Forest Friends Baby Shower

Voilà the finished product! The table centerpieces were a collaborative effort from myself and my two co-hosts.  One made the topiaries and the other painted the birdhouses.  My contribution was the linens and the Kraft paper runner as well as the river rocks (from The Dollar Tree).

For the place settings, I made edible nests (for the DIY, click here) and little penant flags for the names.

The owl pops were made from an owl mold that I purchased at http://www.bakeitpretty.com/.

For the guest book, we thought it'd be fun to get a theme-related children's book and have guests sign inside of the cover.  What a great, useful keepsake!

For the official favors (guests wrapped up the owl pops and their edible nests as well), I made sugar cookies with chocolate ganache icing in the shapes of a squirrel and an acorn (yes, the cutters were from Bake It Pretty as well!).  I loved the forest friend scrapbook paper I found so I simply printed the message on it and matted it against the green to give more color.  The twine bow helped keep a more nature-like feel.

The banner hung from the mantle.

Here's a few shots of the delicious brunch foods and their presentation.

Woodland Forest Baby Shower (Planning in progress)

Yep, it's time for another baby shower!

 This time we are doing a brunch for a bouncing baby boy.  The first time parents met while working at a national forest (both are biologists) and have decided to go with a forest friends nursery theme.  In honor of this nursery (and their love story), my co-hosts and I are throwing a  Woodland Forest themed baby shower.

The Invitations
I used my new favorite site Pingg.com to create these online invitations (Side note:  We also ordered some mail invitations to be delivered to family members and guests who live more than 30 minutes away straight off the site).  Here is what they looked like:

The color scheme
Like the nursery and the invite, the decor will all be shades of brown and green along with splashes of white and light blue.


Some fun details
After seeing an adorable owl baby shower post here, I was inspired to find some twig pencils of my own to use for the guests to use with the [obligatory] shower games.  I am pretty thrilled to have found these ones here :

The Table Decor

My co-hosts are working together to create crafty masterpieces for the centerpiece inspired by this Woodland kids birthday party here :

I am thinking of making edible nests with bird eggs to use as place card holders similar to the inedible ones pictured below.

Here is a post explaining the edible nests and here is a wrapped one used as a favor:

I would like to buy a birch branch (Got any clue where I could find one?) and cut it up to use it to hold label tags for the food items on the buffet display, like they did at this Woodland Critters baby shower

If only I could find or make the stuffies in the critter shapes...

One Sweet Girl: A tea party baby shower

For my sister in law's second child (another girl), I wanted to throw her an intimate baby shower. In order to make it extra special, I enlisted a few of her best friends and we got to work planning a girly tea party. We chose a color scheme of all shades of pink and wanted to include a candy buffet.  We broke out the fine china and linens and dressed the table for the occasion.  My favorite touch was the fuschia and white striped paper straws  from http://www.bakeitpretty.com/blog/2010/02/soda-shoppe/ ).

 

The Hello Kitty Cake Pops were a huge hit! They were NOT easy to make, but here is a close up shot for you! 

in case you missed the original post, you can find a link to the DIY tutorial here. 

  

I made this mini fabric flower garland to add extra beauty to the decor as well. It was simple but very tedious and time consuming. Find the tutorial here.  

  

I was inspired by some cupcake pennants that I saw for sale on Etsy.  These are just scrapbook paper, double-sided tape and toothpicks.  I made the template myself. I will post the template as soon as I figure out how to convert the pdf into a webpage. For the macaron recipe, click here.  

I was inspired to make the tea bag-shaped place cards from Martha Stewart (Who else?). A friend handmade these napkin rings for the occasion and gave them to the mama-to-be as part of her gift.

Here's the food display...

Here is the best shot of the table.  Sorry you cannot get the full effect.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star: A Co-ed Baby Celebration

Voilà: the final product of the shower I have been planning for quite some time. I cannot take all of the credit: I have two wonderful friends who hosted with me. Thanks for the help, Liz and Rachel!

I made this ribbon star banner with a tutorial from Martha Stewart.  Click here for the instructions. I have to say, however, that it was not easy.  Hence the very "homely" looking stars. Overall, I think it was pretty cute.

The foods were a collaborative effort.  We tried to meet the palettes of both men (honey ginger wings) and women (veggie pizza bites) as well as carry our theme throughout the foods. The Posh Piggies were the first to go. You can grab their recipe here.

The lemon meringue cupcakes were a Martha recipe, of course!

Once again with the guidance of Martha (DIY tutorial from her website) I made this sugar scrub as a favor, packaged in baby jars with a large star tag.  One side said "A star is born" and the other said "From our shower to yours." These were a big hit!