One of my dearest friends, Aimee, is having a baby in July. I have known Aimee for over a decade. I watched her date, break up, date, and marry her true love, Casey. Tim and I got the privilege of doing their pre-marital counseling. Tim also performed their wedding. Her husband, Casey had lived with us up until their wedding day. He also worked as an intern for Tim and then they served alongside each other at a church in Washington. We moved out to Indiana nearly 6 years ago and Casey and Aimee moved here about a year ago to be on staff at the church Tim works at as well. To say our lives have been knit together is an understatement. They are definitely lifelong friends.
(Tim, me, Aimee and Casey – December 2012)
Aimee loves natural elements like bird, branches, old wood, burlap, etc. So we decided to throw her a bird and branches baby shower for her baby boy due in July.
I found some branches curbside and arranged them into a vase I had. Then I rubberbanded the bottoms together. I took the branches and spray painted them white. Next I cut out leaf shapes from some wax paper and then hot glued them on the branches. I tied burlap and brown ribbon around the vase and I had myself a completely free centerpiece to added height to the food table.
I found some glass jars at Joann Fabrics as well as some candlestick holders from Dollar Tree and used some E6000 glue to make some apothecary jars that I filled with donuts. I added the burlap and brown ribbon to those as well.
One of the adorable elements I added to the table was the branch place card holders (full tutorial here). Then I took some brown cardstock and wrote the food items on it.
I also used it as a perch for a couple of painted Dollar Tree birds I have had for years.
I covered some chow mein noodles in chocolate and then added three jelly beans to make them look like nests. Then I added those to the top of store bought cupcakes.
A purchased Starbucks-to-go pack, water bottles with burlap and ribbon and punch made the drinking station complete.
Since I have an amazing craft room that can accommodate a bunch of people we used my stash and decorated onesies. It was a huge hit. I was uber impressed with what a creative bunch we had.
And here is the co-host of the shower, Amber, modeling with the #stud onesie she made.
While the décor was beautiful, if I do say so myself, what made the party a hit was being creative together. And in the end Amy got two dozen adorable hand painted onesies for baby Jude and they had a blast making them.
Love the handpainted onesies! I will definitely be doing that if I have the honor of hosting another baby shower. 🙂
Thanks, Mandy! It really was the highlight of the party for me. 🙂
The buffet is awesome! Love your simplicity–really cute ideas. My favorite is that you got to use your amazing craft room to do all the onesie crafting! How awesome was that? Perhaps something you didn’t think of right away when thinking of all the uses for your room! It is so great to have such close friends near you-what a treat! Crazy how that all worked out!
Thanks, Kristin. I love how it all came together, and it is so true that there is a lot of beauty in the simple things. I already adore my new craft space, and it was all sweeter filled with my friends! Thanks for reading!
What a wonderful look for a shower! I really like that you made a simple topper for those store bought cupcakes to tie them into the theme, such a time saver! Can’t wait to see how you made those branch place card holders.
Thanks, Becca! Baking is definitely not my favorite part of party planning so this was the perfect compromise. The tree limb photo holder tutorial is up and running now. Enjoy! http://www.infarrantlycreative.net/2013/05/tree-limb-photo-holder.html
Thank you f or opening your home to loved ones and friends, and showing us how you did it. I’m afraid we are losing this “art” and I hope you will inspire others to invite friends over to share life together.
Thanks, Michelle. I definitely hope so too!
How perfectly wonderful! The decor, everything! I love how you tied everything together.
You know those ‘ideas’ you have, that you keep on the back burner, in the back of your mind? Yeah, those. Me + onesies + baby showers. Think ‘package deal’ for gals to decorate. It’s been percolatin’ for about, oh, 8 years now. I’m so happy to see that you just went ahead and DID IT! lol.
Ha! It was a blast. Sounds like you need to plan a baby shower too!
Love, love, love the decorations! And decorating onesies is a great idea. The apothecary jars are great too — I have admired them, but not wanted to put out the dollars; however, decorating my own would be much more fun. I am ready to shop. Watch out dollar store and someplace that has those jars. I have some very pretty ribbon I bought on clearance.
Go, Deborah, go! 😉
OMG wicked cute
Thanks, Girl!