Which is why I am totally bummed that I forgot to put someone in charge of taking pictures of the second half of the baby shower.  I was too busy mingling and enjoying myself, that it wasn’t until I came home and uploaded the pictures did I realize I was missing great shots of the room.

This room is usually used for small business meetings and it is set up like this

Since we were eating outside and just coming in here for desserts, games and gift opening, I asked if they could put lounge seating in the room rather than your standard tables and chairs.  Yahoo for me, it wasn’t a problem.  I was amazed when I walked in the day of the shower, by just adding couches, overstuffed chairs and a couple of small tables the room felt like a living room.  Too bad I didn’t get a picture before all the guest were in here, but this is what it looked like with the lounge seating (everyone is concentrating so hard on the timed word search game)

I had big plans for this room.  But since I ran out of time, my decorations in the room didn’t turn out exactly as I had visioned.  Everyone was scrambling to get my tissue flower balls up.  I had no time to give specific instructions and they did the best they could.  In the end, there were too many tissue flowers grouped together and the varying heights weren’t right, but no one really noticed but me.  And I just appreciate all the help I got, I am just so darn picky!  At the end of the shower, some of the gals asked me to give them a short tutorial on how to make the flowers.  So we had a quick crafting class going on too!

I had so much fun making these wonderful handkerchief pennants, you can hardly see them in this picture, super duper easy and cheap!

Oh, my, gosh!  I bought this little baby boy fabric banner from ThatsadorableLLC on Etsy.  It was so stinkin cute!  All hand sewn, it was adorable.

But I delegated it to someone at the last minute to hang it for me, and oops, they evidently forgot to hang all the clothes!  Oh, well it still looked cute.

This is where Shannon opened presents.  I bought the letters at Joanns and just left them white and then added the different color fabric and paper to the front and tied them to the shutters with ribbon.

The dessert table, it was full of delicious desserts.  Did I get a before picture in all it’s glory?  Nope.  This is the only picture I have that you can kind of see the whole table and half the desserts gone.  That is Layla, my favorite 3 year old and official helper of opening presents with Shannon.  She was such a princess in that beautiful dress.

I kept the theme “C” is for… on the dessert table.  Creme brulee, cookies, cupcakes, candy and chocolate etc. I bought mini Hershey bars and made a wrapper for them.  I also made dessert labels to match.

I bought Ikea frames and framed pages from the vintage book and hung them above the dessert table.  You can see a couple of them in these pictures.

“C” is for Carter-part 2 is a post from: Cre8tive Designs Inc.

The theme was vintage and “C”.  “C” because they are going to name their baby Carter, and vintage because I feel in love with the cute pictures in this 1941 children’s book I got off eBay.

I used the picture on the right for the invitations that I posted about here

I decided I did not want to do the shower at my house.  Having a party at your home is a lot of work, and I just wanted a break from that, so we choose to do the shower at a local resort, The Rancho Bernardo Inn.  They have the most beautiful grounds, impeccable service and the best food!  Plus Shannon’s dad just happens to be the banquet manager, which was icing on the cake.  We choose to do the food outside on this lawn area that had a beautiful fountain as the focal point.

The desserts, games and opening of presents were held in a separate room right off the fountain area.  The fountain area was just so beautiful by itself, it made my job of decorating so much easier.

But being the over achiever detailed orientated fanatic that I am, my design details consumed me.  In my head I knew that I wouldn’t have to worry about setting up, cooking the food and serving it, so I really focused on the details, making myself crazy with a new idea everyday.  Case in point.  I had been eying this chair idea for awhile that I saw on Hostess with the Mostess. 

So two days before the shower, I pulled the trigger and decided I would do this to the chairs.  Big mistake!  Evidently I hadn’t really thought about how many strips of ribbon and fabric each chair would need.  12 strips per chair, and I had 40 chairs.  I had already bought the fabric and ribbon when I realized how much work this was going to be, so rather than scrap the idea, I decided to just do every other chair.  But let me tell you, that is A LOT of strips, 240 to be exact.  Not to mention the time it took us to tie each strip to the chair in a very short window of setting up.  But you know what?  It was worth it.  It really just added the extra touch I wanted to the tables.

I used bright colors so that it wouldn’t look too weddingish.  The hydrangeas are a silk pomander that I sell in my Etsy shop.  We just didn’t have the time to tie the knots perfectly and cut the ends off, so we went with the more casual look than what was in the inspiration picture.  Seriously, this was SO time consuming, we are lucky to have pulled it off.

I wanted to incorporate vintage children’s books for the center pieces, but finding the right ones and the quantity was turning out to be a challenge.  So I made my own.  I got fake books from Michaels, and sprayed them Heirloom white and then lightly antiqued them with brown acrylic paint.  I printed out a scaled down version of the front of the vintage book I used for the invitation, and sprayed glued them to the front and back of the fake book.

I got the cutest blue pitchers from Ikea and wrapped some lace and yellow raffia around them and centered a handmade “c” button I bought  from LiDDesignsSupplies on Etsy in the middle .

I used the florist at The Rancho Bernardo Inn, Inn Florals, to make all the arrangements, boy did she do a wonderful job!  She got my concept and then some.  I couldn’t of been happier with her design!

On each table I laid a different “c” letter that I either made myself or bought off of Etsy.  I also put two little white mini milk jugs on each side of the books with flowers and added burlap runners.

The favors.  I loved how they turned out!  I wanted to come up with a favor that started with a “c”.   I couldn’t believe it when I found these memo coffee cups from Fishseddy.com I had seen these fun cookies around Easter and thought it was such a cool idea!

So I contacted Gina at Jimemmajack Cookies who makes them.   I wanted to find out if she could make me a “c” to put on the side of the mug.  After talking, we decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to do because of high risk of breakage transporting them to the shower, so she came up with another idea.  She actually printed the shower invitation on a cookie instead.  All edible of course. Oh.My.Gosh.  They turned out so cute!

I added a candle to the coffee mug, wrapped it in cellophane and tied it with ribbon and a crocheted blue flower from DoilyMania on Etsy.

I inserted a “thank you” tag that I made inside the cup and then placed them on the tables.

I wanted to do something unusual for the guest book.  I had seen this idea of using a wedding puzzle guest book on Bellapuzzlestoo on Etsy.

But these were specifically for a wedding.   I needed to come up with a baby shower puzzle guest book version.   So I bought two kids puzzles from Michaels that had large puzzle pieces

I flipped them over and attached a tag I made with instructions on what to do with them.  I put them on the folded napkin at each seat.

I laid special ink pens that don’t run or smudge around the table for the guests to write on the puzzle pieces. Now when Carter does these puzzles, he can have his mom or dad read to him the messages on the back.  Such a great keepsake.

For fun, I had mimosas and apple juice tray passed in glass baby bottles that I got at Big Lots.  I cut off the top of the nipples and inserted blue stripped straws.

In addition to the mimosas, we had fresh lemonade and ice tea

and these wonderful strawberry spritzers that were so refreshing tasting.

And the food?  To die for!  Here is a small sample of what they served…makes me hungry looking at it. {I had seconds of that chicken tortilla soup, yummy!}

Since I have already made this post so darn long, I will do a separate post on the second half of the baby shower where we had the most beautiful dessert table and room setting.  But for now, I can’t help myself but to leave you with a picture of  Carter’s mom and dad to be and more pictures of the shower.

“C” is for Carter Baby Shower is a post from: Cre8tive Designs Inc.