For your Sister & your Friends:
For your Mom & Mother-in-Law:
For the Hostess:
For You!
xoxo
2024 Gift Guide: For the Home & Hostess
Friday, November 22, 2024xoxo
Blooms & Bows Baby Girl Shower
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
We held the shower at a local studio called Wealthy Street Studios. It's primarily a photography studio, but can be rented out for small events like this. It ended up being perfect! As guests walked in, the above balloon garland hung over the bench to drop gifts and we had a table set up for guests to do an activity, which I'll show you in a second.
The shower had about 35 people, so we had a lot of friends to accommodate! We set up 3 tables in the space and dressed them in these pretty and feminine Event Theory linens. We did a pink polyester linen underneath the white, sheer linen with a pattern. I did a couple arrangements and budvases for each table centerpiece. We also rented these darling colored goblets from Event Theory which added such a special touch! Since it'd have been too much cost, we opted to borrow the chairs from our church ;)
The shower was from 2-4pm, so we did an array of drinks (our Bubbly Bar, stocked with both alcohol bubbly and non-alcoholic sparkling lemonades from Trader Joe's) and did a spread of crackers, cheeses, veggies, fruits, and desserts.
We had a couple of garnishes guests could spice up their drinks with, which made it extra fun.
This is my go-to appetizer for any party: a block of cream cheese with Trader Joe's Pepper Jelly dumped on top, surrounded by crackers. It's such a hit and takes 30 seconds to put together!
Something really sweet that we thought to do was include a little message on our shower invite asking each guest to bring an unwrapped hair bow or headband for baby girl, so we could help the new mama start her bow collection. My friend Chelsea is about the girliest you can get, so I knew this would make her heart smile!
The table at the front directed guests to write their name on a tag and pin up their bow on the string we had hanging next to the table. This way everyone could oohhh and awww over the adorable bows and see who it was from!
This is the bow I picked out from my friend's shop, Tootsie Pop Shop.
All the bows displayed were so cute!
Here's our sweet mama-to-be (who has since had her precious girl and I adore her!)
The girls who helped shower Chelsea: (isn't Chelsea's dress perfect for a baby shower?!)
Chelsea and her mom (who happens to be my first ever design client when I moved to Michigan!)
It wouldn't be a party without the prettiest cookies known to man!! I always splurge on decorated sugar cookies for parties I throw from my friend Madri's Cookie Kitchen. She knocks it out of the park every time. See those baby onesies?! TOO CUTE!
Because our friend loves flowers so much (she grows a cut flower garden every summer), we thought it'd be extra fun to have a bouquet bar as our favor for our guests. This was an interactive thing for guests to do so it kept the shower flowing. I had seen this as a party favor idea on Instagram and it worked so well-- highly recommend this!!
I probably over-spent on this ;) but I couldn't help it. Ha! #worthit. I went to my wholesaler and ordered flowers there, but I could have also just picked up flowers at TJ's the morning of the event. We did 2 types of greenery and 5 blooms (roses, alstroemeria, carnations, stock and spray roses), then we asked everyone to take 2 sprigs of greenery and 4 blooms of their choice. I should have got about 30 less blooms, but I wanted to be over-prepared. A couple people didn't make bouquets, which I was surprised by!
This sequin linen from Event Theory was to die for!
For the flower bar, we had snips for people to cut the stems, ribbon to tie the bouquets with and small plastic cups for them to fill with water so they'd stay alive on their drive home.
Another fun activity we did was have guests decorate wood baby blocks. Chelsea ended up displaying a few on the shelves in the nursery.
This was my example ;)
We had the guest of honor open her gifts under the awesome balloon garland (which didn't want to stay in place ha! I learned a couple things about balloon garlands, since this was my first one). Thankfully my friend Tara of One Stylish Party walked me through how to make it. Her kits come with all the balloons, the string and the air pump! Next time I'm going to get the command hooks and tie the ends on there so I know they'll stay put.
She got such sweet things!
After gifts were opened, we played a quick game-- our only game of the shower! We previously asked Chelsea's husband 10 questions. They had to do with birth, baby knowledge and then personal questions like "who is going to be the tough parent?" We had him email his answers to us, then asked Chelsea the same questions and she had to guess what her husband would have answered. Everyone got a kick out of their answers, so I'd say this was a hit if you're trying to avoid the more "cheesy" shower games.
We ended the shower by having one of the ladies pray over Chelsea for a safe delivery, healthy baby and many blessings over them as they bring a new life into the world.
Balloon Garland: One Stylish Party / Rentals: Event Theory / Venue: Wealthy Street Studios / Cookies: Madri's Cookie Kitchen / Photos: Ashley Slater Photography
After it was over, Ashley took some beautiful pictures of Chelsea and her bump, but I had to get in a few!
I just love this sweet friend of mine. She's one of the best gifts God has given me since moving to Michigan! She's an easy one to celebrate.
Here are some things I learned along the way!
I loved this idea she had of stretching the bows she got from the shower over glass jars and filling the jars with the remainder of them! So cute!
She made these floral hoops by hot gluing faux flowers from Hobby Lobby on gold hoops. Love them!
How to Throw a My Favorite Things Christmas Party
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
YOUR INVITATION: here's what mine said as a sample!
Hi friends! Join us for our second annual My Favorite Things Christmas Party and enjoy apps, desserts, drinks, gifts & friends!
Everyone should come to the party with 3 of the SAME gifts wrapped. Each gift should be around $10. These gifts can be something you love and want to share with others-- something you consider one of your "favorite things". For example, last year I brought 3 Mrs. Meyer soap sets. Other gifts last year were mugs, a Christmas recipe with the ingredients piled into a cute jar, favorite nail polishes, socks, a journal, paints, etc.
At the party we will exchange gifts and everyone will leave with 3 gifts! Hooray!
* You'll want to make sure the directions are clear in the invitation, since it's important everyone brings their gifts and sticks to whatever price limit you come up with. Of course, you don't have to have everyone bring THREE gifts, I just feel like that's the most fun and still doable. You could have everyone bring 2 gifts that are $15-20 limit. Some people I know set even larger budgets sometimes...just do what you think your guest list is comfortable with. It is amazing what you can get for $10, though!
Okay, so once the party day has come around, here's what you'll do...
As people enter the party, I have them fill out this fun questionnaire. They fill it out, with no name, and then stash it in the bowl to use later at the party.
Next to this bowl is another bowl with small pieces of paper for guests to write their name on 3 times (the number of times they write their name will correlate with the number of gifts each person brings). Throw their names in the bowl for later as well.
Finger foods are always nice at these types of gatherings, especially because our place is small and there's not a bunch of seating for everyone. I grabbed a variety pack of delicious desserts from Trader Joe's that had these waffle cone pieces, almond snaps, chocolate crunch cookies and other fun things. Then I got an order of Nothing Bundt Cake mini's that I cut in half (I find they get eaten more if they're cut in half...shy friends of mine ;)) My friend brought these delicious chocolate, nut and berry bites and another friend brought white chocolate covered pretzels with peppermint.
For apps I got Trader Joe's feta cheese and onion bites (OH MY GOSH, best ever if you haven't had these! Everyone thinks they're homemade, too!) I also put out my go-to app which is a block of cream cheese with pepper jelly poured over it and an assortment of crackers and bread to eat it with. I put out grapes on the same cracker plate and then a friend brought a great, simple veggie tray. That got eaten up quick!
Okay, back to the party! Have all your guests put their three gifts around the tree or wherever they'll fit in the house. And after some mingling, it's time to gather everyone up!
As the host, I start by picking one of the questionnaire's out of the bowl and reading the answers the person chose. My friends are listening and at the end of reading it, they all have to guess WHO those answers belong to! Once the person is identified, that is the person who will first pass out their gifts! They choose 3 names (or however many gifts each person brings) and pass out their gifts. On the count of 3, those with gifts open them and then the gift-giver explains to the group why that's one of their favorite things. Usually at this point, everyone is passing around the gifts to get a better look :)
Now the person who just distributed their gifts reads the next questionnaire. Once people guess who's it is, that person then draws her three names and passes out her gifts. The cycle continues until everyone goes!
Alright, so I bet you're wondering what gifts were given at around a $10 budget! Here's the whole list:
+ Journal + coffee mug with assorted tea bags
+ Famous seasoning she uses on everything + bath bomb + favorite chocolate chip cookies from a local bakery
+ Magnolia Journal + Mrs. Meyers pine hand soap
+ Christmas Cacti
+ Gold triangle earrings
+ Mug + dark chocolate + a Starbucks card
+ Fun socks
+ Mini bottle of champagne + bath salts
+ Journal + favorite candle
+ Beanie + wool socks
+ A copper mug with the ingredients to make a Hot Toddy
+ And I brought my favorite Trader Joe's candle (because I love candles that smell like baking), Ghirardelli milk chocolate and caramel squares (because I'm from the SF Bay Area and that's where Ghirardelli is located!) and of course, a little Beautycounter hand lotion (because it's safe for your body and smells amazing + moisturizes so well!)
I think I answered all of the questions, but let me know if you have any others! It's such a fun time because you get to hang out with girlfriends and get to know them even more. Again, you don't have to have a holiday theme. I've seen these parties be thrown at random times through the year, for different friend groups to get people to know each other more and I've seen a friend host one of these parties for the women in her neighborhood and I thought that was such a fun idea. This group of friends I hosted for were all the girl leaders for the youth group at our church. I've grown close to lots of them over the years, so it's a great time!!
Let me know if you throw a My Favorite Things party and if you have in the past, tell me how you did it!
xoxo
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