Purple & Green Baby Shower – {guest post}

Today I have a special treat for you – a guest post from my really good friend Christina!! She threw such a beautiful shower for her friend that I asked if she’d be kind enough to share it on She’s{kinda}Crafty and after a couple of threats of hot glue gun burns, she agreed! (I kid, I kid, she lives too far away and my extension cord won’t reach that far). So, without further ado,  here is Christina in her own words –

I had the opportunity to throw a baby shower for a sweet friend of mine and I was super excited! Her mother was my co-host, but I knew she’d leave the design details up to me and let me run with it. And with great power, comes great amount of time spent on trying to think up perfection! 🙂

The first order of business….come up with an invitation. This was the hardest part for some reason. I spent a month creating a bunch of different designs until I scratched them all and went with my gut. My biggest challenge being that the location already had a very specific theme going on. It was at a Key West Style hotel and the room we were renting was called “The Hemingway”. Sooo you pretty much get the idea. But I wasn’t going to let that free-styling cat lover get the best of me. Only I didn’t want to do another coastal party. And I LOVE anything coastal as does the mommy-to-be. But I was REALLY intent on leaving the baby whale out to sea this time.

The nursery was going to be lilac and green. The only room in her house that wasn’t ocean inspired and I decided we were going purple and green! And we were going to purple and green the crap out of this room. I then found the perfect digital papers and THE PERFECT vintage tricycle to go with it. And thus was born the invitation. I hand applied a rhinestone onto the purple flower on each invite and it was the perfect amount of ‘bling’. I carried that same purple flower over to the outside of the envelopes that read “You’re invited…”. It all felt very official at this point and it was on to the details.

I was very set on putting my time and efforts into this party to make it that much more special for her. I wanted to make a long fabric pendent banner to go across a long bank of windows and I thought how cute for her to keep it for the nursery as well (and what am I getting myself into, I only bought my first sewing machine a month ago!). I had pinned a yarn letter a while back and wanted to add that to the mix as well. It’s amazing how much time you can spend on the littlest of details. And sometimes you think, will anyone even notice this? I’m going to walk away from this party with no discernible fingerprints left from the hot glue and will anyone even care? They totally do! And it made it all worth the months of details. I think my best bet will be to walk through the party via photographs. Oh yeah, I also played photographer. There should be an official rule, if you host, you can not also be in charge of photos. You find yourself furiously snapping with no regard for settings as you try to beat those on time guest! Late guests are largely undervalued. 🙂

One of the first things I decided on were the favors. Lilac filled burlap satchels. 1. Because it seemed very fitting all considering and 2. I was still trying to get rid of the 5lbs of lavender I had purchased for my wedding in 2005. 5lbs of lavender is A LOT of lavender. And Ironically, (due to the size of the satchels) I didn’t have enough for this and wound up ordering another pound. DOH! I ironed on the tricycle to each one of them via t-shirt transfers. Tied them up with purple baker’s twine and attached a thank you label. The mommy-to-be was trying to stake claim on the entire basket they smelled so good.

Additionally, I wanted to do a small candy buffet. Nothing major, but all the food was being taken care of by the location and this was a way I could personalize it a little more. I designed Hershey Nugget wraps (and most certainly did not resist the temptation to make sure the chocolate was still fresh at all times) and Hershey Kiss labels for two 5lb bags of each! (I have a thing with 5lb bags, don’t I?) I imported the kiss designs to silhouette and cut them out on sticker sheets with my cameo. Made that process a littler easier to grab a sticker and go! I was told over and over I was nuts!

As you can see from the photos, the wall color is pretty dominant. I had seen and taken photos of the room before hand (Read: I stalked the room while another baby shower was going on. Lunch, a Pina Colada, and a Key Lime Pie later, they finally all left.)so I knew that I couldn’t fight it. And it’s one of the reasons I chose to bring burlap into the equation. I covered a large canvas I picked up at Michaels with a coupon with some cheap burplap I picked up with a coupon at JoAnn’s.

I went simplicity on desert. Good old fashioned cupcakes. Easy to eat and self serve. And Publix never fails on making them delicious. Now I will tell you that Publix and I have a different views on desert styling. I really think the lady red marked my order with a big warning after I gasped at the idea of a sheet cake (which I would eat faster than you can say sheet cake) and asked them not to use the star tip for the icing on the cupcakes. But after I gave her a copy of the invitation she understood and even glitter dusted all my cupcakes having seen the rhinestone. On record, I ate at least two of them.

You’ll notice on the table the sash I attached at the front. That was literally a random 20 minute project I did at the last minute. I had some extra pieces of burlap and was like..I wonder what would happen if I gathered it a little? So I did. And then I gathered some more. And then I gathered some purple scraps.(It was a gathering game at this point). Pretty soon I found myself rolling the gathers around each other forming a flower. And for the finale I rolled up a piece of lace for the center and wound up with this. If nothing else, it broke up the white table cloth a little.

One of my favorite parts of this party was the ceiling. The room had a bamboo grid ceiling with tropical leaves and all I could think about was, I GET TO HANG STUFF FROM THE CEILING! I wish I had a photo of what the whole thing looked like. It was so pretty to be sitting below it. And it took the longest to execute during set-up (2 hours!), but I had some pretty awesome helpers. And I mean it, because I thought I was doing everyone a favor when I pre-attached all the raindrop crystals to fishing line. Not so much. They wound up getting tangled no matter how organized I tried to keep them and had to be cut and re-tied. But the effect was so much fun from below. To the ceiling we attached about 80 raindrop crystals, a boat load of fabric strips from the fabric I used in the bunting and tassel garland along with some lace laid over the grid, 9 hanging lanterns varied in size and 3 paper umbrellas. It was my favorite part of all the decor.

For table centerpieces, I wanted it to feel natural with the room. There were six tables and I went with three different things. Two tables had antique mason jars courtesy of Grandma-to-be with baby’s breath.

Two more of the tables had terrariums I put together during the planning process with plants that had purple and green shades. The last two tables had glass lanterns with led candlelight, which added a nice glow to the room.

Something I was super excited about was the giant 36″ balloon I ordered that I was going to use for the gift table. Unfortunately, Publix didn’t blow it up to even near capacity and the person picking them up for me had no idea how big the balloon should be. It was a little bit of a moment of let down that only I would notice. But thankfully, I ordered it in a few more colors as an excuse to maybe throw a summer party!

As the party date approached and I realized I asked no one for help in all this (I might have small control issues)…I had a minor panic attack thinking…HOW COULD I NOT HAVE A DIAPER CAKE AT THE PARTY?!! The horrooorrrrrr! So I did what any normal person would do; I ran around looking for purple receiving blankets (which proved a hell of a lot harder than it should – THANK YOU JCPENNEY!) and whipped up a non-bake cake!

One of the go-to games I always use at a baby shower is the “Don’t Say BABY!” game. It seems lack luster on the surface, however, 1)It’s a self functioning game throughout the party and 2)There are ALWAYS a few people who go hard-core on catching other people off their ‘game’. I like to pretty up the clothespins though. In the past I’ve attached rhinestones to them. I was going to modge podge them this time, but then found some purple Washi-esque tape and I hear that stuff is all the rage. It was a time saver too!

And like I said, there are always those competitive guests! It was a one clothespin swing. Shameful!

And in the end, it was a great party and not just because there was Sangria for the rest of us!

Resources
Digital Paper used to design invite: Mulberry Lane Papers from Etsy
Vintage Tricycle graphic used to design invite: Room 29 Etsy Shop
Online Printing Company(that printed my invite design): Digital Lizard
Polka Dot Balloons: Polka Dot Market
Green & Purple Sparkle Gumballs: Polka Dot Market
Hanging Crystals: Party Spin
36″ Jumbo Balloon: Balloon Maniacs
Paper Umbrellas & Lanterns: Luna Bazaar
Various Fabric: JoAnns
Burlap Satches: Uline