shower secrets

A mood board for a baby shower? Yes, that's what you get when you put a brand designer and paper lover in charge of a shower. So months ago when I set out to plan a gender-neutral shower for a dear friend of mine who also happens to love the color green, I decided to embrace our dear woodland creatures and have some fun.

If you've never heard of a mood board, it's like a collage of ideas or images that reflect the tone of your brand, the room you'd like to make over (i.e. my newest blog addiction, Young House Love, and their mood boards for stylish room makeovers) or in this case, your event. Here's what the shower mood board looked like a few months ago. Super simple, but lots of fun:

Then came the invitations. Read the full story here.

From there, it was just plain fun.

Favor tins? Check.

Game? Check.

Centerpieces? Check.
(A bit of background: I looked into real birch stump balloon weights, and thought that there must be a greener way to do it. So I found a birchbark image online, and designed my own wraps instead! No wood, no saws, no wood burning... no problem!)

They would make cute vases too, wouldn't they?

Wanting to stick to my budget, I decided instead to use them as balloon weights and pen holders for the shower games. Being the resourceful person that I am, I opened up my drawer of useless office supplies I will never use, and rigged a paper fastener to the bottom to loop the balloons around. To all of my blog-readers who are closet engineers, I invite you to share how I could have more effectively done this. :)

Then I slipped on the paper sleeve (you can tear apart your Starbucks cup sleeve for a rough template):

Next were these sweet cupcake wrappers. I had to modify their shape a bit, but nothing a little measuring can't fix. With that said, I can take no credit for the deliciousness that is inside them. That credit must be given to the lovely Diana Gawet of Diana's Cupcakes. She blogs about her tasty creations here. What can I say? There's a reason that I stick to the things I know best, leaving the rest to the experts. :) Did I mention that they were as tasty as they look? Yum!

And last but not least, the balloons. Yes, that is my son. No, he did not float away... though the sugar high he experienced on the aforementioned yummy cupcakes got him pretty close to flying!

All in all, the shower was a success. Fun was had, a friend was honored, and a baby was welcomed.

My advice to those of you planning a shower? Have fun with it! Look online for ideas, pick a theme and a color scheme, and run with it. You can have a beautiful shower / wedding / party on a budget.

Don't believe me? Check out my new design heroes, Sherry and John Petersik of Young House Love as they reveal the secrets behind their $3,995 backyard wedding here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for a breakdown of their über-chic, über-cheap wedding. Seriously, that's less than many people spend on the dress alone. Their site is packed with great ideas on decorating on a budget and (in this case) planning a beautiful event complete with gorgeous details and sweet ideas without breaking the bank. But I digress. Did I mention that I love their blog?

Thanks to those of you who made it this far.
Happy showering!