Baby Shower Inspiration

Don't worry, there's no baby shower for me anytime in the near future--the shower I'm referring to is for my sister! She's due in late July. My mom and I want to host a shower at my mom's house on the Coast in mid-to-late spring, and I've already started looking for inspiration because now that wedding and bachelorette party planning are over, there is a party planning void in my life. And with my mom taking care of the food and things, I can be in charge of all the cute decorations. Instead of bookmarking my ideas, I'll blog them.

First, I was thinking we could reuse some of the items left over from my wedding, like these Martha Stewart eyelet paper lanterns.

Image via

I was cleaning out our storage space (aka, a giant hole in the wall in the back of my closet) this weekend, and we still have all six in great condition. If we find out the baby is a boy I would love to reuse the blue chalkboard we wrote the menu on for the wedding, but we'll just have to wait and see! (Speaking of reusing party decorations, I just looked at a leftover bag of peni confetti for our Charleston bachelorette bash and tainted my sweet baby shower mind, so I shall taint yours too. But I digress.)


Second, the shower must have favor bags that are related to these, made by Kelsey at Minted Life. They're just little blue bags, stickers, tiny clothes pins and a thank-you stamp.

Image via

Her inspiration came from these cute favor bags, so it's obvious they can be easily personalized. They seem easy enough for me to make too, which is a huge plus.

Image via

The other baby shower idea my mom and I both love is asking guests to bring a favorite childhood book in lieu of a card, and write a note on the inside. That way the baby gets a nice little library full of sweet notes and is sure to grow up to be a genius. I would bring Wynken, Blynken and Nod or Goodnight Moon, off the top of my head. I also remember  liking Pinky in Persia but it was really creepy.


Nurse A says his favorite children's book was about a boy who invented a bubble machine, but Google can't seem to do much with that. Do you have any idea what it is? What book would you bring? And have you been to any awesome baby showers lately?

It's All in the Details

My bff and bridesmaid Lexi hosted a lingerie shower at her house with her mom, Linda, the night before the bachelorette party. Not only was it lots of fun to get together with my family (it was in my hometown, so almost all of the ladies in the fam were able to make it) and friends, but Lexi and Linda didn't overlook a thing, proving that the best bashes are all in the details. The color scheme was pink and black, from the napkins to the wrapping paper they used for one of the shower games to the pink cream cheese on the finger sandwiches. I can't wait to go all out and host a shower for Lexi in a few months, when her March wedding date is a bit closer. Oh, and it was also fun to rack up on some cute honeymoon-wear!

Pictures tell the story of this cute lingerie shower the best.

Lexi made these cute little heart cookies and we had them again at the bach party the next night.

The set up: Finger foods, champagne punch and lots of wine.

Cheese logs, raisin bread and cream cheese sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches.

These healthy snacks were freakishly good the night/morning after the party in NOLA. What a genius idea to pack up all the leftovers!

One of the shower games included decorating undies. Here's my mom with her stop-sign design!

They actually said, "Stop in the name of love," but for a few minutes Mom appeared to be attentively drawing just a stop sign on the back of them.

The designer of the winning pair got a prize--my aunt Cathy's "Not Tonight I Have a Headache" was the winner that night.

And then I ended up with lots of granny panties decorated in permanent marker. Andrew was thrilled! It was such a fun game though. We also played, "Pass the Teddy," a spin on hot potato that had everyone sweating for at least a few minutes. I'm not going to go into detail, because if the surprise ending is quite fun!


Lexi made a delicious trifle. It was so, so, good and apparently everyone has trifle dishes and was inspired to make their own. I had to Google it, proving that Lexi is by far a superior food maker, probably the reason A is trying to pressure her into going to culinary school and not me.

Trifle: A dessert typically consisting of plain or sponge cake soaked in sherry, rum or brandy and topped with layers of jam or jelly, custard, and whipped cream.


The fam. (left to right) MOH Ash, bridesmaids/cousins Alisha and Brooke, me, Mom, Aunt Leigh and Aunt Cathy. Coincidence that they all wore black/grey?

(left to right) Lexi, me, Kate/Nola, Rachel, Willow

Gifts! (Thank-you notes to come, I swear, but I am apparently too busy blogging to be polite.)

There were even party favors, consisting of:

A Victoria's Secret shine stick (Image from here)

and delicious-smelling hand sanitizers from Victoria's Secret (image from here.)

Obviously the necessities for a night out in NOLA.

For some reason we didn't get a shot of the whole group, so a special thanks to Linda (who did make it into one picture above) and Rachel's mom Julie, who sent me lots of pics that I used in this post!