A DIY Baby Shower

Need some ideas for a DIY baby shower?  You have come to the right place!
Read the below post for some great DIY ideas and I hope this helps you in your planning process.

In yesterday's post I spoke of the arrival of my first grandchild Eli.
I am positive you will hear lots about him in blog posts to come.
 Who can resist talking about a beautiful baby! Especially since he is my first.
​ It will be very hard to remain unbiased!!

Today I want to talk about DIY for a baby shower.  
There are very few sewing elements, but several crafty and cooking elements which I thought my readers may enjoy.
So here goes:
Invitations:  Katie (my daughter) decided paper invites were a must.  She felt they would be more personal than social media sent invites.  As a lover of arts and crafts,  Katie felt that a paper invitation might also better depict a theme and atmosphere of the shower to come. As they live in a small town, most of the invitations were actually delivered in person (almost unheard of these days!). What is funny is that these invitations were sent out before Katie knew the babies' gender and so the little bear theme was wonderful for a baby boy💙.  The invitations were also printed from: creative market.com  on their home printer.
A picture of the invitation is shown below:

Decor:  My co host for the shower was Andrea, a lovely friend of my daughter's.  So we decided on an intimate gathering of about 12 lovely ladies in her Andrea's home.  We decided to keep the decor simple with fresh flowers and a simple crafted swag in keeping with the theme of the invitation.

The swag was made with construction paper leaves in various colours of green, tissue paper roses to celebrate our little boy and an enlarged bear head made out of felt with glued features, sewn by hand and stuffed lightly.  All of the elements of the swag were strung on jute (you could use wire, wool or string but that is what we had on hand).  I think you get the idea of how it was constructed right?, if not feel free to contact  us with any questions.

I also found that glue gunning the leaves in place so they would stand in different directions helped to make them look right for the swag.

Games:  We chose 3 "games" .
​ #1) Guess the number of easter eggs in a baby bottle. You can get the graphic below on Etsy at https://www.etsy.com/market/jelly_bean_game

#2) Baby Trivia

Baby Trivia
True or False
 ​
1.  All babies are born with blue eyes?

2. Babies have more bones than adults?  
 
3.  Touch is the first sense baby develops?

4.  September is the busiest month of the year for giving birth in Canada?
​
5.  Babies take more breaths than adults?
 
6.   Babies are born without kneecaps? 
 
Press the Contact  tab above if this game is something you are interested in and I can give you my researched answers.

3) Baby Word Scramble from  www.plan-the-perfect-baby-shower.com

Again press the Contact  tab above and email us for the answers to the Baby Babble above

Food---- Savory items:
We chose lots of finger foods, a range of fresh veggies for dipping, vegetable rice wrappers, cocktail meatballs,  creamed cheese cucumbers, pot stickers, crab stuffed mushrooms, aged cheddar and crackers. a taco dip and nacho chips.  All made from scratch except the pot stickers! Scroll down to the end of this post to enjoy one of these savoury recipes.

---Sweets We decided to have a cake and several smaller items, along with Gluten Free options and healthy fruit. The menu for the sweets counter included: Sugar cookies (blue and white royal icing), chocolate cupcakes (blue icing), Gluten Free one bite brownies, Gluten Free lemon squares, Lemon Tarts, small fruit kabobs and a  double chocolate "Bear Cake" .  All sweet items were also made from scratch,.

The  Bear Cake- note that the little flags strung with "Welcome Eli "were triangles of paper sewn together with sewing thread and then attached to paper straws and stuck into the cake.  The eyes were made of round chocolate  truffles and the nose was made from chocolate easter eggs cut in half for each nostril. Thank goodness it was right around Easter time or these chocolates would not have been left over!

Beverages:  We served wine, Gin and tonics (with lots of fresh lime juice), Sparking Water and a Spicket jug of Iced Water with cucumber slices and fresh mint, coffee and tea.  This seemed like the perfect assortment for a group of ladies.

Some additional photos of the fun below:

My lovely cohost Andrea, loving on Eli just after he was born. She was flying around at the shower so I was not able to get a picture of her there!

Little "Man of the Hour":

Eli slept through most of the shower!

Momma Bear Katie and some of the guests at the shower (Cora (behind Katie), Natalie and Debbie)

Katie, Yours Truly and Cora (Rachel in Background)

There were several new or young moms at the shower. Pictured here are Katie and Eli, Anita and Milo and Stephanie and Jacob.

An easy savoury dip recipe to share for your shower below:

Recipe for Easy Taco Dip 
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup softened Cream Cheese
1 pkg. Taco seasoning
1 cup salsa
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese                 
Chopped veggies of your choice, Suggested: Red pepper, orange pepper, tomatoes. green onions
        Tortilla Chips for Dipping
To Make:  Whip the first 3 ingredients together with a mixer until smooth and spread  in a glass pie plate, spread salsa on top of cream chess mixture, sprinkle with cheddar cheese and sprinkle with chopped vegetables.  
Serve with tortilla chips 

---

Katie received a plethora of lovely gifts including a gorgeous Chariot Stroller for walking jogging and skiing with baby to which she is extremely grateful.  Many thanks to all her lovely guests.

The shower was lots of fun but really---- when is it not fun with babies, good food, beverage and great people?

Feel free to use any of these ideas for your upcoming shower and good luck with your planning!

The talk about baby stuff has just begun, check back tomorrow and every wednesday for the beginning of  my blog series on " Sew Many Easy Gifts For Baby".

Happy Tuesday! 😊