As parents, we know how expensive it can get to get your hands on some decent portraits of our children as they’re growing up. There’s also the fact that our children grow up so fast. Well, if you’re anything like me (on a budget or otherwise, poor), here’s an idea that doesn’t drain your account: DIY white backdrop photography!

Cheap finds. Expensive illusions.

For as little as a couple dollars from our local party store, I was able to buy a roll of white plastic table cover. It cost about ten dollars and change.The roll I bought measured about 3.5 feet in length.

What I love about it is that the roll can be used for so many things aside from the white backdrop. For instance, it can be used for your child’s birthday parties, picnics, that glass tabletop in your dining room you’re scared to scratch, or even to set up a light box to capture items you sell. Today, I experimented with it to create a series of DIY white backdrop toddler photos.

Behind the Scenes

Roll it out! By pinning the edge of the table cover from the roll onto the wall with some pushpins, and rolling it out about five feet off the wall onto the floor, I was able to create a decent sized white background. Notice how poor the lighting is on this. It is important to consider lighting, and by this I mean natural sunlight. Make sure you choose a location that is next to a big window or patio door. This is in our living room next to our apartment patio door. Of course, I had to scoot our couch out of the way in order to have room to place the white backdrop on the wall, but it was well worth it. I dressed up my daughter for the occasion letting her pick out the dress. Then I took many photos in different angles until I felt I had enough photos to work with. Therefore, once you have the white backdrop set up and you have the photos you want to work with, now you can begin to edit. It doesn’t take an expensive computer program to get the job done. In fact, all my photos are taken using my first generation iPad, but a more recent iPhone would probably have better quality.

Photo Apps

Let’s talk about editing resources. I have apps. If you’re not up to date with technology yet, then you need to get started because it can save you some money. Trust me. Don’t believe me? Well, as some of you know, I run my closet for Poshmark which requires a lot of photos of my items I sell. With apps like Aviary, I was able to edit photos with poor lighting and create amazing photos that would sell my items faster. Want to see what I am talking about? Click HERE to view my closet on Poshmark. Anyway, I have been loyal to Aviary ever since 2013, but I’m pretty sure there are tons of other photo editing apps out there I don’t know about yet. The point is to get one that works for you. I really recommend Aviary because I have seen it work for me. This is the result of the same previous photo, but some editing using Aviary. As you can see, I have cropped the photo. In other words, I basically trimmed out the edges I didn’t want to be visible (like the carpet and the rest of the ivory wall). Then I blurred out the crevices or folding of the white table cover. I really liked this effect because it makes the person focus on my daughter rather than on the actual table cover while still giving the photo some texture. Next, I played around with the lighting, color, and shadows. Honestly, you can purchase ready-filters, but I usually like to play around with the app manually. This photo is an example of not cropping your photos properly. You can see that in the upper left corner and the lower right corner, the carpet/wall is visible. Thus, be sure that you are cropping your photos entirely and inspect them.

So, you’re probably thinking this took me all day to do. On the contrary, it probably took longer to dress my daughter up than doing the editing. It might be that I’ve used the app for a couple of years now, but it truly isn’t that complicated! Just think about this: even if you spent an entire day trying to get your little ones to smile, sometimes their natural behavior (as shown above) is the best; and you can’t beat $10 for portraits.

Now that you know how to get it done, what are you waiting for? I am definitely going to be printing these out at Walgreens. In fact, I think I will be setting the timer on my camera and taking photos of my family. I have it envisioned already: a portrait canvas ordered from Walgreens mounted above our living room couch… genius and thrifty. What a way to make my home look elegant with so little money!

Enjoy these other examples!