Oh Baby! Hosting a Baby Shower

Hosting a baby shower kinda reminded us of planning for the wedding.  There was tons to do and great reasons to try things that I've never tried before, and there was fun to be had. :)

As any sister might want, I wanted my sister's baby shower to be spectacular, because she's awesome and deserves nothing less. Unfortunately, there was a lot for me to learn since I'm not really what people would consider a "baby" person.  Which is why I'm grateful for the help of great friends and family who helped with many aspects of the baby shower to make it spectacular.  I could not have done it without them.

Anyway, I thought I'd share some things from my sister's dragon themed baby shower.

First were the invitations.  I decided to go with one of the many diaper invitations that I've seen on the interwebs.  I really didn't want to cut each one individually however, because there were going to be 60 invites created (we have a large extended family).  So, I used blue card stock, drew the design on the top of a stack of them, taped the whole stack together with some masking tape, and used my scrollsaw to cut them all.  A few things I learned from this:
1.  I really need to practice straight lines with my scroll saw (sigh).
2.  Be ready to assume that the top and bottom card stock will be ruined.  So whatever number of cuts you want, add 2.
3.  If you're really good (which I'm not, but maybe with more practice), this is an awesome way to cut a ton of paper to a design in one shot (can we say Christmas cards?).

The front of the cards had slits so that the tabs folded into them, closing up the diaper into a neat little package.  We added the buttons and the ribbon, and my personal favorite, the dragon tail (attached via a brad, so it swung a little).

In the inside of the card, we glued (tip: use stick glue, not craft glue) a printout of the shower information.   I don't have a picture of the envelop, but it had a cool castle printed onto them to add to the theme.

Next, I found some examples of fill-in cards online, and replicated them for motherly advice and wishes for the new prince.  We had a book donation (listed in the invite), with a raffle.  Each book received got a raffle ticket and we called the raffle number afterwards for a fun prize.  The two castles serving as book ends were two wooden bird houses (bought from Michaels), painted and with bags of aquarium rocks inside for weight (we'll figure out something better later).  I created feather quills (pens) for people to use to fill up the fill-in cards and the book donation removable labels.  Aside from the fill-in cards and book donation/raffle, one of the popular games we played was Gift Bingo (cards made by Emily).

Some of the decorations for the party.
1.  A cupcake tower of diaper favors.  We folded and pinned small squares of fabric into diapers, wrapped some jordan almonds or mints into a bit of tulle, and stuck it inside the diapers.
2.  A coat of arms researched and created by my talented husband which has the phrase "Consilio Et Animis" meaning "By wisdom and Courage."
3.  A diaper castle that I built with a working drawbridge. I used wipes packages for the fillers inside, a couple of bottles to hold the book roof up, a sewn receiving blanket for the base, and some washcloths to cover the cardboard drawbridge.
4.  Some really awesome soft fabric blocks made by Emily, my sister's BFF.
5.  We also used all the onesies for the onesie decorating activity for more decorations (see them hanging in the background).
6.  There were also a lot of balloons and crepe paper, and some store bought puffs, and a yard sign (and probably other things I'm forgetting).

One of the many new things I learned during this experience was learning to work with fondant. To me fondant is kinda like working with clay.  You can use tools to shape things and you can use a dab of water to put them together (not that you'd need to do that with clay). I found these year of the dragon cupcake toppers on a pinterest post.  The tutorial was perfect.  I made the dragon toppers a few days ahead of time and let them air dry.  We ordered a plain cake from Vons with the words "Welcome Baby" printed on, and before the party, we positioned the toppers right in. :)

One of the fun activities that we did for the shower were decorating onesies.  For this, we needed a lot of onesies (tip: get varying sizes (0-18m) so that the baby can use them for the year), fabric with Heat'n Bond Lite Iron-on Adhesive already on the back (ready to be ironed onto the onesie), lots of stencils for designs, fabric pens, cardboard (so pens don't bleed to the other side of the onesie), an iron and ironing board.  We bought a cheap clothesline and hung the onesies up with some wooden clothespins (that my sister glued fabric yo-yos to).  There were a lot of really creative onesie designs.  The cutie pi one was mine. :)

We also set up a photobooth.  We had a few onesies against the backdrop for decorations. Here's Elmer trying out the photobooth.

Lastly, we had a Baby Jeopardy competition.  Here's the board the Emily made.  Everyone had a blast with that game.

Hopefully these have helped you gain some ideas for any baby shower you happen to host in the future.

Flower Pens

Here's a really easy project to disguise simple looking pens to look like a pretty flower.  I made some for our wedding reception and put it next to the guest pages we had.

Here's what you need.

- a pen.  I use the papermate ball points.  It has to be one where you can remove the top cap.
- a flower (nylon or silk)
- ribbon
- floral tape
- regular tape
- craft glue

Okay, so here we go:

1.  Prepare your flower (nylon or silk).  Cut to about a half inch stem to the place you want resting on the top of the flower.  Sometimes this is the flower base, and sometimes it is about where the leaf is.  Your call.  Add a little floral tape to the half inch stem so it fits in the pen top cap area. (you may want to test the flower in the top cap before you start wrapping -- like after the next step).  Set aside while you set up the pen.

2.  Disassemble your pen by removing the cap, and top cap.

3.  Use a small piece of tape and tape the ribbon to the pen.  The tape should only be on a small part of the ribbon, that can be covered up easily when we wrap the rest of the pen.  Notice that I taped the ribbon about a half inch from where the ink part of the pen is.   This is because if you put the ribbon too close, you won't be able to put the cap back on.

4.  With the end of the ribbon affixed, carefully wrap a layer of floral tape around the pen.  This will cover up the slick area of the regular tape, and the rest of the pen to give a little grip when you wrap the ribbon on.

5.  Next, (you probably guessed), wrap the ribbon around the pen.  When you get to the end, wrap the ribbon perpendicular (so it follows the top edge of the pen).  Cut an extra inch, and fold up as shown on the last photo in the image above.  Hold this with one hand.

6.  With the other hand, take your flower, add a dab of glue to the bottom, and stick it into the hole of the pen (where the top cap once was).  Ta da!  :)

Pretty simple wasn't it.  For show, I took a terra cotta pot that my sister painted, added a small piece of paper in the bottom, and filled it with aquarium rocks.  Then, I stuck the pens in.  You can probably use colored sand too.