Baby Shower Fun!!

Recently, I had the enormous pleasure of throwing a baby shower for my best friend!  I have to admit (willingly and happily) that, except for a very brief moment in the beginning when I just had all of the "pieces" of the theme/supplies but not much of a plan as to how exactly I was going to pull everything together and make it super cute, I had the absolute best time planning and hosting this shower!!!

My friend and her husband decided early on in their pregnancy that they wanted to keep baby's gender a secret from everyone but themselves..... making my job a little more complicated but also more exciting because it forced me to try to come up with unique ways to do a gender-neutral theme.  Along with choosing greens and yellows for most of their registry, they chose to decorate the nursery with frogs.  When I saw this on their registry I thought, "I can toad-ally do this!!!" (A cheesy play-on-words, I know, but I couldn't help myself!)


So away I went planning, shopping, scouting out ideas on Pinterest and at JoAnn Fabrics, laying things out on our dining room table, rearranging ideas 72 times, all the while trying to make this an absolutely fabulous baby shower!  And it turned out that planning this shower was some of the most creative fun I have had in a long time!!


I chose to theme the shower 'Green' with splashes of frogs and duckies throughout.  I kept things as simple as possible, which I think is part of what made the shower such a huge success!!  So, here are the details:

The door hanger....

Everything all setup...

An autograph plate for the guest book..

A Stork Bundle filled with diapers...

Flowers sent from an out-of-town Aunt...

'Wishes for Baby' Cards...

Diaper cake filled with goodies for baby
and the soon-to-be parents!!!

Since the shower started at 1pm, I knew that most people would eat lunch beforehand, but I still wanted to have some goodies for them to enjoy just in case.  I also knew that I wanted as much of the food to correspond with the fact that we were at a baby shower as possible.  So I came up with an assortment 'kid-friendly' finger food snacks... I found most of my ideas on Pinterest but found ways to make them unique for this shower... I like the idea of having individual servings of veggies and dip, so I bought small plastic cups that were about 6 inches tall, poured a small serving of ranch dip into the bottom of the cup and then added the carrot and celery sticks ; I used mini waffle cone bowls to serve grapes and blueberries; the meat/cheese/cracker tray consisted of ham and turkey slices rolled up, Mickey Mouse shaped cheese (purchased at Wal-Mart), and animal crackers.  Sadly, I only ended up with a picture of the punch, but rest assured, everything was cute and delicious and the guests enjoyed it!!

My friend's sister-in-law is a self-taught baker who loves baking for the fun of it, and when she found out that I was throwing this shower, she immediately offered to make some yummy desserts for it!!  I found this cake idea off the internet and it couldn't have turned out any better!!  She also made sugar cookies in the shape of onesies and put a letter 'b' on them for baby's last name!!  Cute cute cute..... and yummy too!!!

          

        

And finally, we all know that a good shower has cute favors for guests to take home with them.  And, thank you again to Pinterest, I found one of the cutest ideas ever (here)!!!  I personalized it with a thank you message from the baby and added a plastic binky favor (found at JoAnn Fabrics) to each one.  I am so so pleased with how they turned out!! 

                   

And finally, to completely spoil my friend and finish her baby shower, I found an idea on Pinterest to make a photo album detailing the shower for the soon-to-be parents.  The idea also showed doing a photo booth as a way to record who attended the shower.  It was so much fun!!!  For the photo booth, I already had the frame purchased for another project but it was perfect for this!!  (I included my picture so you could see what it ended up looking like.) 

My version of the 'photo booth'...

And then I found a small photo album at Target that was green with blue and green polka dots (making it perfect for a boy or a girl!!).  I incorporated one of the napkins from the shower into the book, put pictures of the details, guests, and the mama-to-be as she was opening gifts.  I made a section with all of the 'Wishes for Baby' cards.  I do wish I had gotten pictures of the food and a 'photo booth' shot of the belly.. but if I do another baby shower, those things will definitely not be forgotten!!  The book turned out fantastically, if I do say so myself.... sadly though, I did not get a picture of the finished product.  I just might have to sneak a few pictures of it after baby comes!!  :-)

I had a blast planning, organizing, and executing all of my ideas... and several guests commented on how much fun the shower was........ All in all, I think the shower was a HUGE success!!  I seriously can't wait to throw another one!!!  :-)