Shower in a Bag

 One of my work pals is having a baby.  It's her third little baby since I've worked with her over the last 14 years.  We wanted to do something fun for her and the family, but a shower wasn't possible.  We put together a 'shower in a bag.'  Different teams sent gift cards for meals and little treats.  Her teammate and I put in lots of her favorite treats, plates, napkins, cups, and decorations for the family to enjoy, including a shirt and toy for the big brother and sister.

I added balloons and a honeycomb bottle to the bags and then let her know it's on her porch.

Ready to Pop Shower

 Working in an elementary school, we host a lot of showers for the staff, but this year is a new record.  We have teachers pregnant, 4 of whom are due within a month or so of each other.  It's also spring, and testing season, which means a lot of after school meetings, as well as a wedding shower to throw, so we combined some of the mom's in a shower for all with a 'pop' theme.  We've done it many different ways (we each bring a dish, go to a restaurant and order appetizers etc), but this time just a few of us purchased the items and we divided it up.

 We have 3 girls and 1 boy represented at this shower, so we just went with a pastel theme and each mom got her own color assigned in a spot in the room.  We ordered cupcakes from Sams and added some blow pops.

 We also picked up some soda pop.

 I made a little tangle of balloons to go behind the food table, and another gal made a banner for the table, and then one for each mom.

 I bought some white buckets at the Dollar Tree, and a have a friend who owns a popcorn shop who delivered the popcorn.  If you life in the Dallas/Collin/Denton/Fort Worth Area it's called Grandpa's Popcorn.  It was delicious and he delivers/will set up.  I don't get anything for saying that, but.....a good company is a good company is a good company and it made life soooooooo much easier.  I ordered Jalapeno Ranch, Zebra, Caramel, Cheddar, and Regular.

 We put some dots on the staff tables, and balloons attached to our hostess gift for each mom.

 My favorite sign in is always a book.  Each mama got a book that the staff all signed to take home to their baby.

 Sometimes we buy a hostess gift, but this time we got baskets and each hostess brought an item for the basket so we didn't have to worry about splitting the cost (bibs, lotions, shoes, toys etc).

It was a really easy way to host a staff by and for a large group of folks.  And.....another one is in the books.

Ruffled Nursery Curtain

 I recently made these for a friend's nursery.  she bought some curtains and fabric and just asked me to add some ruffles.  I should say, what I'm about to describe breaks all the sewing rules, but my philosophy is, someone made those up to begin with.

We decided she wanted to have 9 inch ruffles, so I cut each to the width of ten inches b/c I created a seam on both sides.  For the length, the curtains were sixty inches, so I had her get 90 inches (1 1/2 the length is usually what I measure to get enough 'ruffle.'

Instead of sewing and 'pulling' to create the ruffle, I just pinned both edges, pinned the middle, and then created a 'ruffle' as I pinned it down and sewed over that to keep it ruffled.  

To make sure it stayed straight, I drew a line with chalk and just made sure I pinned along the line.  

Hosting a Group Baby Shower

I've hosted a lot of baby showers in my day.  When you host with a group things can get a little complex.  Who brings what?  How do you 'split the bill' etc.  This is one of my favorite group themes-milk and cookies.  I've done several versions of this.  A cute alternative is 'milk mustache' for a boy.  I put the milk and cookies link below to some of the more elaborate parties.  The easy thing about this one is that you can just assign each person a few cookies to bring.  This way, you don't have to worry about if someone wants to get plates from the Dollar Tree or Nieman's.  You do you, I'll do me, and we all bring equal shares and skip the cake serving.    I recently threw a shower with three other ladies and we just each decided which cookies we wanted to bring (points for pink).  I used scraps of fabric I keep in various colors to cluster under the food.  

We signed messages on the diapers for the new parents to use as they change diapers.  I also LOVE to get a book for everyone to sign-useful, and fun (especially since this was a shower for a teacher friend of ours.....hosted by a bunch of teachers).  We got "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie."

I also have a bunch of pink pom poms and fans....you'll see these again for a flamingo party I'm throwing next spring.  

This time we served pink lemonade, tea, and pink (strawberry milk).  A little hint-not many will drink the milk, but it sure is cute!  I also put out some bags for people to fill up with cookies to take home with them.  

And that's all she wrote in this chapter of party prep.  

Mermaid or Pirate Baby Shower

 I've been friends with Amber for well over a decade now.  She's expected baby #2 and this go 'round she decided to wait.  Since it's summer, her sister and I decided to throw her a shower that plays with the theme Mermaid or Pirate?  My pal Kelly made these adorable invites for me.

 Again, since it was a summer shower I was able to go crazy with desserts and I madea  collection of both mermaid and pirate themed desserts to serve.

 Last year I attended a shower and they had a poloroid camera where each guest had their picture taken, and then we made a scrapbook page with a message to mom and baby.  I knew Amber would love this (she's one of my last scrapbooking buddies).

 We each made a page and her sister said she would finish the album for Amber.  We had the guest decorate pages with either pirates or mermaids based on what they predict the baby will be.

 I made a bunch of banners I hung throughout my house as well.

 I also used beads someone gave me from mardi gras, shells, and coins to scatter around the house.

 We served all pirate and mermaid themed foods.  Canon Balls (meatballs), sumbarines (sub sandwiches), planks (crackers) and gold (cheese-served with little swords), crab legs (carrots), seaweed (spinach dip), seashells (pasta), and berried treasure (berries).

 We also served some blue punch in fish bowls.

 I made little mermaid straws.

 Amber's sister put together some adorable bubble bath.

 And bottled them in cute little bottles.

 All went so smoothly, but it helps when it's a sweet friend and easy going friends and family she's collected along the way.

Mermaid or Pirate Desserts

Last month I hosted a baby shower where the gender wasn't known yet.  With summer in full swing, we went with the fun theme of Mermaid or Pirate.  I've been posting about this for a few weeks, and next week I'll post the whole thing, but here were the dessert offerings.  Since it was summer, I had more time to bake....and I did.  

 First off, I made mermaid tail sugar cookies.  I bought the cookie cutter on Amazon, and I used my favorite sugar cookie recipe to put these together.  These can be done in advance, so that helped!

 Amber's husband loves cake balls, and even though he wasn't in attendance, I made these so we could ship some home.  I just dipped the cake balls in white chocolate and to make them look like pearls I served them in little seashell cups and then brushed on some of the Wilton's luster dust.

I posted about these cheater cupcakes last week.  Again, I bought cupcakes at the store and then used a kit from Wilton to dress up my cupcakes.  

 I definitely made too many desserts, but....too many and the word dessert are welcome words to string together any day in my book!

 I recently hosted a Mermaid or Pirate? themed baby shower.  I wanted a blue punch, but a lot of them called for ice cream....and living in Texas in the summer I was worried about it melting too swiftly.  I found a recipe that just used two bottles of Sprite (or some sort of clear soda) and blue Hawaiian Punch.  You freeze the Hawaiian punch in advance, then just pour it into a bowl with the Sprite.  It melts and turns the punch blue.

I served these in little glass fish bowls I bought at the dollar store with little mermaid tail straws I made.

Mermaid Tail Straws

I made these simple little straws for a shower I hosted this month.  The theme was mermaid or pirate. I decided the drinks would be a mermaid theme.  I had the blue straws already, and I decided that instead of buying an svg file, a tail would be easy enough to cut out.

 I made a template and bought some green sparkle paper at Hobby Lobby.

 I raced my tails and cut.

 I ran some glue along the straws to attach them. The straws are paper, so it doesn't melt them.  My plan was to serve these in small fish bowls I bought at the dollar store with a blue drink inside. Stay tuned....a full set of details to come.