Last weekend was the big baby shower I had been planning for my cousin, Allison. Although I had already ordered my craft supplies and planned out the desserts/decor way in advance, finding the time (and energy) to make everything after putting in full days with the twins proved difficult.
Fortunately, my mom flew in to my rescue the week before the shower. It wasn’t much of a vacation for her, to be sure! We took the girls out and about during the day, and at night, exhausted, we worked on decorations and desserts. The shower never would have come together without her and Jake’s help!
Since there are a ton of pictures from the shower, I’m dividing them up into separate posts. This first post details the decor.
Allison picked an Under the Sea/Ahoy It’s a Boy theme and chose a cute invitation from this Etsy shop (redacted for this post):
I also included a diaper raffle ticket in the invites, but I think I must have printed them too small because several shower attendees said they never saw their raffle ticket in their invite. Tear!
After collecting a million ideas from Pinterest, I decided on a Caribbean blue, royal blue and lime green color scheme:
The colors worked out nicely!
Poor Zack (Allison’s husband) has fluffed 30 pom poms in the past few months, a task he surely loathes by now. He’s helped me with them for Allison’s shower, the twin’s birthday party and my Dad’s 60th party! I told him he can officially retire now.
Another angle of the dessert table. I LOVE how it came together.
For the main banner, I used a template from this shop on Etsy. I then Photoshopped in my own letters to create the “Ahoy It’s a Boy” banner.
My mom and I found the lime green gladiolus flowers at the grocery store, of all places, and thought they would provide some nice height as a contrast to everything else on the dessert table. Other flowers at the shower included lime green mums and blue/white/green hydrangeas.
The view walking in.
The buffet table before it was filled with food.
Each table was decorated with a tablecloth, table runner, and fishing net, as well as flowers or some other centerpiece.
My mom made the fabric banner which turned out so cool (and kinda looked like seaweed, too!)
My mom also made these centerpieces. My original plan was to hot glue a blue ribbon around the sand and shell-filled vase and then glue the starfish on, but my mom instead suggested wrapping twine around the mouth of the vase and leaving the ribbon off. She was totally right.
I tied the napkins and silverware up with twine and a lifesaver and stuck them all in a festive sand pail (thank you, Pinterest!)
I of course HAD to include giant glitter letters, as I did at the twin’s birthday party. The grass “seaweed” spouting out of the vases was cut by Jake from the day lilies lining the sidewalks in our neighborhood (shhhh…don’t tell our neighbors!)
The sign-in tables.
How cute are those flip flops? On sale for $3 at Children’s Place! A lot of the beach decor I already had, and the rest was on sale at Michael’s, on top of coupons. I downloaded some whale-themed scrapbook paper off Etsy and used Photoshop to create all the signs.
I originally had an adorable sign for the basket on the table that read: “Late-Night Diaper Changes: For Mom’s Use Only!” I never did figure out what happened to the sign, but am guessing it fell off before I could set everything up.
Anyway, the basket held a bunch of diapers on which people wrote funny messages for Allison so she can have a laugh when she’s up late at night changing diapers. Some examples of messages people wrote on the diapers included, “Only 5,000 more to go until I’m potty trained!” “It’s 2 a.m. Isn’t this fun?” and “Isn’t it Daddy’s turn yet?”
Advice cards for the mommy to be.
Allison’s friend, Whittney, made the adorable diaper cake. It turned out so cute!
I placed a few baby pictures of Allison and Zack around.
One of the few crafts I actually put together myself included ten lantern jellyfishes. I was so excited about this project, but it turned out to be such a pain.
First, you have to cut the lantern in half, THEN cut strips of fabric/streamers, THEN crinkle and pinch said streamers/fabric to create a swirly effect, THEN stretch out strips of plastic tablecloth to make ruffles, THEN glue the tablecloth ruffles on the border of the lantern to create a “skirt,” and finally, hot glue the legs of the jellyfish onto the skirt.
The problem was, the hot glue was HOT (shocker)! It tended to melt through the fabric and plastic really fast, burning my fingers in the process. It was such a tedious project, but they all looked way cute hanging from the ceiling.
My mom found the perfect onesies for our onesie banner– in the theme colors, no less.
Jake spray painted some clothespins with blue glitter spray paint for me and I made little round clothespin toppers that said “Ahoy” or “Baby Boy.”
The present-opening area with another “Ahoy It’s a Boy” banner from this Etsy shop.
I told my mom she needs to open an Etsy store selling these tissue banners. She made one for the girls’ party as well. They only cost a few dollars in tissue paper and ribbon to make, but generally sell for $30 and up on Etsy.
Baby Zack and Allison.
Under the Sea banner.
Table centerpieces for the round tables. My mom and I totally lucked out by finding blue, green and white hydrangeas at Trader Joe’s, which is exactly what I had envisioned.
Centerpieces for the rectangular tables:
Yay Balloons!
My mom pretty much put together all the favors herself. I ordered some cute glass cork jars off of a discount craft website and my mom mixed together sea salt, peppermint epsom salt and blue food coloring to make some soothing bath salts/foot soaks. I used Photoshop to create a little tag that read “From Allison’s ‘shower’ to yours. Thanks for coming!”
Phew! All those late nights working the decor paid off because everything turned out the way I had designed and imagined it. I can’t speak for Jake and my mom, but I had fun putting everything together!
I think Michael’s Crafts and Hobby Lobby need to make me a VIP customer or something…one of the cashiers started recognizing me after a few times of going in and even gave me some tips for making my cake pops more flavorful!
Details on the food (my favorite part!) and other shower happenings to come.
Lots of love,
Adorable! You pulled off another amazing shower. You should go into the party planning business.
Unreal! You are so amazing and talented!