Please hit me with your best baby shower ideas- cakes, games, food...

[SnuggleBuggles]

The only shower I hosted was at a restaurant for tea and decorations were simply balloons. This will be an at home shower meaning I need to provide everything. I have been to a whopping 3 baby showers in my life so I don't have a lot to go of from my own life experiences. I'd be so appreciative for any help even if it is to say what you have hated about baby showers you have been to. :)

Beth

[almostsane]

We just gave a baby shower 2 weeks ago and it was very nice. I will fill you in on some of the details.

1. Instead of cake, we opted for little petit fours. We got them from a local caterer, but Publix makes some very good ones for a very reasonable price.
2. We bought three small bouquets of flowers, from Wal-Mart, and made flower arrangements for centerpieces. We have some beautiful bushes between the three hostesses, so we added those and a little greenery. Super cheap. Wal-Mart had some beautiful carnations.
3. Other food served was nuts, petit quiche purchased from Sam's Club, punch, mixed fruit purchased frozen from Sam's, fruit dip, and sausage croissants.
4. We only played two games. The first is called Baby Bingo. Super easy. We found some pretty baby stationary and printed the Bingo cards out on it. Instead of numbers/letters, you use baby items for the rows/columns. As the mother-to-be opens each gift, you mark it off on your card. Our winners received a baby bottle full of pink Whoppers(malted milk balls). The second game is very easy as well. Each attendant gets a clothespin as they enter the shower. The object of the game is to get the most clothespins. You can take the pin away from someone if they say the word "BABY". Winner received same gift as above. You can purchase small pink/blue pins at Wal-Mart in the craft section.

If you have any questions, feel free to pm me and I can offer more suggestions. Good Luck.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Those are all great ideas! After attending one boring shower with 3 hours of present opening I vowed to always have something like present bingo to keep the guests from falling asleep. :) Thank you so much!


Any one else have any tips or ideas to share?

Beth

[ChunkyNicksChunkyMom]

The last shower I hosted I served jumbo shrimp with cocktail sauce and chocolate dipped strawberries, other stuff too, but these were big hits.I also have some easy (cheap) decorating ideas if you are interested.

[SnuggleBuggles]

The last shower I hosted I served jumbo shrimp with cocktail sauce and chocolate dipped strawberries, other stuff too, but these were big hits.I also have some easy (cheap) decorating ideas if you are interested.

I'd love to hear them. :)

Beth

[ChunkyNicksChunkyMom]

pming you!

[niccig]

It depends on how much of it will be baby-themed. The ones I've gone to and helped planned, were always light on the baby-themes.

We had one at my place. We have a cottage garden so it was a garden party theme. We did brunch type food - croissants, quiches, bagels, fruit, chocolate dipped strawberries and lemon squares as the mum-to-be loves those. Drinks were champagne and OJ, tea/coffee. For decorations we had white table cloths and scattered rose petals - we have a lot of rose bushes in the garden. The mum didn't want games, instead we had fabric paint and onesies and burb-cloths and everyone decorated one and the mom judged the winner.

I was just at a shower and she had some good games. A-Z and you list baby/pregnancy related items - it's a timed game. Word scramble of characters from children's literature like Mother Goose etc. This was more difficult to do than I thought. We had a diaper cake and had to guess how many diapers were in it. Everyone got to guess the sex/birth date of the baby - we don't know the winner of this one yet.

[Clarity]

I had 2 wonderful baby showers. At one, we had tons of fresh fruit (b/c that was what I was craving most, punch, soup - maybe it was wedding? and croissant sandwiches - egg salad, chix salad, ham salad. This shower was a book them - everyone was encouraged to bring a book instead of a card. We started a wonderful little library for dd from the books we were given. Each table had it's own book theme. One was Elmer, one was the Velveteen Rabbit, one Curious George, one Frog & Toad. You get the idea. The appropriate book was the centerpiece and stuffed animals decorated the table. The entire table, from balloons, cups, plates, napkins (all paper, of course) was the specific book theme. It was really charming and absolutely the best shower I've ever been to!
At my other shower, we didn't really play games per say. We had a matted frame that we had people sign to the baby so that her picture went into this signed frame when she was born. Everyone brought a baby picture and the person who guessed the most correctly one a prize. Those types of things.

[MontrealMum]

I can't speak to games, but I've done an English tea theme for two baby showers now. Sandwiches with the crusts cut off, bite-sized pastries, that sort of thing. Favorites are always curry chicken salad, and smoked salmon pate (not together of course!). And there's a bakery up here that does frozen croissants and chocolatines (pain au chocolat for French traditionalists) that you leave in the oven overnight and bake the day of. The house smells heavenly and everyone loves them. Check out your fancier bakeries for nice pastries. Super-decadant bite-sized brownies are a big hit too at the showers I've been too, and there were "adult" cupcakes for the one friends had for me. Sam's has some nice frozen hors d'oeuvres that are easy too (like mini quiches).

[deannanb]

I played the gift bingo game - that was fun - and kept you occupied while the presents were being opened!

the other fun game we played was matching the celebrity to their babies names. I'm sure there is a form already made up - but here is a list I found.

http://www.babynames.com/Names/Celebrities/celebrity_babies.php

[Tondi G]

many showers I've been too are either deli meat and cheese platters with assorted bread rolls for everyone to make their own..... or mini croissant sandwiches already made up.... ceasar salad, pasta salad, fruit salad, vegis and dip. Coffee, Iced Tea and Lemonade.

One shower that was actually a lot of fun the host bought a bunch of stencils and fabric markers/paint. She bought a few packages of white baby onsies and everyone got a season and size to decorate. I got winter and just put a few little dots along the neckline and used a larger snowflake stencil on the front and used silver paint. It turned out really cute and the baby actually got to wear some of the decorated onesies!

there is always guess the girth with toilet paper or string

get a calendar and people can guess the due date and size of the baby

For decoration check out this site... lots of cute baby shower stuff. http://www.birthdaydirect.com/baby-shower-decorations-c-111.html?osCsid=7279f5f1a9ff346ef35e8ab420950916

Good Luck

~Tondi

[american_mama]

If you want something different from the traditional baby shower, I had a mother blessing three weeks ago. Everyone there already had children, so as an icebreaker, we wrote down names we considered but had to reject for some reason, and everyone guessed what name went with which person. There were some really fun stories and a lot of nostalgia.

An activity I considered but didn't do was to have a contest putting together some toys that are challenging even for an adult, if you have any. For me, I was going to use some cardboard bricks that arrive flat and a mini wagon with building blocks that fit inside, then have people time themselves doing each and then make a winner of the fastest time. But I ended up not doing that game.

We did three other activities at the mother blessing. The first was a quote garland: everyone was asked in the invitation to bring an inspirational quote about pregnancy, birth or motherhood, and write it on some nice notecards we provided. Everyone read theirs and then attached them to a garland I'd made (pm me if you want details about that) and I brought the quotes with me to the hospital. I also thought about asking people to share something that helped them during their births, whether it was a calming comment from a nurse before their c section or massage from their husband during the throes of labor. I decided the quote idea was better for my guests, although I personally was super interested in the second idea.

The second activity was pretty unique to a mother blessing: I read something I'd wrote about deciding my family was complete, and then we did a symoblic tasting of sugar/salt/lemon juice to symbolize the bittersweetness and surprise of that decision.

The third activity was connecting the cord: my sister did a short reading about the connections between generations and between women and then we wound string around our wrists, each person keeping the cord on until the news my baby was born. While passing the cord around, we listened to a song written to honor the singer's mother.

If you want to do favors, I ordered magnets from vistaprint.com and put a nice quote about motherhood on it, then tied it in netting bags filled with Hershey Kisses and Hugs. The magnet were 25 for $10ish. I tied the bags with ribbon and put a note through it that said "Hugs, kisses and perspective for motherhood. Thank you for coming."

For a more traditional baby shower, an idea I read here was to have a "no wrap" party, where people bring gifts unwrapped and the hostess displays them with a card around the room, to avoid the tedium of watching the mom open gifts (especially good if there is a large group or if the mom would be physically or otherwise uncomfortable sitting for a long gift-opening). You can also have guests write their address on an envelope as they arrive so the thank you cards are already addressed.

Hope these give you a range of ideas.