The “She’s Going to Pop” baby shower turned out so cute. My sister and I hosted the soiree for our sister-in-law. Since my brother and his wife live out of town, it was fun to get local family together to shower our SIL. The POP theme made it pretty easy to pull everything together. We stuck pretty true to our inspiration board.
Invitations
The DIY balloon invitations announced the party theme and helped set the color scheme. We carried similar colors and patterns throughout the party. Pink, orange, and yellow became the dominant colors with a splash of brown from the inspiration paper.
Party Decor
Most baby showers end up with all the women sitting in a circle in one room to play the games. To facilitate this type of party I rearranged our living room, allowing us to bring in some dining room chairs for extra seating.
The large windows in the family room are always screaming to be decorated. I found paper lanterns in a perfect set of pink, orange, and yellow at Target. A set of three, one of each color, was $3.99. Although I removed the curtains from our living room months ago, I still have the hooks. I used the curtain rod hooks to hang the lanterns.
Between the lanterns I draped crepe paper garlands. I saw this quick and easy tutorial on Oh Happy Day a few weeks ago and knew the bubbly shapes would be perfect. I made the garlands while watching TV.
On the header between the family room and kitchen, I used small 3M Command hooks to hang clusters of paper lanterns.
I will get to the food table in a moment, but first I have to share two of my favorite decor touches. I wrapped my quatrefoil drum shade in hot pink crepe paper. It looked stunning. We used the kitchen table for the party food and the existing shade did not go with the party colors. With 10 minutes, a few pieces of tape, and half a roll of crepe paper I transformed it.
I found the cutest party tablecloth by Mari Mi at Target. The confetti design was perfect for our theme. The tablecloth was 50 x 108 inches. It was way too long for my kitchen table, so I shortened it and used the excess for other decor items. To make the inexpensive tablecloth extra special I added a yellow pleated ruffle. I bought the ruffle from the trim section at Joanns and used a 40% off coupon. Four yards cost me less than $7.
Treats & Eats
Below the lovely crepe paper drum shade and atop the ruffled tablecloth was a slew of yummy treats. The mini popcorn bar was one of the main attractions. A popcorn bar was what sold us on this party theme. We kept it simple with three flavors; buttered, white cheddar, and caramel.
We set out plain pink plates and pink paper bags for popcorn. I always buy the small colored paper bags from Michaels for party treat bags. There are lots of color choices and they are inexpensive. I added my own popcorn labels to dress these up.
I used two large footed hurricanes to hold the popcorn. For the labels, I used paper tape (washi tape) to tape a 3 inch circle of scrapbook paper to the hurricane. The tape wraps all the way around. I made and printed the 2.5 inch labels on full page label paper. I adhered the label to the center of the paper circle. For the third popcorn flavor we used a large glass bowl and stuck the label on the rim. We used clear plastic punch cups as scoops.
The other savory item was popcorn chicken. We bought a frozen package and cooked them about 15 minutes before the party started. We served the popcorn chicken on the yellow tray with toothpicks.
We found the perfect ombre napkins at Target. They were pink on one side and orange on the other.
For sweets we had cupcakes and cake pops. The cupcakes were chocolate with a dollop of melon colored frosting. My sister found the pink flower-like cupcake liners at Joanns. When they were all clumped together on the cupcake stand, they looked like a bouquet of flowers.
My mom had a special pan for baking the cake pops. My mom and sister did a trial run the week before the party and had no luck with a melted chocolate coating. The day of the party we opted to simply frost the top half of the cake pops and add sprinkles.
I made the cake pop stand. I filled a long vase with floral foam. I used some of the leftover tablecloth to wrap around the foam. I used washi tape to add a little color to the vase and to adhere the label. The sprinkles that fell off the cake pops blended in with the confetti paper covering the floral foam below.
For drinks we went colorful. The orange and strawberry Crush sodas were the perfect colors. We originally planned to wrap the bottles with fabric and a diaper pin, but we ended up loving their simplicity. They added a perfect punch of color to the table.
The table really set the stage and let us play up the colors and the pop theme. All the labels had the word “pop” in hot pink. Here is one last shot of the full table.
There is so much more of this party to share. I will do a part 2 with all the details on shower games, party favors, and special mementos for the mom-to-be later this week. UPDATE: See Part 2, games and favors, here.
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Very cute!
Great theme! And I love how you tied it all in.
LOVE this theme, the execution, love everything! Although I may be a little biased because I’m throwing my sister a garden/spring bridal shower and I am using a) the same color scheme as you, b) the same napkins, c) the same tablecloth and d) the same cupcake holders.
Great work, can’t wait to hear about the rest.
Ann, The bridal shower York planning sounds beautiful, but I might be a little bias too. I have really been impressed with Targets party section lately. It is small, but the collections are beautiful. And I love the entertaining section in housewares. They rotate it just often enough to keep it fresh. I was ecstatic when I saw the shelves fill up with the pink ombré stuff just a few weeks before our party. Hope the bridal shower goes well!
What a wonderful shower — your sister in law is very lucky to have a wonderful family like the three of you. My favorite item is the table cloth it is so cute and what a great idea. Can’t wait to see the next post. I just love your blog you have inspired me to make some changes to my home thank you for sharing.
Thanks for sharing–it turned out great! I’ve looked for those ombre napkins for a few weeks now at my local target stores and have had no luck finding them. I’d love to keep them on hand for summer parties. Anyway, great job!
Annie, the ombré napkins are not in the party supply section. They are in housewares by the summer entertaining, where the melamine plates and beverage tubs are. They also have a blue/green version. The whole collection in both color ways is pretty.
Thanks so much! I will check it out on Saturday morning :)
Love it! But I do have one question – how does the mom-to-be feel about the theme? I’ve heard that it’s not nice to say anything about “popping” to a mom to be…
Sarah, I have never heard of that. She loved it…didn’t even mind having yarn wrapped around her belly for a game :)
How beautiful, I love all the cute touches! I love those cupcake liners and the napkins, so pretty!
Great photos! 1 question-where did you get the cute printed balloons?
Thanks Inga. My sister and I made the balloon invites ourselves. They were super easy! Here is the link to the post explaining how we did it: http://www.tealandlime.com/2012/03/magical-balloon-invitations-baby-shower/
OMG! My co-worker and I were just joking about writing on them only to read your response and see that that is exactly what you did! I found a printing place but it’s like $50 for 25 balloons and you can’t combine colors. This sounds like a project that I’ll deligate to my sisters :) Thanks Jackie!
Inga,
We made about 20 and it was actually easy! Well worth saving the money to write your own! Also, kind of nice if you have someone to help or do them all for you! We used stencils on ours, but we tested with regular handwriting too. Even the sloppiest handwriting looked like cool, raised type when you shrink the balloon back down!
Where did you find the paper lanterns? I love them!
Katrina, I collect paper lanterns and save them to use over and over. I think most of these came from Target.
Fantastic post! What a lovely party for your SIL. I can use some of these ideas for my daughters 10th bday party this year. Those are her favourite colours!