Pinterest Fails

Updated September 2023

Do you love a good Pinterest Fail? Or want to be sure to avoid making your own? Keep reading to learn what not to do when taking pictures of your infant this fall. 

So if you’re a Pinterest parent or a wannabe I’m sure you’ve seen these adorable pumpkin photos before…

or this…

Baby Photo Shoot Props on Amazon
Well, I got something like this…

Seriously, his face doesn’t look much different from this emoji, do you see those little balled up fists?  #PinterestFail  #Angrybaby

Obviously I am not an authority on baby photos.  What I can tell you is what not to do! Here are the three main things I did wrong:

1. M is the exact wrong age for this project

   If you see the happy babies above you’ll notice that baby #1 is a new newborn.  Still pliable and sleepy all day long.  Baby #2 is older than M, possibly able to sit up by herself and it looks like you could probably interact with her a little bit more than with a three month old.  Once M goes over the edge there is no return.  He got so mad getting into the pumpkin that we couldn’t recover afterward no matter how many times we tried to convince him he was, “happy and he knew it!”

2. Pumpkin choice

I thought I was real smart and bought one of those fake foam carvable pumpkins.  I didn’t want to put my sweet new baby into a goopy gross pumpkin.  I figured it would be so much quicker & cleaner to carve out a foam pumpkin than to have to scoop and clean out a real one.  Let me tell you, I was wrong!  I had never actually used one of these pumpkins before.  First of all, they are kind of expensive for one time use.  I justified this with my Joanne Fabrics coupon and the thought that I could maybe resell this thing online as a photo prop… and because I wanted it and was stubborn.

Next, it was about as easy to carve as a regular pumpkin, if not a little harder.  My husband was pretty convinced I was going to stab myself at any moment because the knife kept getting stuck.  Also, even though there was no goop or seeds to clean out, sawing away at this thing left a lot of dust and I still had to clean the thing out.  I used a damp washcloth and wiped the inside down.  It was still dusty, so I used a big burp cloth/receiving blanket to line the bottom.

Along with the fake pumpkin being expensive, hard to carve and dusty, it was also kind of scratchy.  A real pumpkin would’ve been much more comfortable for my poor guy to sit in.

3. Do not attempt by yourself

My husband happened to be working from home and around to help when I decided to do this project.  That had not been my original plan, I was totally prepared to go at this by myself.  Thank goodness I didn’t.  Pumpkins are not perfectly flat on the bottom-even the fake ones- and once you put an angry tiny person in them they are wont to tip over.  If the husband hadn’t been close by, I’m pretty sure little guy would’ve bopped his head on the porch column or my hand would’ve been in every picture.  You need someone to kind of hide behind the pumpkin to steady it or at least to be close by and focused only on the baby-not on a camera, the lighting, the background and oh yeah, that baby too.  Not to mention, M did not want to be put inside of the pumpkin (why not?!) so it physically took two people to get him into the leg holes.  Afterward he was so mad we could not get him out.  Chaos Dad turned into the Hulk and broke the baby out…so much for reusing the thing!

While the pictures turned out hilarious, it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for M’s three month photos.  We wound up taking him back inside (not before getting caught with our screaming baby in a pumpkin by the neighbors) laying him on an orange blanket and getting some awesome smiley pictures that way instead.  Let’s see what your best photo fails are!  Comment below, I’d love to know I’m not the only one with lofty goals.

Want more fall activities? Check out these posts by The Chaos Manager:

Apple Curriculum

Apple Cinnamon Trail Mix

Back to Preschool