Baby shower

Ok, so here we go. The shower was a great success. Almost everyone came which made for a full house but we managed to find a seat for everyone. I'll just post the pictures and describe as I go. We did a "Baby Bling" theme in hot pink, light pink, and black. (totally my sister)

First the invitations:

My original idea was to use a circle tin of some sort, decorate it with rhinestones and sequins and put the info inside. But . . . . then I talked to someone about mailing them and they'd have to go in an envelope anyway and I couldn't find the tins big enough so I was walking through Porters one day and saw these plastic albums and well here ya go.

One of my most favorite sites is "Hostess with the Mostess" I envy the parties she gets to do and love to be inspired by her ideas. I was looking through some parties she'd done or that others have done and posted and they all had cute favors. Well, being on somewhat of a budget I thought food would be easiest, and it wasn't. I have this really good recipe for death by chocolate cookies so I thought those would be great to go in a treat bag for favors. Problem: the last time I made them was in Washington. And as I've come to find out things don't always work here (baking wise). Well I gave my sister and Alea (my other sister's sister-in-law) the recipe and asked them to each make a batch too since we'd need about 60 cookies. So mine turned out tasting ok but looked like well, lets just say they didn't look too appetizing. Alea's sank, and Court's were a little smaller than I'd thought they should be. So I ran to Great Harvest the Friday before and ordered some. As for the finished product they turned out pretty cute and the cookies were yummy. Thanks again girls for your hard work on them.



Another idea I got from Hostess with the Mostess was to do my own drink charms. I loved how these turned out and they were really easy to do.



I also got some great ideas from my Stamp'n Up catalog and from my fabulous Stamp'n Up coordinator. First from the catalog they had a banner for a birthday made out of little paper boxes and so I changed a few things and it my own baby banner.


This one I got from my good friend Becky who does our Stamp'n Up group once a month. Last year for halloween she made these really cute pumpkins out of strips of paper and I thought they'd look great as lanterns, so we made a bunch to hang for the shower in our colors.


And finally the food. I love finger foods and to use great ideas on how to present foods. For the spread we did the best artichoke dip ever, the recipe I listed from my Taste of Home party (so if want that recipe you'll have to go to my old Idaho Crabtrees blog) with chips, we did a yummy salad in philo pastry cups, mini eclairs with chocolate mousse, pecan tarts, and lemon tarts. everything tasted really good and we had a great fruity punch to drink. I'll list recipes later. These area a couple pictures of the table. And going with our Bling theme I had jewels on the table and
some baby bottles with words in jewels on them.






So I think it all went pretty well and I had a great time doing it. Now it'll be forever before I get to do another party like that. Babies change everything.