many different companies and nothing existed yet.  I wanted it to look like the entrance to the park with the cables broken, as if a dinosaur had just escaped.  She came through with something more amazing than I could imagine.  

The next Idea I had was for a giant egg. I knew that I wanted an egg big enough that the little boy could sit in it.  So I got creative and purchased a 36" balloon from my local Hobby Lobby.  I blew it up using my blow dryer and found a bucket that it could sit on to start the paper mache process.

I asked my local Elementary school if I could have the newspapers they throw out each day and I ended up with a giant stack for free.  I cut the newspaper into strips about an 1 1/2" wide and the length of the paper.  You can cut strips to be whatever size you want.  I got a large bowl and mixed together flour and water until it was a waffel batter consistency.  I used about 5 c. water to 4 c. flour at first and just adjusted accordingly. 

Then I dipped the newspaper strips in the flour water mixture and ran the strip between my pointer and middle finger to get any excess to drip off.  Then I just applied the strips to the balloon.  

Once the entire balloon was covered I let it dry.  It is important to let it dry in between layers so that it can harden properly.  This takes the longest time.  I did 5 layers for my egg but should have done a few more to make it more sturdy. 

After I had enough layers on the balloon and it seemed firm enough I pulled out some old brown and white paint I had sitting in the basement and an old sponge to sponge paint on the base color.  I didn't want brush strokes showing so a sponge worked well to give it a bit of texture and variation in the paint. 

After the base layer of paint dried I bought a can of textured spray paint from our local hardware store and spray painted the outside of the egg to give the texture a real dinosaur egg might have. 

I let it dry overnight and the next day I pulled out a box knife to cut the egg in half.  This was the hardest part because I didn't want to ruin all of my hard work.  I drew with a pencil the shape I wanted for the cracked egg and then cut it out.  It cut no problem with the box knife.  I seperated the two halves and painted the inside of the egg with the same old brown and white paint and a sponge so that if it showed in any photos it didn't look like newspaper strips. Now that I had the egg complete I had to work on the setup.  For the setup I wanted a dirt road leading to the gates, so I pulled out some Mocha savage seamless and some darker brown paint I had lying around from our kitchen and I sponge painted it to look like a dirt road. 
Here is a top view of the egg, how I stuffed it, and the road I sponge painted for the flooring.  You can purchase this as a digital backdrop on my etsy site Newborn Digital Drops 

To complete the setup I really wanted a jeep.  The family of the boy had an old power wheels broken down in their garage that needed some TLC.  The Dad paints cars as a side job and he was able to fix up the jeep.  I sent him a photo of what I wanted and he came through with the perfect Jurassic Park Jeep. 

It was finally time to put the set together.  I pulled out my boxes of greenery and called some friends to borrow dinosaurs. It was definitely a labor of love, but I am in love with how the set turned out. Here are some photos from the session.  I even had my cake maker make a tire cake and this T-Rex devoured the tire.