Several months ago I threw a "You Are My Sunshine" themed baby shower for my friend. I took a bunch of photos of the ideas I came up with for the theme so that I could share them here, and then I forgot about them! I was a vendor at a craft festival on the same weekend as the shower, so I did as much of the work ahead of time as possible. It was an appetizer and dessert shower, so I was able to keep the menu pretty simple.
The first thing I made was a wreath for the front door. I wanted to make something that the mom-to-be could also use on her front door after the baby arrived. It's a straw wreath form wrapped in yarn. The clouds and sun are made out of two layers of felt, and stuffed with a tiny bit of poly-fill to give them some body. I stitched the felt with embroidery floss, and hot glued them to the wreath. I printed the "It's a boy" banner onto kraft card stock, cut it out with an xacto knife, and hot glued it to the wreath.
While I was making the wreath, I also made the cake topper to match. The banner and felt pieces are smaller than the ones on the wreath, and aren't stuffed with poly-fill, but are otherwise the same. The banner is glued onto two wooden skewers, and I slipped skewers in between the layers of felt on the sun and clouds.
Next I made tissue paper pom poms. There is a
tutorial on the Martha Stewart website that explains how to make pom poms. They are somewhat time consuming, but easy to make. I assembled all of the pom poms I was using in advance, but didn't fluff them until I hung them up. I put up all the decorations several days ahead of time since I was busy with the craft festival. My daughter thought it was awesome to have pom poms hanging all over the house.
Since I don't have a color printer, I designed two-sided post card sized invitations and had them digitally printed at overnightprints.com. I tried to make it look like it was felt, to match the cake topper. They were mailed in kraft paper envelopes.
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| My address and phone number have been removed, but you get the idea |
I pulled the labels off of the bottled water, and printed new labels with the artwork from the invitation combined with the banner from the cake topper. They were printed in black on text weight kraft paper.
The favors were bags of lemon drops, with a cloud shaped tag tied to each one that says "Thanks for dropping in." I couldn't find a cloud shaped punch in time to make these, but I know that one exists, which would save a ton of time cutting out the little clouds. I also cut out little rain drops from glitter scrapbook paper and glued them to to clouds.
Since I don't have an ice bucket, I took a small galvanized bucket that I had laying around and wrapped it in yarn to match the wreath. It actually worked really well, the yarn kept the bucket insulated so the ice didn't melt.
We had lemonade and water for beverages. I never know if it's appropriate to have alcohol at a baby shower, since the mom-to-be can't have any, so I opted not to. I guess it all depends on the type of crowd you are serving.
For appetizers, I served deviled eggs, pimento cheese sandwiches, broccoli salad, shrimp cocktail, and stuffed mushrooms (which didn't make it into the photo). I made the broccoli salad and stuffed mushroom filling 2 days ahead of time, and the deviled eggs and sandwiches the night before. All I had to do on the day of the shower was bake the mushrooms and arrange the shrimp.
I made shrimp shots in plastic shot glasses (nice plastic, not like a solo cup). First I poured in a little cocktail sauce, then I hung shrimp on the rim and garnished them with parsley.
For desert, we had lemon pie shots, spice cake, and creamsicle cake pops. I made the cake pop filling ahead of time, rolled it into balls, and froze it. I let them thaw in the fridge the day before the party, and dipped them in candy coating. The lemon pie crust and filling were made 2 days ahead. I topped them with meringue the morning of the shower and toasted them just before the guests arrived. The cake was baked and frosted the day before the shower.
The cake pop stand is a piece of florist foam, covered in paper and then wrapped in yarn to match the wreath and ice bucket. To make the creamsicle pops, I baked a yellow cake and then poked holes in it with a wooden spoon while it was still in the pan. I poured orange jello over it, and put it in the fridge. The next day I crumbled the cake and mixed in vanilla frosting and a little orange extract and food coloring because it didn't taste creamsicle-ish enough for me. I was using gluten free cake, so that may have affected the flavor, or lack of flavor. Then the sticks were inserted and they were dipped them in vanilla candy bark.
The lemon pie shots were assembled in 2 oz glasses from Ikea. The bottom layer is a graham cracker crust, topped with lemon pie filling and meringue. I put all of the glasses into a baking dish and toasted them in the oven, but you could also toast them with a torch.
The games we played were:
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Mad libs
-Name the baby (everyone gets a sheet of paper and writes down as many names for baby animals as they can think of- puppy, kitten, duckling, etc.)
-Don't say baby (everyone gets a clothes pin and if someone catches you saying "baby" then they can take your pin. The person with the most pins at the end of the shower wins)
I don't have a photo of them, but I used mini clothes pins and glued on rain drops that I had cut from glitter scrapbook paper.
- Guess the size of mommy's tummy (pass around a roll of streamers and have each person cut a piece that they think is the same size as the mom-to-be's tummy is. Then, wrap a piece around the mom-to-be and cut it to the exact size of her tummy to compare with the others. The closest guess wins)
The prizes for the games were blue candle holders with cloud tags that said "you make me happy when skies are gray".
I had planned on getting the mom-to-be a corsage with a sunflower, but I sent my husband to the store to pick up the balloons for the mailbox, and totally forgot to tell him about the flowers. I whipped up a felt flower corsage for her instead of going back out to the store. If I had thought about it, that's probably what I should have done to begin with.
