Baby Shower Decor and Games

Thanks for joining the chit chat on how my sister-in-law's shower was created!  Hope it's helpful in your next party journey!  I like to keep things as cute and simple as possible.  This post is going to go over the shower decor and games. 

It works best and most cost effective to try and decorate with the food, game supplies, and gifts as much as possible!  Here is what we did!  First off, we were lucky that my sister-in-law has a very talented florist as a friend.  She sent over a stunning arrangement that we used as a focal point for the dessert table!  We also had the large alligator cupcake arrangement that you can look at from Monday's post.

The only other flowers I picked up were two bundles of daffodils, which are in season right now in Portland and very inexpensive.  I put the daffodils on the entry table with our first game supplies.  This game we played throughout the shower.  Each person took a necklace (I tied pieces of ribbon into necklaces and put clothespins on them) and was told that they could not say 3 words.  If they were caught saying any of those words, they had to give that person one of their clothes pins.  The person with the most clothespins at the end, won.  Very fun and easy game.  I wrote the words that the ladies could not say on the chalkboard and hung the necklaces on some cute hanger rods my mom had! (All this in the entry).

For a sign outside, I painted a jumbo 3-D paper mache letter (from JoAnne's online) and tied a 26" balloon (also can be found through online party stores) to it.  I had a small stake that I attached to it and stuck it in the yard.  There were only a couple small adjustments we had to make...I had to wrap it like a present since it was raining...and the balloon got so wet/cold that it wouldn't float, so we had to put it under the porch!! Silly Oregon weather!



Since the baby will be a boy, I found a onesie with a tie on it and traced it and cut out a bunch of different ties to use for the game gift bags and a garland over the fireplace.

 

 

 

We also had people fill out little sheets of paper with tips for the new mom that she could read and save for later!  Last, I used two more of the large balloons behind the gifts to add a bright little pop! ;)  My next post will be one more recipe from the shower and the food menu!  Have a wonderful day!

Alligator Baby Shower

The theme for my sister-in-law's baby shower was alligators with primary colors because she found a cute nursery set from Pottery Barn with alligators, so we decided to keep with that theme.  You may have seen lots of fun cupcake designs for kid parties and we were able to find one of an alligator...

Here's how we created it:

(we cheated and used) 1 chocolate cake mix (make as directed)
2 cans vanilla/white frosting
Green food coloring
Nabisco 100 calorie chocolate cookie wafers
2 large marshmallows
2 Junior Mints
Yellow & Brown Jelly Beans (or you could use banana runts)

Directions: Cook 22 cupcakes (as directed on the box) and let cool.  Mix the 2 cans of frosting together with food coloring to desired color.  We filled Ziploc bags with frosting since we didn't have cake decorating tools.  Just cut a small hole in one corner to squeeze the frosting out of.  Then make small dots starting from the outside of the cupcake and going around until the entire cupcake is filled in.  Follow the cupcake layout in the picture above for arranging them.  Next we pushed the chocolate cookies into the cupcakes, then put the fingernails and nose on (jelly beans).  I put the two marshmallows side by side, as the eyes, and carefully squeezed frosting over the sides, but not the end.  I used a knife to smooth out the frosting.  Last, we squeezed a tiny bit of frosting on the Junior Mints and placed them on the ends of the marshmallows as the eyes!  Pretty simple, and took us about 30mins to do the decorating once the cupcakes were baked.

The rest of the party posts will be about the decorations and games as well as a post about our menu and one more sweet recipe!

Happy Monday!  Sweet & Simple!

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Masterpiece Monday
Sundae Scoop

Weekend Event

I was able to head over the mountain this weekend to help throw my sister-in-law's baby shower.  She is having a little boy in May!  My next couple blog posts will be about party ideas we used for the shower.  Here is a little sneak peak of how it went!

Hope you are all doing well and thanks for stopping by!

Sweet & Simple!

Happy Sunday

I hope your Sunday has been as beautiful as ours! We spent the entire day outside trying to get it ready for all the spring things we need to do!! Jeff is making me an adorable chicken coop. I can't wait to have my first coop of chickens!! Our neighbor said she could hatch out chicks for us which is super exciting!!

Thought I'd show you how my mantel is decorated right now. More picks this week and then Jeff and I are off to visit my two best friends and their babies in California!

Happy Monday!

I'm off to make more curtains and grab more of our things from the cabin! Pictures soon!

Magic! Moving In!!

It's been a while, but blogger started working for me again so I can post photos!  It timed out on me for a little while, but it was good timing since we have moved into our new home!!  Here are a few pictures of what's going on!

This was a happy day!!

 

I went for the romantic curtain pull-back in the bedroom that puddles and the other windows are white roman shades that I LOVE.

 



 

 

We finally have all our animals together.  They are all adjusting pretty well.  We thought this was hilarious though...Jeff was out working in the garage and took the dog with him.  She decided to try and make the cat bed work for her!!

 



Last but not least, we have had beautiful weather and I have enjoyed every bit of it!  This picture was out our great room windows. (sorry it's a bit blurry but you get the picture)

We are getting everything organized! It will be an ongoing project, but my goal is to walk you through each room and give you links and information to all the specifications we chose.  We are so happy with how the design of everything turned out!  First post will go up this next week!

Still needing help!

So the "browse" button is still not showing when I go to attach pictures on my post... I have looked at the help topics and nothing is working...so sad.

On a happier note, here is a pretty silhouette for the day from my phone. It was 4 degrees when I left the house this morning...pretty unusual for us.

Happy weekend!