Country Garden Boy Baby Shower

I love Spring. The rainy days, the birds singing, the fresh smells of grass, and flowers. I think there is no better time to have a baby shower than spring.  When I was asked by Jenny of Grace Studio to style a boy themed baby shower in May, I immediately thought of flowers. Since the shower was going to be at a dance studio I wanted the decorations to complement the understated elegance of this lovely open space. 

I immediately recruited my friend Connie to help since her daughter does attend lessons at the studio but also because she is a creative and crafty genius.  She is the one who created the adorable Pinkalicious party that I made the Pinkalicious cake for.  I really think we work well together and this shower proves it.  Connie created about a million different paper flowers.  They were all brilliant and beautiful.     

The Flowers

The inspiration for these flowers came from two tutorials found on Pinterest from SjoeSjoe, and A Place for Us. Both are lovely blogs and the tutorials were so easy to follow, with a step by step walk through and pictures.  We used these flowers to cover the mirrored wall that was our backdrop.  The only wall that didn't have a balance bar in front of it.  Making it the perfect and only place for our desert table.  

Speaking of balance bars we wanted to incorporate them into the decorations.  Connie once again created some beautiful gigantic tissue paper flowers (which I love) along with a little bit country fabric banner (that I adore) made from her own stash of fabric remnants and twine.  She found the flower tutorial at Deisgn Sponge and I'm pretty sure she just made up the banner herself.  Anyone living in Germany knows how hard it is to find fabric here so I so appreciate her sacrificing hers for the team.  

The Table

Our main decoration for the dessert table was a bouquet of fresh flowers in a metal watering can.  That we also gave as a gift to the mother to be.  I used my Martha Stewart butterfly paper punch to make little paper accent butterflies that we stuck every which where.  

These cute little Oreo pops were also made by Connie and she brilliantly raided her backyard for the tiny little daisies that topped each one so perfectly.  

The Lemon Lush parfaits were easy to make and a little too easy to eat I'm afraid.  I layered crushed Pecan Sandy Cookies, sweetened cream cheese, lemon pudding and a generous dollop of whipped cream.  I'm a huge fan of lemon and these were just lemony enough and creamy enough to come very close to the Lemon Lush dessert I modeled them after. 

With some of the fabric Connie had left over she whipped up some beautiful fabric flowers. These were one of my favorites by far.  

The cake was supposed to say "BABY" but unfortunately my "A" got pushed to the back when I assembled it.  I am still very much an amateur at cake assembly.  Just try not to look too closely.    

I made up for it with the cupcakes though.  I made the daisies out of gumpaste and the yellow primrose out of royal icing.  Both new techniques for me but it gave me an excuse to play and I'm really happy with how they came out.  My daughters even helped which is always even more fun. 

These cookies are called "Creme Wafer Cookies".  They are one of the first recipes I ever attempted to make when I first started baking.  I won't say how long ago that was but I was about 12 or 13 years old.  I love these light flaky little confections.  They are perfect for tea or a luncheon or brunch.  They can be filled with jam, pudding, buttercream or whatever you desire really.  For this I chose to fill them with a lemon buttercream and the were delish.  I love that they are small and bite size so a little bit goes a long way.  

The drinks were not super fancy but fit with our casually elegant kind of theme.  We had water, coffee, champaign and orange juice for mimosa's. I love mimosa's.  The little watering cans on the table also doubled as game prizes for our guests.  

The Games

Since the Mother to be is also leaving very soon.  We decided to give her a "Well Wishes" tree.  I did something similar to this at my "So Thankful for you" party.  Thankfully for me Connie ran with the idea and created this beautiful tree, complete with tiny tissue paper flowers.  It's such a sweet way to let someone know how you feel.  

I created a coordinating print out for "Finish the Baby Rhyme".  This game is not as easy as it looks.  My favorite part though was reading everyone's answers afterward.  If you don't know it just guess.  It makes it so much more interesting.  

We also played guess how many safety pins are in the jar.  No one even came close to the real number.  If I didn't know I never would have guessed there were 1,000 pins either.  

I also designed some thank you note cards for the guests to address for the mother to be.  I love it when people do this because it makes it so much easier to send out thank you notes.  

We had such a wonderful time designing, styling and baking for this party.  I found it so much more inspirational to work with someone else too.  I've gotten very used to just doing everything on my own that it is refreshing to have someone else's perspective on things.  Thank you Jenny for letting us turn your dance studio upside down and thank you Connie for lending your creative genius and helping me make this party a success. 

Credits

Thank you Jenny Doyle for letting us create and decorate at Grace Studio.

Thank you Connie Gingerich for creating the paper flowers, fabric flowers, fabric banner, well wishes tree, and Oreo pops.  

Thank you to, A Place for Us , Sjosjoe and Design Sponge for such wonderful paper flower tutorials.

All photos, design work and the rest of the baking were done by me Sunny Duran.  I hope to have all the printables for this party in my shop soon.  

Hope you have a wonderful Spring!

~Sunny~