Megan is one of Amanda’s best friends and is considered family, an honorary Bodily if you will.  We just love her.  Anyways, she expecting a baby girl in a few weeks and we (Alicia, Amanda, Aubrey, Lacey, and I) decided we HAD to throw her a shower!  We had to change the shower date at one point and because of that Aubrey was with her cute family in California instead of here with us.  We missed her.

When planning showers (or parties of any kind really) I like to go to Pinterest for inspiration.  My list of what you need to host an event: theme, invites, decor, GREAT food and drinks, activities (when necessary), and party favors.  I usually create a document with some ideas that cover my list above and a party concept is born. The following is what we came up with.

Theme

Hello World.  We were going for sophisticated and pretty.  Think tea party without the tea.  Colors: Pink, White, and Gold.

The Invite

I found a shower invite from Etsy that I loved.  It was originally for a wedding shower themed “Brunch and Bubbly” but the designer at DesignOnPaper kindly changed it to fit our theme.  You should check out her stuff.  She was a dream to work with.

The Decorations

We wanted the decor to be simple but pretty.  Alicia found some small vases at Ikea and the dollar store.  We (Alicia and my mom Melonie) spray painted them White and Gold.  I haven’t mentioned it on here before but my Mom saves my butt regularly.  I totally forgot to paint my vases so I called her, hours before the shower, and asked if I could drop them off for her to paint and me to pick up an hour or so later.  Luckily, she agreed.  She should probably ignore my phone calls.  They almost always lead to more work for her.  I love you Mom!  Thanks for all you do for me!  Anyways, Lacey picked up a variety of pink and white flowers from Costco to fill the vases, top the cake, and add the finishing touch to the Cream puff tower.  Amanda and I made a Pendant Banner that said Hello World in gold glitter.  Everything is better with a little Glitter!  I also made a pom pom cluster to hang from the chandelier over the food table.  Have you ever made one of these?  I am obsessed.  Mavi has one in her Nursery and I LOVE it!  The favors also doubled as decorations.

The Food/ Drinks

For the main course we had Soup, Salad, and Sandwiches.  For the sake of presentation we decided that we wanted to serve everything in individual cups or packages.  Lacey made a delicious Spinach salad with fresh Berries and candied Almonds, that we served in a 9 oz plastic flared tumbler.  I couldn’t get enough of this stuff and if you recall I am NOT a spinach fan.  I made a Tomato soup (Recipe courtesy of Chef Nicole Payne of Cole + Cole) and grilled cheese served in a  7 oz plastic straight Tumbler. Sandy made my personal favorite, Turkey and Rice soup, that we served in the same cups as the salad and topped with a sliced Baguette.  Amanda ordered the sandwiches from Harmons.  They seriously make the BEST hoagies ever.  We asked them to be sliced in 2″ thick pieces.  We wrapped the individual sandwiches in strips of parchment paper and tied them with jute so they looked pretty and stayed together.

For Dessert we had Donuts, Chocolate Strawberries, Cupcakes, Cream puffs, and a naked Cake.  We bought Chocolate Donuts and quartered them.  Sandy made Chocolate covered Strawberries with Milk and White Chocolate.   Lacey and I made Rosette frosted cupcakes and the naked cake.  We struggled with the naked cake more than we would like to admit but it turned out beautiful. Alicia was in charge of the Cream Puff tower.  This was her first attempt and it turned out GREAT!  The guests thought it too pretty to eat.  She found while doing this project that the round toothpicks are much easier to use than the flat ones.  Also we had a harder time than we expected finding frozen cream puffs.  Walmart came through huge for us!

We had 3 different fruit infused Water options for our guests to drink.  Alicia came up with the combos: Lemon and Lime, Lemon and Strawberry, and Lime and Cucumber.  They were all tasty!  Aren’t those drink dispensers adorable!  I LOVE them!

We made these cute little utensil holders.  Not everyone understood that you just take the whole thing, haha.  It seemed pretty self explanatory to me, but whatever.

The Activities

We don’t really care for shower games, so we opted out of this category.

The Favors

Years ago we hosted a family Bridal shower for my cousin Kayson’s wife, Christina (Cha).  My Aunt Micki had been to a shower not too long before that and received the cutest flower themed favor and we decided to recreate it.  We didn’t take any pics of them, naturally, but I have wanted a reason to make these favors again since then.  How long ago was this Cha, 7 or 8 years?  This favor is NOT even found on Pinterest! Seriously, I looked for quite awhile and found NOTHING!  Take note guys because they are ADORABLE and so easy to make. We made all of them in about 30 minutes while watching the Bachelor at Monday Night Tradition.

You will need

• Plastic test tubes (order online)
• Corks (found at any craft store)
• Silk flowers
•  Jelly beans we used 3 different colors and flavors. Toasted Marshmallow, Lemon-Lime, and Strawberry Daiquiri. You can get color and flavor separated Jelly Beans and Zurchers.

Cut flowers off stems and hot glue them to corks. Fill test tubes with jelly beans using a few different patterns so there is some variety. Seal with flower topped cork.  There you have it!  Easiest, cutest, favor EVER!  We put these in some small square vases that Alicia had and set them around to double as decor until guests were leaving and taking them.

We had nothing but GREAT comments from the guests of this shower.  Everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) was taking pics of the food and decor to post on social media.  Several people told us we need to start a Business and one girl asked us for help at her Wedding!  We love doing this kind of thing, seriously!  It really makes us wonder why we are in the , Banking, Construction, Early childhood development, and Sales industries.

Anyways we can’t wait to meet Megan’s sweet baby in a few weeks!

Pic cred: Lacey and Patti (shower attendee)

Celsey