Christine's "Queen of Hearts ~ WONDERland" Baby Shower
If you know me you know obsessed is a mediocre word for how I feel about throwing parties and showers... It is an absolute dream of mine to have my own business where I can actually get paid to do this... and I should probably mention, having two kids and a life, I usually ONLY do about half to a quarter of what's in my head... so here goes my first shower blog (hope you enjoy and get lots of useful info):
Okay, so Christine (no last names as this is a blog) is due to have baby Jemma around Valentine's Day. So, tip #1, whenever throwing a shower around a certain season or holiday its a great idea to theme the party to go with the season so you can (a) have a plethora of stuff to choose from at the craft/fabric store; (b) get that stuff usually discounted; and (c) be festive and keep decorations up if its at your house (not to mention, people are usually in the mood for the season/holiday, so it makes for a merrier time. After juggling a few ideas in my head based on this and what I had at home, the final decision was a play-off of Alice and Wonderland's Queen of Hearts. Fun, totally fits Christine's personality (not meant to be offensive, she's just very "type-A") and (drumroll) festive with lots of hearts, red, black and white!
basic list when throwing a shower:
- Theme/color scheme (already went over that above)... and yes, I'm a little psychotic about sticking to themes...
- guest list (convert addresses to word doc for lables and XL doc for RSVP tracker, and name tags if you wish)
- invitation
- decorations (make drawings or list by hand of ideas, I love making Pinterst boards for mine, you can look at my Pinterest for ideas under my name, not sure how to link yet
- games/activities (usually go with theme)
- food list (decide on brunch, lunch or dinner)
- take-home or favor
Invitation
I wanted to go with the theme so I actually downloaded the book on my iphone to get my circuits going. I had a blast writing a cute little themed story, people LOVE stories, don't believe me ask yourself ;o) I found some vintage (another obsession of mine) drawings from the original Alice in Wonderland online and used the rabbit as the main invitation image. I also downloaded several free fonts online that went along the lines with what I thought, make me think of Queen's, or royalty AND silliness... Alice in Wonderland is all about the silly dream of a child where nothing makes sense...
I tried keeping the theme focused on the Queen of Hearts rather than Alice, using the colors red, black and white, hearts, and card suits (playing cards). Again, using the story (if your theme has a story or movie makes it more fun and ideas for decoration). I incorporated two of the games and book ideas into the invitation: the invitation talks about the cards "painting the roses red" in the queen's royal garden, don't be late, very merry "birth"day, not being distracted by the mad hatter and march hare, and of course RSVP or... OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!
the "Ace" card shown above says to "test your luck" and enter our diaper raffle
the large "tag" tied on to the red string talks about pregnancy being a very "curious" thing and upon RSVPing, submit a story about your pregnancy, cravings, yada yada... of course if people actually submit their stories it becomes a very fun "ice-breaker" game which I'll get into more detail below.
the smaller tag says: "Read me" if you remember Alice had several snacks and bottles reading "drink me" or "eat me" so i used that...
the gold paper cut out key is because Alice had to use a gold key to open the talking door knob to get into Wonderland.
And of course the back was sealed with an "Open Me" sticker. the front labels had the guests name and address in two different fonts that were used in the invitation, and a picture of the queen of hearts I downloaded online (the older drawing one)
the return label said "the duchess of hearts" in lieu of my name
Decorations:
outside: "Please join us we're all MAD here" with chesire cat smile (heart with paper roses) super easy printed on cardstock (same fonts used in invite) and look up paper rose tutorial online. You'll laugh but its all hot glued to a heart cut-out of a cereal box... and signs reading "the Queen of Hearts" (from my Cricut Nursery Rhymes cartridge - fyi i sell di cuts on etsy...) Royal Garden; This way; that way, etc....
Tables, banner and mantle:
Topiaries. Okay, i used cardboard from leftover cereal boxes and such, cut them in one and a half inch wide strips hot glued the tops and bottoms in circles and interweived them to make a ball. then i glued paper leaves to the strips trying to make sure there wasnt holes the best i could. then covered those in white paper flowers. the pole is two sheets of white cardstock twisted into a pole and glued down and then a thin red strip of cardstock wrapped around that and glued. the base is a soup can i painted the top and bottom gold then hot glued white cardstock, then a strip of heart patterned paper and then another strip of white cardstock that has "Welcome to this WONDERful World Jemma Rose" tied in the back with gold ribbon through the hole punches. the topiary sits in the can just with white tissue paper shoved in as hard as I could.
The tables also have:
- mason jars for drinks and paper straws (paper heart staws with printed "drink me" flags)
- bingo cards (noted below)
- favor or give away (noted below)
I made strings of hearts with hearts cut out of a Bicycle deck of red playing cards, literally hand sewn together with a needle and red thread. the leftover hearts cut out I used on the tables like confetti. i used about two or three decks of cards for this, but totally cute!
on the fireplace string of hearts i hung a onesie saying "Princess to the King of Kings" with the four suits underneith (Christine is one of my church girlies, hence the "King of Kings"); with a headband to the left and a flower clip i made from hearts or petals again cut out of a deck of cards. all you do is use a pencil to kind of curl the petals and hot glue them on a circle of felt with the larger ones first. then i put swaraski crystals on the flower clip. and a tutu as you can see above it. the diaper cake is my specialty. (I'm going to start selling them on etsy...hint hint)
Banner (also going to start selling on etsy):
each letter is supposed to look like a "card" with smaller letters and hearts in the corners. i used my cricut to cut the shapes, hearts and letters. and of course if the Queen is having the baby, the baby is a Princess!
Games/Activities:
- Diaper raffle
- bingo (as seen on tables) the guests fill in what they think the mama will get and each gift she opens that is that thing they cross off to get a bingo!
- pregancy "ice breaker" game: if people give you their stories ahead of time, its basically a matching game, list all the guests names on one side of the page and their stories on the other. all the guests try to match who they think goes with the story and you go through each story having the guest it "belongs to" explain in more detail. its actually really funny and a lot of fun, but seems to only work with smaller showers.
- card game: in this case i went with the playing cards used in the theme. i had Christine answer a ton of personal questions (ie: what's your favorite color, how'd you get the name Jemma, where did you and your hubby meet, etc...) and put each question and answer on the back of a playing card. the guests were given three cards each and had to ask other quests their questions if the other person got the question right, they would hold up the cards (like in go fish) and the person would pick a card. there is one "Queen of Hearts" card in the game. whoever ended up with the Queen of Hearts at the end of the shower won! fun game to get the guests to mingle with one another and get to know the mommy better.
- scrapbook: i do this every shower. Get a scrapbook, stickers, embellishments, pens, stamps, punches, one of those scrapbook paper packs that go with the theme/colors (i used some of those from this pack for the take homes and decorations), etc... scrapbook supplies (scissors, fancy shmancy scissors with different designs, ink pads, glue sticks, brads, string, etc...) and each guest makes a scrapbook page for the baby (make sure to remind them to leave a space for the baby pictures). as a gift the mom has a pre-made personalized scrapbook for her new baby pictures and its fun when guests leave little notes and messages. i also print out bible verses in the fonts and colors to go with the party
- book: in this case we got a copy of "Alice in Wonderland" and had each guest sign it. Baby Jemma probably won't read it for at least ten years, but when she's 10 she'll be excited to see all the little notes from mommy's friends inside for her.
Food:
for this shower, again, i had fun with the theme and colors. since the shower was a luncheon, we did sandwiches and a salad bar. i cut all the bread in heart shapes a put out a platter of meet, cheese, mayo, mustard, etc...
i made red velvet whoopie pies (got the recipe online for boxed cake whoopie pies.. SOOO good), watermelon cut in heart shapes (used a cookie cutter), the famous pretzel jello thingy, but with oreos instead of pretzels to keep the theme colors red, white and black... (I told you i was crazy) but it turned out so good! And of course little "eat me signs"
For the gifts I made a list for the mama to take so she can do her thank-you's and its cute if she wants to throw it in the scrapbook (along with invite too)
for the take-homes/favors: I used one of the "bags" from my Plantin Schoolbook cricut cartridge. the paper is from the scrapbook pack as mentioned above and the tags are also from that cartridge and paper. the bag has a bag of tea inside (Constant Comment as the bag colors were red, black, white and gold). the large tag had a picture of the Mad Hatter's tea party and read "A spot of tea from the soon to be, MAD mommy of three" (Christine's third child). the smaller tag read "We hope you had a WONDERful time with a pocket watch drawing faded behind (found online)
Hope you enjoyed!
Thanks for reading
