Birds, Baby Boys, and Showers

My circle of friends has produced mainly baby girls to this point. The boys are finally starting to arrive, which has baby shower planning alive with creativity as we explore browns, blues, and greens! This shower was for a dear friend of mine that ended up in the hospital the day of her shower. Her baby boy came 10 weeks early and spent some time in the NICU before he could go home. He is 6 months old as of a few days ago and doing fantastic! Between his huge smile and sweet coos you would never know he showed up to the party a little early. 
Even though we missed the original date for her shower (her water broke on the day of her shower), another day was picked and we threw her shower once her baby had arrived! 

This picture does not do justice to the incredibly beautiful invitation that Allison from Allison-Kate Stationery created for us. Please visit her blog to see her amazing work. She uses superior paper and pays close attention to the little details that make the biggest difference. I felt so lucky to be able to meet her and see the tools she uses to assemble her masterpieces! She is a close personal friend of Debbie.

We found the paper and ribbon at a craft store like Michaels or Joanne's Fabrics. Then printed the letters directly onto the top piece that is a heavier card stock to give the banner some weight. You can find free fonts online at 1001freefonts.com to download to your computer's font library. 

We used mason jars for drinking glasses (which you can purchase at Smart and Final) and added a blue candy stir stick for color. Those can be purchased online or at specialty candy shops.

Lemonade and Sweet Tea for drinks in honor of the new momma that was from the South

Cake pops were made by Debbie. I have yet to try to make these yet, but they were a big hit and so delicious. I will have to get together with her to have her teach me to make them.

We had decided to do a dessert shower with cookies, lemon bars, cake pops, cup cakes. We also had out nuts, a cheese plate and a fruit plate to balance some of the sugar overload. 

My best friend worked for an event coordination company at the time and allowed me to borrow the bird cages and amazing wood covered vases for the day. The flowers were picked up from Trader Joe's.

Debbie loves birds and already had several of the nests and bird figurines.

We rented linens from a local party rental shop and then bought fabric for runners that were literally ripped to size for a frayed edge that added great texture.

The large "J" was found at a craft store. We left it as is, but you can cover it with decorative paper, spray paint it, or if you are truly an artist hand pant something on it!

Our new mom LOVES Little Golden books. We acquired most of them off EBay for super cheap, and then my mother in law found several at local garage sales! The books were for each guest to write a prayer or blessing to baby James. So that each time Mom or Dad reads him a story, they can read that to him too!

We went with chocolate covered sunflower seeds as the take away gift. Which you can buy at Trader Joe's too! Allison graciously gave us a pdf of the image she used on the invitation so that we could use it other places.

The bird stamp we used for inside the books we also used to hand stamp the napkins.

Since all our foods were finger foods we only had to worry about plates and napkins.

The gift table.

I learned how to build a diaper cake through a step by step video on Blisstree.com

One of my favorite blogs to ripoff ideas from is Kara's Party Ideas. People submit their parties to her to post and there are so many great ideas! Once you are on her website you will be clicking link after link for hours. My goal is to have one of my parties featured on her sight. I am so glad I could work along side Debbie for this shower. She is incredibly gifted in decor, baking, sewing, and writing. She was the one to introduce me to Allison and to Kara's blog. Thanks Deb for letting me copy what you do so well!