Tag Archives: baby shower

Lil’ Sunshine Baby Shower Brunch

Last weekend I had the privilege of decorating a brunch celebrating the upcoming birth of my newest nephew.  I was very inspired by a “My Little Sunshine” baby shower on Hostess with the Mostess.

Our celebration was not a typical baby shower – it was a family brunch with only a few gifts.  In addition, it is my brother and sister-in-law’s fourth child and I didn’t want my other three nieces and nephews to feel any less wanted.  For that reason, I tweaked the theme to “Our Lil’ Sunshines.” (Read: plural sunshines.)

Before I delve into the details, let me give you an overview of my second ever dessert table.  (The first was at my niece’s Alvin and the Chipmunks party.)

Isn’t all that sunshine happy and uplifting?

We ate at three dining tables with coordinating yellow flower arrangements.  (The flowers are fakes I bought for half off at Hobby Lobby.  Love that Hobby Lobby!)

The placemats are individual pieces of paper (already scalloped) that I bought at the scrapbook store.  It was perfect!

On the food table, I displayed photos of each of the four kids (with a cartoon baby in the fourth frame) in matching dollar store frames with yellow scrapbook paper for matting.

Pardon the flash.

I mimicked an orange tier I saw somewhere online.  I would have loved to have another cake plate to display it on, but since I didn’t I used a white ceramic pie plate.

To hang the banner over the dessert table, I painted two regular old wood poles to flank either side of the table.  I made a banner out of scrapbook paper that coordinated with the other accents.

I stacked two different cake stands on top of a box wrapped in yellow wrapping paper for the centerpiece.  I purchased sunflower cupcakes and displayed them on the cake stands. (I also put a little bee on the corner just for kicks.)

Do you remember my love for spider mums?  I was really happy to find some yellow spider mums to display on the left side of the table.  The name of the flowers on the right will remain nameless because, well, I have forgotten their name.

As you might expect, I used lots of yellow candy.  Thankfully I found many options at the dollar store.  In the candy jars I used lemon heads and butterscotch candies.

I also displayed Martinelli’s sparkling cider for toasting.

In the front, I wrapped yellow taffy in individual cellophane bags.  I created tags from the template I found here.  With two hole punches and a short piece of orange ribbon, the bags were perfect to bring some color to the table.

On the right side, I displayed rock candy and yellow star-shaped suckers in votive candle vases I found from the dollar store.  (I used dollar-store lemonade candies to fill the vases and hold the stuff up.)

The three kids received Toy Story sun catchers from the dollar store that they painted immediately.

My sister-in-law sat in the chair of honor.

I was really, really happy with the way this party turned out!  I can’t hardly wait for the new lil’ guy to be born any day now.  I wonder how my oldest nephews are holding out on the wait – after all, they’re very eager to train their new “apprentice.”

Here’s to a smooth birth and a healthy baby boy!

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Past Party: “Wild About Cole” Baby Shower

Another in my “Past Party” series, this is the party that started it all…

My best friend just had her first baby, a son named Cole.  (Such a handsome lil’ bugger, I might add!)  When she found out she was pregnant,  I could hardly contain my excitement.   I knew I needed to throw her a baby shower special enough for such a special little man.

I had never thrown a baby shower before. Actually, I hadn’t really thrown any party before.  So I set out to Google.  I had no idea how vast the word of party planning is!  This is what started my love affair with Hostess with the Mostess and pretty much every other party planning blog written in English.

We settled on a jungle/safari theme and I came up with a catchphrase: Wild About Cole.

I was dead set on creating a passport invitation.  Without Photoshop skills, however, it took me a very long time to create a look I was pleased with.   (In fact, learning how to use Photoshop is one of the items on my 30 Before 30 list, which I’ll reveal soon.)  But after much tinkering, the invite was complete.

It pains me so to have to block out the personal information! Just trust me – it was so lovely!

Guests were greeted with safari balloons:

The tables were anchored with vases full of sand with feathers and straw.

In hindsight, I wish I would have planned initially on three tables.  I would have incorporated burnt orange runners on each of the white round tables.

I used basic ole’ scrapbook paper as placemats.  Fantastic zebra plates were topped with orange giraffes and rafia strings. I was very impressed with the strength of those plates! Doug made sure I knew that wimpy plates are, well, wimpy.

I used burlap and scrapbook paper to create a banner that said “Wild About Cole.”

My apologies for the dark photo.

Our nearby bakery made a beautiful and tasty cake. Genius!

Guests left with “souvenirs” – cookie cutters in the shapes of jungle animals.

The BFF and I both agreed to keep games to a minimum.  She is a huge celebrity gossip nut, so she prepared a matching game with celebrities and their baby names.  I told her not to do a game for her own party but she insisted.  That is how much the nut loves celebrity trivia.

We also played Price is Right with bidding exclusively focused on baby care products. (Credit due to my brilliant aunt on this one.)   It was such a hit! I MCed the event in my best Price is Right voice. Each guest wrote down her estimate and the one with the closest value, without going over, won a prize. The baby item went to Lori.

I’m pretty sure the ladies had a good time and I think the BFF was pleased. I know I was p.u.m.p.e.d to plan another party when all was said and done.

I even started a trend with this shower! Well, maybe I didn’t start it but I was sure there when it happened.  The Hostess Blog posted about a jungle theme baby shower just a few weeks after mine.  You can read it here.

This party officially gave me the party planning bug! Now I can hardly wait for that little man to turn one so I can throw him a huge extravaganza!

Do you enjoy or dread baby showers? How can I plan future showers that make people want to come?

 

P.S. Want to see Cole’s “Wild Wild One” cowboy first birthday party? Click here.

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