It’s been a long time since this party – and, even longer since I’ve done any party planning.  But, when Jo told me that she was pregnant – I immediately claimed the planning of her baby shower – y’all know that I just can’t help myself! So, Jo picked a colour scheme (turquoise), I picked an accent color (yellow – I was going to pick lime green, but I figured that people would then think she was having a boy, so I went with something a little more gender neutral, though, as it turned out, people still thought ‘boy’ anyway!) and I asked her if she had any ‘animal preference’, and after a little thought, she chose ‘owls’.  Not only that, but we decided to theme the food around an ‘afternoon tea’ type menu, I created a Pinterest inspiration board, and got planning.

Decor

I think it’s safe to say, that the piece de la resistance of the baby shower (clearly a stroke of genius on my part ;)), was ordering this masterpiece from my good friend Lindsay.  Not only was it a gift for the expectant mother, but it was so beautiful, that it was our centerpiece and was a very functional part of the décor.  For those of you interested, Lindsay makes these, ‘cupcakes’ and pacifier clips (and can ship them), her page can be found here on Facebook, ‘Chicky babe creations’.

Aside from the typical matching coloured table cloths, cutlery, napkins, cups, my new love of patterned paper straws and my homemade dollar store food label chalk boards, decorations were sparse – I would have loved to do more, but I ran out of time (and had a little person in tow).  I picked up some paper lanterns (which my lovely hubby strung up around Jo and Mark’s living room for me) a banner to match the baby shower sign that we stuck in the front yard to let people know where the shower was taking place and some matching ‘streamers’ to hang next to the lanterns.

Games, guestbook and favours

We didn’t embark on a lot of ‘typical’ American baby shower games.  For us folk from the UK, we tend to want to reign it in, nothing OTT, nothing involving chocolate bars being melted in diapers etc.  So, I chose a few interactive games and brought along a small prize for the winner of each.

There was a ‘guess how many lemon drops’ game, a ‘say baby’ game, and a set of four baby shower games by Fisher Price that I got here, on Amazon.  A word scramble, a word search, a baby animal name game and baby shower bingo (I filled in each of the bingo cards myself to make it a fair fight!) I wasn’t sure how they’d go down, but everyone took them seriously, their sense of competition took over, and you could hear a pin drop when the games were handed out.  It was good fun!

I saw this guestbook idea on Pinterest, with links through to Etsy stores, charging $35-$45 for various forms of this canvas.  As much as I love Joanne, I wasn’t paying that for it, and thought, hey, I can make that – and I have all of the necessary stuff, on hand in the house.  So make it, I did.

I LOVE how it came out.  I started off the ‘leaves’ with a few blank fingerprints, for those who didn’t want to get their fingers messy, and, when everyone had signed it, Lindsay and I went over the tree again with our fingerprints, filling in some extra leaves and making it look a little fuller.

For favours, I kept it simple.  I got a box of chocolate truffles from Costco, some tulle circles and ribbon from Hobby Lobby and got to work.  It was quick, easy – and, a yummy favor for people who came to the shower.

Food

Since Jo is from Northern Ireland, I wanted to incorporate elements of a traditional ‘afternoon tea’, with elements of Texas/America – considering she’s about to have an American baby, I thought it was fitting.  My own contributions to the food side of things, was limited, I’d had surgery less than two weeks prior to her shower and wasn’t up to doing a lot of manual labour.  So for food stuffs, I enlisted help and delegated different elements of the menu to close friends who were only too keen to help. Let me just note, we had WAY too much food.  Even if everyone in attendance had taken home a doggy bag (which we should have made them do!) there still would have been way too much food.  It all looked rather impressive though! Quiche (two fillings), sandwiches (egg salad and ham and cheese), whole wheat scones, white scones, veggie tray, wheaten bread and pasta salad.

Dessert and drinks

I had planned on making a delicious Victoria sponge, but time got away from me – I’m claiming ‘Newbornitis’ for this one – there are only so many hours in the day when Lewis is sleeping, and, instead of the sponge, I made some Northern Irish tray bakes.  There was no shortage of sweet treats! Fruit tray, Trader Joe’s frozen macaroons, caramel squares, coconut squares, biscuit cake, Butterfinger slices and Reeses peanut butter cup slices.

For drinks, we kept it juicy – orange, lime, lemon, raspberry lemonade and cranberry – all from the ‘Simply’ range.  Truly simple (open and pour) and refreshingly delicious – I haven’t yet found a ‘store brand’ or another name brand that is comparable to the Simply range, so, why bother? LOL!  Joanne also had tea, coffee, water and diet coke on hand, for those who didn’t want to partake in the fruity juices.

This was one of my favourite baby showers, EVER!  The group was a nice size, the morning was fun – there was no cooking in a hot oven on the day, there wasn’t much for me (as organizer) to do other than the original set-up and it was nice and laid back – plus Joanne sent me a beautiful bunch of flowers to say thank-you 🙂

I had a few other ideas for this baby shower, a candy bar, serve the fruit in mason jars, Oreo baby rattles, a balloon and streamer back photo backdrop, messages for the baby/parents on a twine washing line, tissue poms – the list goes on.  But I did what I could and I think it looked fab – and Jo loved it, so it mustn’t have been too bad at all 😉