Baby Shower Details

This weekend, my sister helped me host a baby shower for baby girl at our house. Bryan and I wanted an excuse to get a few friends together before we become a family of four and become hermits for a few months. While it was loads of fun getting all of the decorations ready and doing planning, the final 24 hours was pretty exhausting! I had so much fun but I'm glad to return to a normal week and take a  load off. With only about seven weeks left, my body can't handle quite as much as it normally can.

Here's my sister and I (and a 33 week old baby girl bump).  I am wearing an amazingly comfortable Tart maxi dress I scored for a steal on 6pm.com, and I believe this is an over-sized shirt my sister is wearing as a dress. I love Tart dresses; the fabric is so soft and hangs really well, and doesn't seem to stretch out even with a very advanced baby bump. I wear a lot of my Tart dresses whether I'm pregnant or not, and they always look great. I highly recommend them.

Here's a rundown of some of the decorations we came up with:

We found these letter balloons at Shop Sweet Lulu for $2.50 each. They took two seconds to blow up; I bought a bunch of string from Michael's for $0.39 each, and made quick tassels to add a little something extra to the garland.

I always think a shower favor should be something that reflects you and things you love. I love coffee, and I love Charleston (we just moved back to Virginia from Charleston, SC last fall and we miss it so much!), so we went with Charleston Coffee Roasters coffee in easy to transport jelly jars. Hooray!

We picked up two giant white balloons from Party City for about $5 each, and found these pretty little flower garlands in the wedding section at Hobby Lobby which happened to be 50% off. It took 30 seconds to tie them to the balloons and we loved how they turned out.

I had a very empty wall so we strung some tiny onesies up on some string, and hung them with clear command hooks. It still seemed a little bare so we clipped a few of our faux leaves from the bunch we bought (also 50% off!) at Hobby Lobby and tied them on. It helped make everything seem planned and more cohesive. 

I have an odd spot where this chalkboard fit nicely, so we found a cute quote that I love and I quickly used a piece of chalk and lettered this little sign. 

A few tips for throwing a baby shower (or any sort of shower, really):

• Plan as much ahead as you can. It will make things go more smoothly in the final hours.
• Have a general theme/plan for decorations in mind, but be open when scouting out specifics. My sister and I knew we wanted to incorporate tropical leaves and didn't want everything smothered in pink... Then just hit up Hobby Lobby and found some great deals and worked with what we had.
• Focus on one or two rooms. Don't try to decorate the entire house... You'll go broke or have decorations scattered too sparsely that it almost doesn't look decorated. We focused on our dining room and kitchen since that's where most people would be gathering. 
• DIY as much as you can. We bought things here and there and combined them to make pretty details, it saved us money and was fun to put together!

We were cutting it close to finish plating all the food and completely forgot to take ANY photos of the kitchen island and the gorgeous food spread, but it was amazing! Here's the food we served in case you need any ideas!

• Fruit Salad
• Mini Chicken and Waffles
• Dunkin Donut Munchkins
• A cheese plate with Prosciutto, Salami and grapes
• Pasta Salad
• Mini Lemon Cupcakes with Blackberry Buttercream Frosting
• Mini Tomato and Bacon Quiches

For drinks we served:

• Mimosa/Bloody Mary Bar
• Beer Assortment
• Watermelon, Strawberry and Basil infused Water
• Coffee

Does anyone have any tips to share for successfully DIY-ing a party or shower? Where do you love finding deals on decor? Everyone wants a Pinterest-worthy party, but it's hard to do on most budgets. Don't forget to just get some inspiration from Pinterest and loosely translate those ideas into a party you (and the guest of honor) will love, and reflects who you are.