When our friend Elizabeth told us she was pregnant, we were over the moon with excitement for her and her husband. We had just come back from a month long cross-country road trip, and Elizabeth hopped on for the final leg of the trip – Wisconsin, the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone, Arches, Vegas, and home. Elizabeth had a feeling that maybe she was pregnant, but it was too early to tell. As you can imagine, we spent many hours on the road discussing how we’d plan her perfect baby shower (and the baby’s 1st birthday party, and 2nd birthday party…) Two hours after arriving home she and her husband turned up at our house with a positive pregnancy test and the planning began!
Nine months of planning is a lot for a baby shower, but the results paid off. They were planning on a woodland themed nursery, so we began with that in mind. We had round terrariums left over from a Disco Birthday party we’d thrown a few weeks earlier, and Amanda began the process of designing lighted terrarium scenes to hang from our big orange tree.
Most of it was pretty simple and cheap – moss, battery operated firefly lights, pebbles, and a lot of mini-stuff. There were a few snafus in the beginning. The battery operated lights have to be attached to the globes before putting anything else in, otherwise the switch to turn them on gets lost under the moss. Amanda chose to attach the lights on the back using scotch tape. Once the lights were attached it was just pebbles, then moss, then designing the scene inside using the miniature objects!
We used these adorable watercolor woodland animal graphics from Happily Ever After to create both our banners and the food label cards.
On to the food! We had decided we would do a ladies only shower in the afternoon with appetizers and desserts, and then a barbecue in the evening for everyone, so we created two menus – “woodland tea” theme for the afternoon party and camping themed barbecue for the evening.
We stuck to simple, crowd pleasers that had a rustic feel. Lizzie did her signature Deviled Eggs, Olive Tapenade Pinwheels, Pigs in a Blanket, Cucumber & Herbed Cream Cheese Tea Sandwiches, Curry Chicken Salad Tea Sandwiches, Miniature Caprese Skewers, and Stuffed Woodland Mushrooms. Lizzie made Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies and Double Chocolate Brownie Cookies for dessert.
We went with a camping theme for the evening party: sausages, veggie burgers, hot dogs, Smitten Kitchen’s amazing pimento cheese bites, Pulled Pork Sliders with Pickled Onions, Layer Dip, Smoked Baked Beans, and a Green Salad. The big hit, however, was the S’mores Bar, offering all kinds of chocolate and sweet treats.
There’s more to a baby shower than food and decorations, of course! On top of the usual baby shower games, we had a decorate your own onesie station, a selfie booth in the hedges, and sent all the guests home with trail mix from our “On the Trail to Parenthood” Bar!
And most importantly, both mom and dad had a great time!
potlikkerpantry.com 