Baby Shower Archives | The Sassy Southern

Staches or Lashes Baby Gender Reveal Party

April 24, 2020

Oh I just LOVE gender reveal parties! For me, this was my first baby and I was just overwhelmed with excitement and emotion. I honestly didn’t care if I was having a boy or a girl, I was just beyond excited to be a mommy and I wanted to celebrate!

There are so many cute theme ideas for a gender reveal party. Tutus or Touchdowns, Bows or Burnouts, and the classic Pink or Blue theme. However, the Staches or Lashes theme was absolutely perfect for us! My husband has grown a curly mustache for Movember for several years and I am all about some lovely lashes.

The Reveal! Staches or Lashes?

I wanted the reveal to be spectacular. After a lot of research, I decided to use confetti cannons. I purchased confetti cannons from Holi Cannons on Etsy. Y’all. I HIGHLY recommend this shop. The price is so reasonable and they are so impressive! I wanted our family to participate in the reveal, so I ordered 10 confetti cannons in blue and 10 confetti cannons in pink. The confetti stays in the air for a long time, so the videos and pictures are perfect. I had my doctor write the gender on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope. I gave the envelope to my dear friend Sarah and she was responsible for bringing the correct confetti cannons to the party. For a fun little extra, she also called the bakery so that they could incorporate a blue or pink buttercream inside of the cake.

The Gender Reveal Party Cake

As soon as we had the theme, I immediately ordered the cake. The cake for any event acts as the centerpiece of the decor and I wanted this cake to stand out! I saw a few ideas on Pinterest that I liked, but nothing exactly like I was picturing. I drew a really terrible sketch of what I wanted and called Sugar Bee Sweets Bakery in Arlington, Texas. Y’all. If you are anywhere in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, I highly recommend Sugar Bee Sweets. They are so professional and their cakes taste even better than they look! After going over what I wanted for the cake, they asked me to email my sketch and created exactly what I envisioned. It was stunning and oh so delicious! I found this adorable gold glitter cake topper on Etsy and it totally completed the cake.

The Staches or Lashes Decor

Staches or Lashes Guest Favors: How did we ever plan parties before Etsy and Pinterest? I found these super cute lashes and staches glitter pins for the guests to wear to represent their guess.

Balloon Arch and Balloons: Balloon arches have become one of my favorite party staples. They are perfect for a statement wall and are really inexpensive to make. Check out my post on how to make your own balloon arch! We purchased all of the balloons for the balloon wall from Party City.

These super cute gold confetti “Oh Baby!” balloons from Hooray Days on Etsy are absolutely adorable! We also purchased 36” clear balloons from a local party store and filled them with gold confetti. These looked so fun on the floor and some of our younger guests really enjoyed playing with them during the party!

Staches or Lashes Banner: This glitter Staches or Lashes banner looked so great with our blue confetti and was a great prop for the photo backdrop.

Photo Backdrop: While I know this isn’t the most impressive photo backdrop ever created, it was a last-minute addition and was really fun! One of my best friends happens to be a super talented photographer and let us borrow one of her backdrop stands. We purchased a roll of black butcher paper to hang from the backdrop stand and added some fun props for guests to use. One of my other best friends had quite a few props for us to use and we purchased these really cute and inexpensive gender reveal baby shower balloons from Party City.

Hooray! It’s a boy! This theme was so much fun and I loved every minute of this gender reveal.

Have you hosted a gender reveal? I would love to see your party theme and pics! Please leave me a comment below so that I can check it out!

Floral Baby Shower Party Décor

DIY Crafts Party Planning

March 4, 2018

This post may contain affiliate links, but all opinions are my own. Please read my disclosure policy for more information.

I love planning baby showers. There are so many creative décor themes and I love finding new DIY crafts to conquer. When I’m asked to host a baby shower, the first thing I like to do is ask the mommy-to-be if she has a certain vision for the shower. This is such a big day for the mommy-to-be and daddy-to-be, so I always want to make sure that it is what they want. If they don’t have something in mind, I will usually suggest three themes that I am envisioning and we will go from there.

The Baby Shower Theme

For today’s featured baby shower, the floral baby shower décor was not difficult to select. This sweet shower was for precious baby Lily. I talked with the mommy-to-be and asked what colors she was doing for the nursery. I wanted to make sure that she could incorporate any of the décor that she wanted to keep into the nursery. Since she was doing pinks and whites for the nursery, I used those colors for the majority of the décor.

The Invitations, Thank You Notes, and Guess The Date Calendar

Designed by Forever Your Prints

I had so much fun searching for the perfect invitation! The invitation for a party sets the entire scene, so it is important to make sure it is absolutely stunning! I found so many beautiful invitations on Etsy! I decided to narrow it down to three and let the mommy-to-be choose! She finally decided on this gorgeous design by Forever Your Prints on Etsy!

I also love diaper raffles! When you order the invitations, make sure to also order diaper raffle cards! Include the diaper raffle card in the invitation. If guests would like to participate in the raffle, ask them to bring a pack of diapers to the shower and their name written on the raffle card. As they arrive, collect the diapers and drop all diaper raffle cards in a jar. During the game portion of the shower, draw a raffle winner and award them with a really fun prize! Just remember to make the prize extra special since the guests are bringing an additional gift! I love diaper raffles because guests don’t feel obligated to participate and it is a great way to collect a nice stash of diapers for the mommy and daddy-to-be!

I also ordered thank you notes in the same design! I had a station at the party next to the guest book and I asked the guests to please fill out their address on an envelope. This saves the mommy and daddy-to-be a lot of time and makes thank you notes a breeze! Also, don’t forget to keep track of who gives what during presents! That list will be very helpful when it comes time to send thank you notes!

This adorable shop also makes Guess The Date calendars! For those who are not familiar, a guess the date calendar is for guests to guess what date they think the baby will arrive! I purchased a butterfly stamp with pink ink and had all of the guests guess their date!

The Baby Shower Décor

I wanted everything to be covered in flowers with a show-stopping backdrop for the mommy-to-be to sit in front of during the shower activities. I found these beautiful paper flower templates on Etsy by Paper Flora. They are SO EASY to make and you can make multiple sizes from the same design. I chose my two favorite designs and purchased stock paper in the colors I wanted for the shower.

I made multiple sizes so that I could create a floral arch on the wall and I used fake leaves that I had left over from a Tropical Themed Baby Shower that I hosted to add a pop of green to the flowers! I purchased the Hangman Products PCR5 Poster & Craft Tape, 5′, Roll, White from Amazon to hold the flowers to the wall and it worked beautifully! This is the same tape I like to use when I make a balloon arch!

I purchased these adorable wooden block letters from Hobby Lobby and painted them white. I then glued small fake flowers to the bottom and up the sides of the letters. I LOVED how they turned out and so did the mommy-to-be! She has these in sweet baby Lily’s nursery now!

I really love monograms and initials, so I purchased this giant cardboard L from Hobby Lobby and stuck fake flowers all over the L. I cut the flower off of the stem and just left a small part of the stem to stab into the cardboard. It worked perfectly and looked so pretty!

Shopping Tip: #HobbyLobby marks all of their flowers 50% off every other week! #DIY Click To Tweet

I LOVE these gorgeous 36” balloons! They make such a statement when you walk in the room! For this floral themed baby shower, I decided to add flowers to the balloon string to give it a little extra glam! I took small flowers and leaves and hot glued them down a balloon string. The morning of the shower, I tied the floral string around the balloon and cut the actual balloon string off of the balloon. It turned out so cute and the shower guests were asking where I bought it! Purchase your own pack of 36″ Balloons on Amazon!

Pro Tip: Party supply stores charge as much as $15 to inflate a 36” balloon with helium. Instead, take it to the floral department at your local grocery store. I took mine to Kroger and they only charged me $2 to fill this giant… Click To Tweet

I wanted something extra special for the floral centerpieces on the buffet table! I saw this adorable hot air balloon flower box craft on Pinterest and I had to make it! It was so easy and looked amazing on the table! Here is what I used to make it:

Tall Square Box
Dowel Rods (Spray painted gold)
Hot Glue
Pink Paper Lanterns
Fresh Flowers

Diaper Cake

While diaper cakes don’t sound at all appealing, they make for fabulous baby shower décor and it is a great hidden gift for mom and dad! For this diaper cake, I decided to go with a black and white striped fabric and then use giant pink peonies to make it pop! Check out my blog on how to make a diaper cake here!

Pro Tip: Purchase diapers that are larger in size for the diaper cake. Most people purchase infant sized diapers for the shower. This will help mom and dad already have diapers for later! Click To Tweet

Mommy Milestone Wine Crate

I always love to include this with my gift! While all of the gifts are to the mom and dad, they are really for baby! This is a creative and fun gift that mom and dad can enjoy together to celebrate after the baby is born! I found these adorable Mommy Milestone custom wine labels on Etsy by Lush Label! Each wine label celebrates a different occasion after baby is born and includes a cute poem! You can have the babies name on the bottom to make it extra special! Check out my blog post on how to make a mommy milestone wine basket here!

Hospital Door Hanger Wreath

Help mom and dad welcome baby into the world with a beautiful hospital door hanger! This is a great way to show off sweet baby’s name and their official birthday as the loved ones visit the hospital! This also looks amazing at the shower! Check out my blog post on how to make a hospital door hanger!

Baby Shower Guest Book

Baby Shower Guest Book: Guess How Much I Love You

Special moments like a baby shower go by so quickly! I always like to include a guest book for mom and dad to look over and remember their sweet friends and family who showered them with love and support. Instead of a blank book that may end up stuffed on a shelf, I like to buy a favorite children’s book for the guests to sign and leave sweet messages. Each time mom and dad read this to sweet baby, they are reminded of the love and support from their friends and family! As baby gets older, they will be able to read the sweet messages of love and support and know how much they were loved before they were even born!

Baby Shower Games

Munchkin Bristle Bottle Brush
I love playing baby shower games where my game supplies can also act as a gift for the mommy and daddy-to-be! The Price Is Right is SO much fun and mom and dad end up with a lot of necessary items for baby! I pick out 10 necessity items listed on their registry for the game. I give each guest a piece of paper with each item numbered. I introduce each item to the guests reading them all of the necessary information. For example, if one of the items were a baby bottle cleaning brush, I would include that this particular brush is BPA free, has a suction cup base and a flexible neck for easy cleaning. Each guest would then write down their estimated guess of the price of that item. Once I go through each item, each guests adds up the total of all items and the guest with the closest estimated total to the actual total of all 10 items wins! Mom and dad take home all of the items for the game and the guest leaves with a fun prize! Target gift cards are always a popular prize!

Baby Shower Food

For this shower I went with a brunch theme. We had a donut cake, fruit tray, veggie tray cheese, crackers, coffee cake, quiche, Danish, and pigs in a blanket! For the beverage station, I had a coffee bar, juice bar, hot tea, iced tea, and water. There were very few leftovers!

If you are still trying to select the perfect theme for you shower, check out my tropical themed baby shower décor ideas!

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Tropical Themed Balloon Arch for a Baby Girl Shower by The Sassy Southern

DIY Crafts Party Planning Weddings

June 1, 2017

This post may contain affiliate links, but all opinions are my own. Please read my disclosure policy for more information.

When I started planning the overall design for a tropical themed baby shower I was co-hosting, I really wanted a big focal point that guests saw the second they walked through the door. As I was searching Pinterest for inspiration, as we all do at some point during the day, I saw a pin from 100 Layer Cake-Let! They shared a balloon arch that they created for a flamingo themed birthday party. I was instantly obsessed. I saw that they used a balloon arch tutorial from The House That Lars Built. I watched the tutorial twice and felt that I could totally make this happen. I showed it to my husband and let him know that I need him to be my engineer for this project. Being the sweetest husband in the world, he jumped on board.

Since the party was held at the mommy-to-be’s home, I needed to make sure we weren’t going to destroy her wall! Painting her dining room wall was the last project she needed to handle. Since we didn’t really know what we were doing, we built the arch the night before and just prayed that it would stay! After about 2 1/2 hours of the hubs patiently standing on a ladder while listing to my directions, we finished our balloon arch. For our first, try, we were pretty happy with the results! The supply recommendations from The House That Lars Built was super helpful. Here are the materials that we used:

Hangman Products PCR5 Poster & Craft Tape, 5′, Roll, White – We bought this from Amazon for just $7.16. It is amazing! This was all that we used to stick the balloons and the balloon strip to the wall. Not only did it stay up for the shower, it stayed up for 7 DAYS and didn’t take any paint off of the wall! I also have more than half of the roll left to use on my next project.

Glue Dots Craft Roll, Contains 200 ( .5 Inch) Adhesive Craft Dots – We bought these from Amazon as on add-on to my larger order. However, you can find these at Walmart. We paid $3.60 for this as an Amazon add-on. These came in handy for sticking the smaller balloons on top of the larger balloons. We also used these to stick help the plants stay on the balloons.

Balloon Arch Decorating Strip 50ft – I honestly don’t know how we would have done this without the balloon arch decorating strip! It is extremely easy to work with and made designing the shape and final design extremely easy.

Balloons – I wanted very specific colors, so I ordered most of my balloons from Amazon. However, I did buy white and pink balloons from Hobby Lobby. I purchased the coral and peach colored balloons from Amazon.

Silk Palm Leaves – Amazon has a lot of great options! If you catch Hobby Lobby on their 50% off floral week, you can find some palm leaves at a reasonable price.

36” Giant Latex Balloons in Pink & White – I LOVE the giant 36” balloons but they are so expensive! I found a pack of 10 for only $13.99 on Amazon! I didn’t need 20 36” balloons for this baby shower, but I knew I would use them for future parties and events. I used one of these at the bottom of the arch on each side to have a nice base.

Electric Balloon Pump – Knowing that he would have the very special job of blowing up the balloons, my husband requested this particular piece of equipment and it was BEYOND worth it. He was able to inflate 100 balloons in 40 minutes. He could still breath and his hands weren’t even tired. This was a fantastic investment.

Learn how to make your own balloon arch from The House That Lars Built here!

This balloon arch was a huge hit at the baby shower and really tied the whole room together! It took us 3 hours and 10 minutes to inflate the balloons and put up the arch. We spent around $70 on supplies and we still have 18 of the 36” balloons, the electric balloon pump, balloon arch decorating strip, AND the craft tape and glue dots left over. These will come in handy for the next balloon arch!

How To Make A Tropical Themed Diaper Cake

DIY Crafts Party Planning Weddings

May 28, 2017

This post may contain affiliate links, but all opinions are my own. Please read my disclosure policy for more information.

One of my favorite things to do when planning a baby shower is to incorporate décor that the mommy-to-be can use later. One of my go-to staples is the diaper cake! It looks fantastic as a centerpiece and it is so easy to incorporate into any theme. You can buy pre-made diaper cakes on sites like Etsy, but making it yourself will save you a lot of money and you can really customize it to the theme of the shower. Trust me, if I can make this, you can too!

Here are the supplies you will need to get started:

Fabric. I found mine at Hobby Lobby, but Jo-Anne’s also has a lovely selection. Don’t forget to use your 40% off coupon for Hobby Lobby or any of Joann’s weekly coupons!

T-pins. I purchased mine from Target, but you can find these anywhere!

Diapers (I used 88 size 1 diapers). On top of getting 5% off of your purchase with your Red Card, Target will price match. So if you find a better deal on diapers, just let them know! You also never know what deal Cartwheel has, so make sure you check that!

Ribbon. I bought mine from Hobby Lobby because, well, I love it there.

Flowers. I bought my flowers from Hobby Lobby and Michaels. Hobby Lobby puts all floral 50% off every other week and Michaels is always having sales on different flowers. If you can catch them right before a new season, this is a great time for deals on flowers.

Stuffed Flamingo. The flamingo for this diaper cake came from Amazon.

Rubber Bands. I purchased an assorted pack from Target.

Hot Glue Gun. I bought mine from Hobby Lobby, but you can find one at any craft store. Or, if you would like it delivered to your door, Amazon is a fantastic choice.

Scissors.

Now that you have your supplies, let’s get started!

Step 1: Assembling the cake!

Roll each diaper like a fruit roll-up and wrap a small rubber band around the top and a small rubber band around the bottom. Take a medium sized rubber band and wrap it around 3-4 diapers. Repeat this step. Take the rubber band wrapped around one set of diapers and wrap it around one of the diapers in the first set. This will connect the two sets without stretching one rubber band too thin. I made this mistake during my first attempt and was popped in the hand while diapers fell to the ground. Good GRAVY!

See examples 1 and 2 above on how to connect the diapers. You will take the rubber band wrapped around example b and put it over one of the diapers in example a to connect the two. From here, it is very easy to move the diapers around to make the round shape for the diaper cake.

Continue this until the first layer of your cake is formed. I used a round cake stand to help me make sure the bottom layer was round, but an actual cake pan would help hold the diapers in until you have all of them wrapped with rubber bands. Once the bottom layer is formed, start making the middle and top layers. Or, top layer if you are sticking with only two tiers. For the example pictured, I used 48 diapers for the bottom layer, 25 for the middle layer, and 15 for the top layer.

Step 2: Frost Your Cake!

This part was the hardest part for me. I tried this two different ways. For the first try, I measured the length and circumference of each layer of cake. I cut the fabric a bit longer for the length to make sure it would go over the top of the cake and under the bottom to cover the full side of the cake. I used the t-pins to secure the fabric to the diapers. This worked pretty well, but I didn’t leave enough fabric to cover the full top of the layer, so it looked a little sloppy. I tried to cover it with flowers, but I didn’t like how that looked either. I also LOVED the flamingo ribbon, but I thought it made it look way too busy.

I just didn’t like the way that looked at all. So I started over.

It just looked unfished. So I tried a different approach. This time, I measured the layer from one side to the other to make sure the fabric would completely drape over the entire layer. For all of my bakers out there, this would be the same way you would cover a cake with fondant. This made the top of the cake look absolutely perfect! I used the t-pins to secure the fabric underneath the cake. However, the sides of the cake weren’t as smooth because the fabric was bunching more due to the roundness of the cake. In the end, I decided I liked this approach the best.

Step 3: Apply the Finishing Touches

I started the décor process by adding ribbon to the bottom of each layer. I really love how the hot pink really pops on the lovely greens. I measured the circumference of each layer and cut the ribbon just a bit longer. I used the hot glue gun to secure the ribbon to the cake. You don’t need to glue the entire ribbon, just each end of the ribbon. For a cleaner look, fold each end of the ribbon so that the frayed ends don’t show. Once you add the ribbon, place the flowers on the cake. You can hot glue the flowers to the fabric or just stick them in the cake. Once your flowers are settled, top with your adorable flamingo!

It really was the perfect centerpiece for this tropical themed baby shower!

Tag: Baby Shower