This weekend I hosted my first baby shower and I'm thrilled to say it was a success! The guest of honor is a close friend from college who moved away to Texas, so the all of the guests who attended were close, special friends of hers who she doesn't get to see often enough.
I wanted the shower to be budget-friendly but still very cute and sweetly themed, so I decided on a forest theme. I already had a lot of rustic accents and a plethora of kraft paper goodies to choose from.
With a little digging on Pinterest, I learned that hosting showers in an "off" time (i.e. not around a meal time) makes the shower more affordable because you don't need to offer a full spread of food. Who knew!? Seems like common sense but I'd have never thought of it on my own.
The shower was at 2PM and I offered a yogurt bar along with a few light snacks. Here is the food spread:
I had tags on hand from
Pick Your Plum so I labeled each element of the yogurt bar by tying tags on each spoon and fastening with a little coordinating washi.
Guests were invited to fill a stemless wine glass with a choice of: plain yogurt, vanilla greek yogurt (which is now an addiction. YUM), blueberries, granola, strawberries, coconut, chocolate chips and honey.
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| Yogurt bar |
These are some of my FAVORITE little sammies. They are mini rye bread, a smear of cream cheese, some paper thin cucumber slices (thanks, mandolin!), fresh dill and a little pink himalayan finishing salt. So light, fresh and delicious! The perfect little shower snack. I probably ate 8 of them throughout the shower. They are so delicious!!
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| Cucumber dill tea sammies |
Every shower needs games, so I used my Cricut to make tiny onesies and we played "Don't Say Baby!" which was a hoot.
The rules:
- Clip a onesie to your outfit (I hot glued cardstock onesies to hair clips from Hobby Lobby [$3.49 for 25 clips - 30% off])
- If you hear the word "BABY" - take their onesie!
- Person with the most clips wins!
We also played "In the Diaper Bag" which is a game I learned about online also. All of the guests got in a circle and the mama-to-be-started. She said, "In the diaper bag is...a cloth diaper" each person following her had to add an item in addition to repeating every item mentioned before them. If you forget an item, you're out. The person with the most creative item who also didn't forget an item "in the diaper bag" won!
The final opportunity to "win" at this shower was offered to anyone who gave a cloth diaper gift to the mama-to-be. I randomly drew a name and that person won a prize!
I wanted the prizes to be thoughtful and sweet, but of course...affordable! So I chose three precious mugs from Hobby Lobby (40% off for Easter collection items!) and bought three boxes of my favorite Celestial Seasonings tea. Each winner went home with a sweet mug and a box of herbal tea! Sorry, I forgot to photograph :-X (BAD BLOGGER)
A friend made banners to help decorate the shower. Sadly, I didn't get any photos of the other decorations but you can see the gorgeous banners this friend made with her Silhouette!
Since the guest of honor flew in from Texas for the shower, I didn't want to burden her with shipping a pile of gifts home. With the help of some other girls, I organized a group gift to send the mama-to-be a gift from her registry I knew she desperately wanted.
However, it wouldn't be as fun to just give her a photo of the gift everyone pitched in for, so I made her go on a scavenger hunt :) You can read along with the clues below and see if you catch on to what the gift is before the hunt is over!
There's one more gift and we all chipped in
But we won't tell say what, you have to win.
So explore the home and find your clues.
We think it's something you'll really use.
Start in the place you'd wash all those nappies.
Finding this clue will make you so happy.
Clue one: laundry room
Little Blue Truck Book
In this book is the first clue.
Read this page out loud is what to do.
"Little blue truck rolled into the city. Beep! Beep! Beep! Isn't it pretty?"
Next clue location - taped to back of book:
The special location for your next riddle
Is not where you would play a fiddle
It's the next room over where you'd cook and clean so go there now, we won't be mean.
The herbs you seek you can't make into a dish.
Turmeric is a snail. And Basil, a fish.
Clue 2- on the fish tank
This word is one that doesn't mean tall.
In fact it means "very small"
Say it out loud is what you do
Sound it out and you'll get the next clue.
The next place you'll find the final clue
It's where you can put your feet up before you're due
Next clue location - in the TV cabinet
Sit down and listen to the song we play
But that's not the answer to the riddle today
The song you know, but the math is wrong.
So a little algebra will help you along.
Last clue: Play "Like A G6"
Take out the number and add a letter.
This riddle just gets better and better.
The answer here also happens to be a drink. Served hot or cold - what letter is it, you think?
Give her final clue:
Little blue truck rolled into the CITY and beep beep beep wasn't it pretty?!
That fish and snail didn't help at all.
Their clue was just so very small.
You may not have finished the game just yet
But we think the last clue was a pretty sure bet.
You did a fine job following clues
But when you get home, put on your walking shoes.
I still cry just thinking about how fun that was. I woke up at 5am one morning last week with the inspiration to write the scavenger hunt. Wondering what I was going to do was on my mind for weeks and when I woke up with the idea I had to just sit up in bed and write it all on my phone. Thank goodness I did because I'm so proud of how it turned out!
Naturally, the room full of guests (including the guest of honor) was crying. It was so special and so sweet. The mama-to-be just let it sink in for a moment and bowed her head to cry when it hit her. "I really wanted that stroller!" she sobbed. It is definitely a moment I'll never forget.
Now finally, I had to send the guests off with a tasty treat. I made trail mix with ingredients I mostly had on hand, so I only needed to buy a few things. I made popcorn with my air popper, added butter and seasoned salt, stick pretzels and M&Ms/Reese's Pieces (because I couldn't pick so I had Hubs buy both when he went shopping).
I'd bought some favor bags again from
PYP and washi tied the whole thing together with some tags I had on hand. I think they turned out pretty cute!
I think the mama-to-be and all the guests really enjoyed the shower and I'm proud of what I was able to present. Our other house still hasn't sold, so this new house isn't completely furnished...which meant a lot of guests were standing room only because we don't have enough chairs or sofas. But I think we made due and I'm still proud I was able to host such a lovely shower in our new home :)
SHOUT OUT to Hubs for all of the hard work you tirelessly put into this shower to help me pull it off and also SHOUT OUT to everyone who helped make the stroller possible - especially YiaYia :)
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Now I just carry one Zipper Pouch by Thirty-One. And can you believe that one little tote holds all of these goodies?! Plus, with just one cloth AIO diaper in the tote, it fits in my purse!
