Nautical Baby Shower

If there's anything worth celebrating, its a new baby. And you can't have a celebration without great food, some fun decorations, and fantastic friends. So...we did just that!

My friend Brenda and I co-hosted a baby shower for some sweet friends who will soon be adding a little boy to their crew of two girls.  Baby Tony's room is being decorated in a really cool vintage nautical/surf theme and so we decided a nautical-themed baby shower would be perfect for the summer celebration. Let's walk through some of the details that made the day fun, shall we?

The drink station was kept pretty and simple and included an ocean-colored punch with a cute little sail boat on top.  Top secret secret: that tablecloth is actually a shower curatin.  You gotta improvise, ladies!

People come to parties for the food, and most baby showers have their staples: chicken salad sandwiches (and pb and j's for the kids!), fruit salad, pigs in a blanket, chips and dip, and cake.  I lost my close-up shot of the napkins, but if you look carefully Brenda tied up the silverware with some twine and a life saver candy.  So cute, right?? Some of our sweet guests contributed to the food table, and we were very thankful...especially because it was all so delicious! In a future post I'm going to share the recipe for the dip I made because it is SO. FREAKIN. GOOD.  It includes avacado, black beans, and corn and I could literally eat the whole bowl.

The cake is always the main attraction at a baby shower (second to the glowing pregnant lady, of course...) so I decided to try something new.  They're just regular cupcakes with a thin layer of icing which is then dip in a mixture of finely crushed graham crackers and some light brown sugar.  SAND! The seashells, starfish, and sand dollars were my first time working with fondant. Definitely not my favorite crafting medium.  My husband is very creative and great at all kinds of art, so I knew he would be helpful with the fondant, and he was.  His shells were way better than mine.  He even made one cupcake "manly"...with a shark tooth...

I brushed a little gold pearl dust on the fondant (except for the manly shark tooth), and it made them very pretty.  The cupcakes were displayed on a cupcake stand and a vintage-looking tray that I got at Goodwill well over a year ago and stashed away for such an occassion. Perfect!

The mantle was done up with some netting, candles, a couple of nautical accents and this wreath that I made for the family to hang in Baby Tony's room. Gotta love a yarn wreath :)

The coffee table was super simple.  Just a basket from the dollar store filled with shells and vase with flowers. (This display was soon removed because of all the little people walking around wanting to eat seashells. See the cute example in the background?).  You may have seen these cute red vases on the food table.  Guess what? They were not red when I bought them at the Dollar Tree!

Yep, it's yarn.  This was so easy and was a great way to take a cheap vase and update it for the party.  Vase, yarn, hot glue. Done.

And last but not least, here's just a couple of pictures taken during the game portion of the shower. My word, was that funny... In our circle of friends we generally do co-ed baby showers.  Trust me, guys just add "something" the event.  I think they're much more fun this way!

Here's me and my bottomless pit of a husband in the baby food eating contect.  We put up a good fight but didn't win.

This is the BEFORE picture for the husband-styled hair do competition. The point here was that when a new baby comes along, the husband may have to help with some tasks that he normally wouldn't do...

And... the results...

Adam trying to pull all of my hair out...

You'll notice that one of us was luckier than the rest and got some nice-looking pigtails.

It was a fun afternoon with friends and we're so excited to meet the newest addition to the Holland family.  Congratulations, Hollands!

Me, Amanda (mom-to-be), and Brenda

Just a reminder for you to get in on the action over at my Willow House giveaway. It's easy to enter and the winner is going to get the cutest set of wine stoppers. Good luck!