Recently my lovely friend and her husband had a baby girl! What an exciting time for them (though not without any hardships - that's another story)! I had the pleasure of first being asked to help plan their gender reveal party and most recently the baby shower! I love this kind of stuff - 'showering' people with love, ya know! ;) So this post is dedicated to the basics and ideas of how to throw a successful baby shower!

The basics of any party in my mind are three things: decorations, games/activities, and food. Let's break it down!

Decorations
I am not the most visually capable decorator so I rely heavily on the ideas of others... yay Pinterest! But it doesn't take too much to create a nicely decorated space. The basics are obviously streamers and balloons, easy and simple. You can really make some nice accents with streamers that are unique to the usual.

try to ignore what's outside the window...

I also was able to find some banners and specific baby shower decor at the dollar store, didn't use all of it, but it could be a one-stop-shop for the person who doesn't want to do too much 'DIY'!

The idea I will take credit for :) is the framed quotes. I'm not a graphic designer, but I love to play around and make some fun posters (though I'm limited to Microsoft Word I think they still turned out nice). I looked up some relevant quotes and bible verses online and then printed them as pictures and framed them. Placing them around the room for the shower was cute! And it gave mommy some extras to take home for the nursery! I will work on providing the printouts for these soon!



The must have decor piece at a baby shower these days is a diaper cake. So that I went to the internet for a tutorial and ideas. It was quite simple and fun to put together! Stay tunes for more on this later!


Games/Activities
The mommy is not too much of a games person so I didn't want to overwhelm the shower with game after game. I wanted the feel to be relaxed and a fun time to mingle and see the new baby and just spoil the new parents. Thus I only planed two simple games to do as a group and two activities that could be done while people mingled.

The two games were The Price is Right: Baby Style and What's in Your Purse. Both ideas I snagged from Pinterest :) The first has everyone guessing the actual retail price of typical baby items like bottles, diapers, baby food etc. and the second is un-baby related, but just for women to see if what they have stashed in their purse can win them a prize!


That said, I did have a few prizes for the winners of each game. Nothing extravagant (some colourful socks, bath salts, lip balm, and notepad), but it's always nice to have some treats for the guests as well.

The two activities were Make Mom Laugh and Wishes for Baby. I loved both of these because it meant that Mommy and Daddy would have some fun things to bring home and laugh at/cherish later. Again, both ideas from Pinterest! The idea behind the first is for people to write fun notes on diapers so that when changing the diaper there is a little something to laugh about despite the current situation! The second is a print out for each party attendee to fill out with wishes for the new baby to read when she grows up :) I will work on providing the printouts soon as well!


Food
I have to admit I had nothing to do with the food at this party as it was collaborative effort! And unfortunately though large and has the word 'cake' in it, the diaper cake was not edible haha! Here my co-hostesses had some crunchy nachos, a sweet fruit platter, scrumptious cupcakes, a delicious lemon cake, and a refreshing pink lemonade!


That's it, it's as simple as that! I hope that you found as much inspiration on this page as I had as much fun doing all of this! Now go and plan that party and have fun!