A Handmade Baby Shower Card For A Beautiful Fall Baby Shower

Last weekend I shared that I had the pleasure of attending two good, old friend's life milestone events:  a wedding and a baby shower.  In last week's post I covered the Beautiful Fall Wedding, this week I am sharing the baby shower.

Before I give you all the details of this lovely shower, I will first show the handmade card I made for the lovely couple and their little bundle of joy.  To make this card I used an old retired Stampin' Up set called "Buggies and Booties".  Elizabeth, the mommy-to-be, loves anything vintage so I thought this would be a great set to use.

To make the card, I stamped the buggy image directly on the card base and colored it in with pencils.  I then took a pink gelato crayon and colored a background, then stamped the sentiment over the gelato.  To finish the card, I used sequins to emphasize the sentiment.

Before I begin to show all the details of this beautiful fall baby shower I want to give a little history of my friendship with Sandy, the mother-in-law who threw the shower  Like my friend Julia, who you met last week, I met Sandy at church.  Church is a great place to meet people and foster life long friendships, because you have one big thing in common:  faith.  I met Sandy when my kids were two and five years old, and Sandy didn't have children yet.  Fast forward 25 years and here we are with two of our children married, two grand babies, and Sandy's first grand baby on the way.  It is an absolute privilege to have life long friends and watch our children grow up together and celebrate life's milestones like weddings and baby showers!

Now on to the details of this beautiful baby shower!  The shower was held outdoors on a lovely fall day.  When the guests first arrived, they were greeted by this chalkboard sign on the front porch directing them to the location of the shower.

The shower was held on Sandy's back patio.  Small white tables and chairs were draped with white linens  and pretty pink floral napkins.  Each table had a lovely fall chrysanthemum wrapped in pink tulle and a pink bow.

"My Little Pumpkin" was the theme of the baby shower so pumpkins were used in all the decor;   but they were all white to keep the shower feminine since the mom-to-be is having a little girl.  A small white pumpkin graced every table and little pale pink paper pumpkins were at every place setting.  These were used for the guests to write "words of wisdom" for the parents-to-be.  And as a side note,   the lovely pink rose linen napkins were from my own daughter's wedding and baby shower.  It's wonderful to be able to share precious items like these with friends and see them get a lot of use.  It makes the special events even more special.

The chrysanthemum centerpieces doubled as party favors as each guest was allowed to take a chrysanthemum plant home at the end of the party.

A comfortable and pretty living room chair was brought outside for the mom-to-be to sit in while she opened her gifts.  In keeping with the pumpkin theme, a pillow with a white pumpkin decoration on it, was placed on the chair.  Above the chair hung a lovely wreath with the first letter of the baby's name.

The baby's name is Jane Elizabeth.  The mom-to-be is a huge fan of the novel "Pride and Prejudice" so the name represents both the author and the main character in the novel.  "Elizabeth" is also the name of the mom-to-be and the name of the father's grandmother, so there is some nice history there as well.

The baby's name was beautifully displayed on a white pumpkin filled with pink and white flowers.  It was placed on the gift table along with a pretty vintage baby carriage and Jane's ultrasound.

And here is the beautiful mom-to-be Elizabeth proudly showing Baby Jane's ultrasound picture.  The detail these ultrasounds can capture today is amazing.  One can see so many features of this precious human being;  a true gift from God.

Sandy incorporated many of her regular flower urns that grace her patio all summer into the baby shower decor.  She just added some fall mums and more white pumpkins to tie into the shower's theme.  If you notice little baby socks in some of the pictures, those were "hidden" all over the grounds for guests to find.  At the end of the shower, the guest who found the most socks won a large chrysanthemum to take home.

This was the large chrysanthemum that a guest won for collecting the most socks.

The food was kept inside the house to protect it from insects and the weather, but the drinks were outside. Inside the dining room a baby welcome sign made out of little white pumpkins hung in the window.  It read "Welcome Mum-to-be and Sweet Little Pumpkin".  More pink tulle with pink bows was hung from the rod on both sides of the banner.

Underneath the banner a pretty white urn held pink and white decorative balls and flowers on a metal stand.  On the stand also lay more white little pumpkins and baby socks for guests to find.

The food table was absolutely stunning.  The centerpiece featured a tiered stand with beautiful pink vintage baby dresses.  The food was attractively laid out on either side of the centerpiece.

At the top of the stand was pretty pink and white peonies.  The food was absolutely amazing!  I took one of everything, and thought all of it was exquisite! 

A vintage white lace doily covered the base of the centerpiece.  A large pink bow with more baby socks for guests to find graced the ends of the centerpiece, with the baby dresses on the wider side.

Pretty pumpkin printables were placed on the food table with descriptions of the food items.

Dessert was pink and yellow cupcakes.  They were  placed on  trays of different heights on a table covered with white lace linens.  A white vintage frame on an easel with a fall mum wrapped in pink tulle completed the decor.

As stated earlier, the drinks were outside so guests did not have to go inside the house every time they were thirsty.  There was a coffee bar set up on a table filled with lovely fall flowers and cold drinks were in a white metal basin nearby.

Metal window plant hangers are on the windows to the house year round, but for the party, they hung mason jars and filled them with fall vibernum flowers.

I'm not sure what this vintage metal basin is, if I had to guess, I would say it's an old fashioned way to wash clothes, but it worked perfectly to hold ice and cold drinks for the shower.  Sandy draped it with pink fabric and tulle.

Sandy covered the bottled drinks with more pumpkin printables and hand wrote on the side of the bottle what the drink was.

And finally, here are some pictures of the beautiful mom-to-be opening some of her presents.  

And this is my dear friend Sandy with her daughter-in-law holding the ultrasound photo of her first grand baby.  I am so excited for my friend to enter the wonderful world of being a grand parent.  I think she will be such a wonderful grandmother.  I'm also excited that her first grand child is a girl, as Sandy has two boys of her own.  It will be fun for her to spoil her little grand daughter with everything pink and frilly.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

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A Velveteen Rabbit Baby Shower

Last weekend we went to Wheaton, Illinois to attend a baby shower for my daughter and son-in-law.  The shower was thrown by Ashley's and Jason's small church group, but I was asked to help with the decorations.  Other than spending $25.00 on fresh flowers, all the decorations were either recycled/reused from previous events or were items we already owned.

When guests arrived via the front door of the hostess's home, the first thing they saw was this cute sign.  My daughter made this for her sister-in-law's baby shower and because they have the same last name Ashley was able to reuse it.  The sign was placed atop the gift table.

Just to the left of the gift table was the dining table.  Ashley wanted the chandelier above the food table to be a focal point so I decorated it with artificial garland and ribbon from her wedding six years earlier.

Everyone was awestruck by what I did with this chandelier but it was really so simple.  I just took the white floral garland and wrapped it down and around the main stem of the chandelier.  Then I took smaller pieces and wrapped those around the light bulb arms of the chandelier.  Then below each light bulb I tied a white ribbon and let it hang down.  I added a pink rose and white jasmine by twisting the stem of the flowers around the bulb base.  I finished off the look by adding more pink roses into the white garland throughout.

For the food table, we used a cupcake stand as the focal point.  There I added more pink and white artificial flowers, greenery, and ribbon.  Two fresh flower vases were added to either side of the cupcake stand.  I placed the cupcake stand upon three rose print linen napkins from Ashley's wedding, then I wrapped a light pink artificial garland around all the food items.

To the right of the food table was the beverage area.  Here I hung a a light green vinyl table cloth (also left over from Ashley's dress rehearsal reception).  I knew there would be stains from the punch, so I deliberately used something that could easily be wiped clean rather than a standard table cloth which would stain.  I gathered the vinyl up a bit with a white ribbon, then I wrapped pieces of white floral garland around the punch bowls and cups.

The cupcakes were delicious, they were purchased from Marianos grocery store.  They were a simple vanilla cupcake with vanilla frosting.  The Velveteen Rabbit picks were purchased by the hostess from Amazon.

I found this cute antique swan vase in my garden shed (you'd be amazed at what is in my garden shed!) and thought it would make the perfect utensil holder.

 For the eating area we set up two tables and chairs, covered them with table cloths and a fresh flower arrangement.  I also decorated the fireplace using napkins, tulle, and garland from Ashley's wedding, and new wall hangings Ashley picked out for the baby's room.

I laid the napkins across on a diagonal then placed the wall hangings on top of them.  The center wall hanging is sitting atop some books hidden under the napkins for extra height.  I then wrapped tulle around the wall hangings and added some garland.

Once my base was in place, I added all the other decor:  Velveteen Rabbit books purchased by the hostess, an old stuff bunny from Ashley's childhood, a pot of fresh flowers Ashley received from another baby shower, and a tea cup of the hostess's little girl.

Ashley and Jason's baby girl is named Aletha....hence the large initial!

 On each table I set a small vase of soft pink carnations atop a pink floral napkin.  I added a mix of transparent and grosgrain pink ribbon around each vase, tied in a bow.  Ashley placed a lighted votive on the corner of each napkin.

 For the coffee table in the living room, I placed a bouquet of daisies atop a pink floral napkin.  The pink floral napkins were scattered everywhere for this shower to tie all the decorations together.

 

 Well I can't leave you without sharing a few pictures from the shower.  We played a couple of games.    One of them was a diaper changing race game where everyone was given a doll with a poopey diaper to change. The team who changed the diaper the fastest won.  Surprisingly, the couple with the least diaper-changing experience, Ashley and Jason, were the winners!

 I was paired up with my son who never changed a diaper in his life, so we didn't even have our diaper off before Ashley and Jason were finished.  Inside the diapers were tootsie rolls! How fun is that?

And if you're wondering what I wore to Ashley's shower, I decided on a pretty, feminine eyelet skirt and top combo that I wore two Easters ago HERE.  Since everything I am wearing is exactly the same in that post, I decided not to do a separate fashion post on this outfit.  You can go to that post to see that outfit in more detail.

Ashley will be blessed with three baby showers.  She was thrown a shower by her church's choir, then she had her church's small group shower (this one), and she will also be thrown a shower from her husband's side of the family.

Don't you just love these cute black and white leggings?  My husband and I bought them them the baby bouncer you see on the far left.  We also purchased the baby's crib, and some crib sheets and clothing (not shown).  Once little Aletha is born, I will spoil her to death with lots of pretty clothes.  She will be the most well-dressed baby in town...my little fashionista!

Everyone had such a nice time at this shower.  It was such a joyful experience.  I just love the expression on Jason's face in this picture.

Have a Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE.