My sister-in-law Jillian just had a little boy – Lucas Henry – and I threw a baby shower for her to celebrate.
Before throwing any party, I first decide upon a theme (in this case, I was inspired by one of our invitation designs) and a color scheme (sage green, pool blue, white and gray – something a bit more unexpected and chic than your standard baby blue!).
I made a personalized banner to hang on the wall in my dining room, printing each panel on white cardstock and punching two holes at the top. Coordinating pool blue ribbon was strung through to hang. Quite simple, actually, with maximum impact!
I found the most perfect ceramic "boats" months ago at a Crate & Barrel outlet in Texas. I filled each of these with sage green chocolate mints. The "mast" was made using adhesive paper and a wooden skewer. A piece of caramel was used to anchor the mast under the mints.
To ground the sailboats, I used circular pieces of pool blue felt and added chartreuse asters. I love using asters because they are inexpensive (I found these at the grocery store), graphic (no baby's breath for me) and last forever.
I don't like to deal with cups at parties so water bottles are a good choice, especially with coordinating labels.
I am not a big fan of games at showers, preferring good food and good conversation. However, not everyone at this shower knew each other so I used an idea from my friend, Brooke, and put together a little quiz about Jillian (thank you to Jillian's mother and sister for providing the answers).
The prizes for those guests who knew the most about Jillian were individual boxes of coordinating thank you notes.
I was determined to make a sailboat cake to match the invitation.
I made my favorite yellow cake and poured it into a jelly roll pan. When it was baked and cooled, I wrapped the cake in plastic wrap and put it in the freezer, making it much easier to cut. The next day I cut the cake into three sections and managed to not waste a bit of cake (I was quite pleased with my frugality).
Once the "sailboat" was pieced together, the cake was enormous. Thank heavens my mom saved my sister's wedding cake platform!
I frosted the cake with my favorite cream cheese frosting – 1 lb. softened cream cheese, 1 stick softened butter, 1 t. vanilla, and approximately 3 cups of powdered sugar. I tinted the frosting to match the color scheme of the party – pool blue, sage green and gray and then finished the cake by piping white stars on the bottom. Not bad for my first sailboat attempt.
For favors, I ordered a sailboat cookie cutter from here and then packaged each cookie in a glassine bag with a foldover label (remember to staple the bag closed and then affix the label using double-stick tape in order to avoid staple marks on the label).
Voila! The party was a success and I think Jillian was pleased with the results.