What a HOOT! Owl-themed baby shower crafts and ideas!

Since I’m baby-shower-blogging this week, I thought I’d do a post about the baby shower I organized and co-threw with a few of the mama’s friends and family members earlier this year.

For Kendra’s baby shower last April, we went with an owl theme. The gender of her baby was a surprise (she ended up being a beautiful baby girl, Gloria, born in June), so we went with greens, oranges and browns for the colors for the shower.

We hand cut owl shapes, wings, eyes, and noses, and then glued them together to make owls for an owl banner. We hung them on twine with painted yellow and green clothes pins, with the letters that spell “WELCOME” mixed in with the owls. Bright pom poms added to the decorations! Catrina drew and cut out the pieces for the owls, and Candace, Katie and I pasted them together! Candace also made the pom poms.

You can see the banner from this angle.

We had a few owls leftover, so we put one to use as a name card for the Mama-to-be!

Here is a decorative mural put together by Catrina and Candace.

The graphics in the middle were designed by my friend Nancy, using a free owl-graphic download that we found online. The inspiration for the centerpieces came from pinterest, and were lovingly assembled by several of Kendra’s friends. The base was made from pint sized mason jars, filled with jelly belly jelly beans. The graphics were printed on a home printer, cut out, mounted on colorful paper, then again mounted on solid paper. These paper lollipops are double sided. Ribbon at the base of the papers added a nice touch!

Here is a close up of the print outs for the centerpieces

This cute and whimsical cake was made by Nancy. Also, very delicious!

We ordered these cookies from Jo Mama (http://jomamassignaturesweets.com/). Not only were they super cute, they were also super delicous!

Our friend Catrina is an artist, and she put together this really creative guest book. It is made from paper, so guests could sign the leaves and the tree.

I think everyone had a good time and it turned out really nice! We were able to get owl-themed cups, plates, and napkins from party city, to tie the party together. lots of Kendra’s friends helped our by bringing delicious foods, and Kendra’s mom generously bankrolled the entire operation! It was a much larger shower than Laurel’s (the sugar and spice shower I posted about on Saturday), so the general atmosphere and approach was completely different! We were really proud with how it turned out!

The chief organizers of this operation were myself, Kendra’s sister-in-law, Kali, and Kendra’s close friend, Narelle. We also had alot of help with the crafts and food from Catrina, Candace, Katie, and Nancy. My husband, Jonathan, helped with set up and food prep, and Kendra’s husband, Keith helped with tear down and clean up. It felt like it took an army to pull off this party, but luckily Kendra had an army of people who wanted to be involved! 🙂

Again, if you want any details about how anything was made or done, feel free to ask! 🙂

Sugar and Spice Baby Shower Crafts and Ideas!

Today, my dear friend Nancy and I co-hosted a baby shower for our friend Laurel. The theme was Sugar and Spice to celebrate Laurel’s baby girl, due in November. We put a lot of heart and crafts into this shower, so I wanted to share some of our decorations, food, and ideas!

A view of the room. We used tulle for the runner. It was 97 cents a yard at walmart, so it was a great price!

Each seat had a lovely place setting with a name tag, a rolled napkin tied with ribbon and a pen, a pink flower, and a games packet which you can’t really see in this shot

We made a lovely candy inspired centerpiece, and mocktails, which I call Cos’mama’politans. They were made with 7Up, orange juice, grenadine, and a maraschino cherry.

For decoration on the gift table, I used mod podge and the same paper from the banner to decoupage the baby’s initials.

We played a guess the spice game, and covered the spice jars that Nancy already owned with cloth. It’s the same cloth we used on the favors!

Here is a shot of the food table!

We served pumpkin cupcakes with a cream cheese frosting for dessert.

We made jar cookies for favors. The idea is that the tags have the instructions on them, and guests take the jars home, add the wet ingredients, and bake. They were super cute!

Another view of the favors. [/caption]

Everyone enjoyed the shower!

It was super fun to plan, craft and execute the shower with one of my closest friends! Thanks, Nancy, for being awesome and crafty, and throwing this shower with me! 🙂 It was cool to be able to love on our friend from afar (she lives in Michigan now) and celebrate her pregnancy!

Here is a rundown of the food, games and crafts:

Food:
– Strawberries, hulled, and filled with a marscapone, balsamic vinegar, cream cheese, and powder sugar, blended together
– Sliced red and orange peppers
– Pumpkin dip and vanilla wafers
– Deviled eggs
– sausage meat balls
– fresh salsa and chips
– spinach dip and pita chips
– garlic bread
– Cos”mama”politans
– CANDY!

Games
– guess the spice
– guess the name that the initials represent
– draw and pass game (this game is a little confusing to explain. Basically, everyone has a stack of papers equal to the number of people in the room. Each person writes a word or phrase related to pregnancy or babies. Then you pass the stack. You look at the stack given to you, place the top paper that had a word or phrase on it on the bottom. Then you draw that word. Then everyone passes. You look at the picture given to you, place it on the bottom. Then you write your best guess of the drawing on the top sheet. Everyone passes. Then you draw the phrase. So on and so on until you get your stack back. Then, you share and its hilarious)
– Thank you card lottery. Have a stack of pre-return-addressed thank you cards. have each guest write their name and address on the front of the card. Then have a drawing for a prize. In this way, the new mama has a stack of already addressed thank you cards. It makes it alot easier on her!
– Advice. We had die cuts of baby related shapes, and had each guest write some advice for the new mama on the die cut. I am going to put the die cuts in a photo book and mail them to the mama. A great present/keepsake! I’ll post a few pictures when I finish it!

Decorations:
– It’s A Girl banner, made from tulle ribbon from Hobby Lobby, and hand cut letters, tied at the ends with ribbons
– Pom Poms
– Tulle Runner
– Candy centerpiece
– Modpodge Initials
– Name cards
– Napkin rolls with ribbon
– Flowers
– Candy accents in white and pink

Favors:
– we stole the favor idea from here: http://www.bakerella.com/mix-things-up/ and then Nancy created takes that fit our baby shower theme, and used beautiful color coordinating cloth to cover them. We used the recipe from that site, also, and Nancy tested them out and said they were delicious!

So I think that it is! Feel free to message if you want more details on anything we put together!