A Simply Elegant Baby (boy) shower

A few weeks ago my friend Elizabeth asked me to help her throw a baby shower for her best friend Gro Eli who just happens to be Norwegian.  I jumped at the chance because American baby showers are not the norm in Norway (tee hee I rhymed).  I also happen to think Elizabeth is pretty awesome so I probably would have helped her no matter what the circumstances. 

Elizabeth and I planned and worked tirelessly for weeks and then took over Gro Eli's home for an evening of fun, food, games and lots of her lovely Norwegian friends.

The Decorations

This was a boy baby shower so we went with a light blue and green muted color scheme. Using patterned card stock we cut out circles to make simple paper garlands that hung above the table.     

My favorite part was the onesie banner with the clothespin name tags.  

The clothespin name tags were Elizabeth's wonderful idea.  I simply printed out everyone's names and glued the paper tags to the clothespins which we clipped to the banner.  

The Food

Since the shower was at home we kept the table simple but elegant. 

 Flowers in mason jars wrapped in blue damask and lace decorated the table.  This was my first attempt at a ruffled cake and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  If you look too closely you'll see how shaky my hand was and how uneven my ruffles are.  

We also had Vanilla bean cupcakes which I tried to ruffle as well.  Surprisingly it's even harder to apply a ruffle to a cupcake than it is to a cake.  Probably because I had to hold the cupcake in one hand to turn it while decorating with the other.  

Since it's fall and I love pumpkin, this was the perfect opportunity to serve my new pumpkin whoopie pies.  

I don't think I've had a party yet that hasn't had Oreo Truffles in some shape or form so why stop now.  Besides Oreo's are very American.

What is more American than yummy peanut butter and chocolate Buckeyes?  I found this classic recipe in Martha Stewart's cookbook "Martha's American Food".

The caramel corn came from Martha Stewart.com.  It was extremely hard to get it out of my house and away from Marina. The paper cones were made with my blue damask patterned paper.  

The Games

I designed matching guess slips and baby jar wrappers for our baby food guessing game.  It was really fun to watch everyone try to figure out the baby food flavors.  It was also very difficult. 

There was onesie decorating with buttons and fabric.  I found this idea on Pizzazzerie and fell in love with it.  We used liquid stitch to glue the fabric to the onesie's and thread to sew on the buttons.  There were some very creative ladies there and the end result was simply adorable. 

So sweet.

For the mother-to-be I created a "Wishes for Baby" book for all the guests to sign and give their well wishes.

For the guests we made all American chocolate chip cookies with multilingual thank you tags. Another great Elizabeth idea.  They said "Thank you" and "Danke" for German (for those that don't know we live in Germany) and "Takk" for Norwegian.  

Congratulations Gro Eli(on the left) and thank you Elizabeth(on the right) for letting me be a part of such a wonderful evening.  

Takk!

~Sunny~


Credits

Food and styling by Elizabeth Walker and Sunny Duran
Photography and Designs by Sunny Duran (Sunny by Design)

Recipes: 
Pumpkin Whoopie Pies
Oreo Truffles
Buckeyes, Martha Stewart
Caramel Corn, Martha Stewart