Elephant Themed Baby Shower

It is always a joy for me to plan a baby shower for a close friend and this one was no different.  I have known Jessica since middle school and in high school we became close friends.  I always called her my clone because we were very similar: passion for singing, major sweet tooth, cried at the same things, and somehow our senior year our school put us in almost every class together. We have remained great friends through the years (even though we haven't lived in the same city since graduating high school)!

I asked Jessica if she had anything in mind for a shower theme or color scheme and she said she loved elephants and was decorating the nursery in bright green and blue so I took those ideas and went to town. :) I couldn't find any elephant crafting items (stamps, stickers, ribbons, etc) at Hobby Lobby so I bought some printable elephants off Etsy and used them on my invitations, cupcake toppers, favor bags, etc.

Here are some of the details from the shower:

Wreath for the door... I used the twig wreath with my invite, some ribbon and two paper elephants that matched the decor.

The shower was at 10:30am and since I love any excuse to serve breakfast... I made it a brunch!

On the Menu:
Pigs in a Blanket, Streusel Muffins, Strawberry cream cheese danish, Buttermilk Biscuits and preserves, Chocolate doughnuts, Fruit salad, Cranberry Apple casserole and California Egg Puff.

Centerpiece... I found paper tablecloth that matched my invites at Target so I used it as a runner (over some teal tablecloths I own to bring in both colors.  I used some grey fabric to add some dimension and put an elephant I found at Hobby Lobby with a chalkboard sign and some flowers.  Pretty simple but I liked the way it turned out.

Paper products: I love bringing the theme of the party into the paper products and love that Hobby Lobby now has the cute chevron paper straws in almost every color.

Favors: I used Pink Magnolia for the cookies.  Jessica did a fabulous job as always and matched the cookies perfectly to my invites.  I had her make a special one for the mama-to-be as well.  I (when I say "I" and I'm taking about designing something on the computer, what I really mean is...Charlie) made tags for the cookies with the same elephants from the invites.

 And here's one of me with the guest of honor and adorable mama-to-be!

Farewell Party

This post is bittersweet, although I had fun planning and hosting this party for our dear friends... it meant that they were packing up and heading on to new adventures in a new city.  You may remember the "Tiny Dancer" themed baby shower I hosted almost two years ago... that was for our sweet friends who are now 6 hours away! Anyway, I kept this party pretty simple... and kind of went with a map theme for obvious reasons. :)- Here are some of the details.

The food table: Now that my husband built me these beautiful barn doors, I don't need a backdrop to cover the ugly bi-fold doors.  Also, I bought a map from Target to tie in the moving theme.

Centerpiece: I kept it simple... pictures of our friends, a map of Virginia, some dried flowers, the invite, my new little plant from IKEA and pitcher vase from Target.

 The invite (I made these at home using some scrapbook paper that I thought looked kind of like a map, some blue cardstock and a red pen to draw a heart over the current city and new city).

 Other decor (I placed pictures of them around the house):

At the table in our entryway, I put a frame for the guests to sign as a momento for our friends.

 I made a map banner with "We'll miss you" written on it but if I had it to do over, I wish I'd printed the letters on the map pages from the computer in big letters because I don't think it stands out enough.

 Here's a picture of us with the guests of honor.  We sure do miss them already!

"Once upon a time" Storybook Baby Shower

My friend Kristin and I decided to host a baby shower for our friends Stephanie and Geoff who are due in September with a sweet baby girl.  Kristin had the idea to do a "Once upon a time" storybook theme and I thought it was great so we went with it! Stephanie is a teacher so the theme seemed perfect!
Here are some of the details from the shower.

Invite: Kristin and I had a fun girl's night/invitation making party where we put the invites together.  These were fairly simple and I thought they were perfect for the theme.  We made them look like little books and used scrapbook paper that looked like vintage book pages. Since Stephanie is a teacher and we thought she'd enjoy getting books at the shower, we included a bookmark with the request to bring a book instead of a card.

Wreath: Kristin made this adorable and perfect for our theme, wreath.  She used pages from children's books and put our invite in the center.  Here is a tutorial with something similar if you'd like to DIY.

Decor: Kristin bought some adorable vintage books for her little girl so we decided to base our shower colors off of those and we used the books to decorate throughout the party.  I used my trusty hobby lobby teal vases and some yellow ones that my friend gave me and made the centerpieces with a few Trader Joe bouquets.  Kristin also made the garland that hung over the mantle to look like little books.

Theme Food: We based our menu on children's books and we had the book placed with the food on the table.

Blueberries for Sal... Lemon blueberry tarts

 You are my cupcake... White on white cupcakes with Jeweled cupcake toppers

 Pinkalicious... Pink Lemonade Punch

Strega Nona... Pasta Salad

 The Very Hungry Caterpillar... Fruit Tray and Yogurt

 Stinky Cheese... Cheese dip

 Green Eggs and Ham... Ham and Cheese sandwiches

 Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs... Meatballs

The favors: We went with the always fabulous Pink Magnolia for the sugar cookie favors.  I sent them a picture of the invite and the stack of vintage children books for color inspiration and the cookies were perfect!

The parents to be...

The hostesses with the mama-to-be

And that's "The End" folks.

Owl Themed Gender Reveal Party

I just realized I never posted about the Owl themed gender reveal party that I hosted for one of my close friends.  It was nice to switch it up and plan a gender reveal party instead of doing the baby shower.  I especially enjoyed being the lone person whoooo knew whether it was pink or blue (sorry I couldn't help myself with the rhyming and owl reference) ;)

The invites: I had some adorable green owl card stock stickers that I acquired awhile ago and since owls and green are both gender neutral I ran with the theme.  I came up with the invite idea, we designed them in illustrator and instead of printing them on my home computer, I used a local print shop to print the invites in color and we (ahem, Charlie) cut them and put them together.  I was thrilled with how they turned out!

The wreath with the front and back of the invite

Centerpiece: My amazingly talented friend Jennigray (the florist at RiverOaks) arranged the centerpiece and gave them to me as a "just because" gift a few days before the party so I scratched my previous centerpiece idea and used this beauty instead.   It went perfectly with my table runner and theme. I also used the teal vases that I bought for another party with some pretty flowers I bought at WholeFoods to bring in some more boyish colors (since it was a gender reveal party and everything)! 

Tablerunner: I bought a yard and a half of fabric at hobby lobby and folded over the cut seams and voila... a table runner!

Other Decor: Since the mama-to-be is a school teacher I decided it'd be fun to throw in some chalkboard decor so I bought some wood, a foam board and chalkboard paint and made some signs. I found some owl themed ribbon and some little wooden owls that I used on the foam board to make it look more like a frame.

Themed food: I kept the food pretty simple for this party since it was mid-afternoon and everyone had eaten lunch.  I also made tags for the food out of the same paper I used for the invites.  On the menu... cheese & crackers, Funfetti Dip, Brownie Truffles, a Fruit and yogurt tray, veggie platter, chicken salad, white on white cupcakes, and Pink and blue iced mini chocolate cupcakes.

The favors: I had the always fabulous Pink Magnolia make the owl cookies and had the attendees take the cookie in the color that they thought Jill and Casey were having. 

The reveal: I wrapped a big box with balloons and we went outside to open it and do the big reveal.  I decorated the box using more of the matching paper from the invites.  

I had a "hoot"planning and hosting this owl themed gender reveal party for my sweet friends! I can't wait to hold baby Ethan once he arrives!